It appears as though a placeholder dummy image is used on mobile, and when clicked, a full screen version is loaded.
This is the Splash Page (displayed by default in Small Screen Mode) which can be disabled by setting showSplashPage="NEVER". Alternatively, you could set screenMode="LARGE" which will force the gallery to be displayed in Large Screen Mode (without the default Splash Page) on all devices and in all browsers.
On the desktop, the API works to control both copies of the gallery. For mobile, it does not...
The developers are aware of the issue regarding the API not functioning correctly when a new window is opened for an expanded gallery on a mobile device and hopefully a solution can be found for a future release.
In the meantime, hopefully, you might be able to workaround this issue by using one of the suggestions above.