Apple Considering Letting Users Remove Pre-Installed Apps

Remember back when Microsoft said uninstalling IE would cause issues with Windows? Leave it to Apple to copy Microsoft again.

"There are some apps that are linked to something else on the iPhone. If they were to be removed they might cause issues elsewhere on the phone. There are other apps that aren't like that. So over time, I think with the ones that aren't like that, we'll figure out a way [for you to remove them]."

Don't see the conspiracy...

At a certain point base applications on an OS are only separate "applications" for easy upgrades and code/file/version management. Designing completely clean and reversible integration for everything in everything just isn't worth it.

In most cases it probably is something as simple as a button or option that was designed thinking the dependent app would always be there (like say a phone dialer app).

MS imo had no excuse... at minimum they could have at least removed shortcuts/file associations to web files and still keep OS functionality there.

I just put any apps like this that I don't use into a folder with other apps that I have downloaded but only need to access on rare occasions. One nice folder just for apps that arn't needed very often, helps keep the amount of apps on the home screen clean as well.

Hopefully all phone makers will follow suit and allow us to remove apps we don't need without hindering performance.

hity645 said:

Hopefully all phone makers will follow suit and allow us to remove apps we don't need without hindering performance.

Click to expand...

Actually I think it has less to do with the phone makers than with the carriers. Carriers want their customers experiences tailored a certain way as to grant them the best "experience" that gives the carriers the highest profits with add-on sales, marketing tie-ins, and cross branding.

Well, there's some truth to the claim that removing (as opposed to disabling) some apps will break others. On some heavily skinned Android phones, if you were to freeze/disable a number of apps using root (that otherwise could not be frozen), things tend to still work fine. But if you use a root app to REMOVE the app, shit breaks.

Fortunately/unfortunately, however you want to look at it, due to the way Android partitions /system as its own area, removing stock apps doesn't free up user space. So the amount available to user installed apps remains the same whether you freeze or remove apps in /system.

At this point, it's easier just to freeze so that it doesn't break OTAs.

That guy had a lot of apps in his "useless" folder.

Safari, FaceTime, Notes, Reminders, Maps.

Maybe an iPhone isn't a good fit for him.

I use those apps probably the most on my phone.

Me and my wife use Reminders to make a shared shopping list. I don't use it for anything else, but for sharing a simple list in real time it's pretty useful.

Another pitfall of having a phone that answers to the corporations (Apple and the carriers) rather than you.

You can get a Nexus phone and there is no preinstalled bloatware and you have the freedom to flash whatever ROM you want as well as to root it.

Tweak42 said:

Actually I think it has less to do with the phone makers than with the carriers. Carriers want their customers experiences tailored a certain way as to grant them the best "experience" that gives the carriers the highest profits with add-on sales, marketing tie-ins, and cross branding.

Click to expand...

Agree... The bloatware imo is the carrier apps.

OS modifications and customization is the phone manufacturer main issue.

Both are 2 different issues from my view.

Carrier bloatware mostly is annoying (I don't want to be nagged about the NFL app updates etc) but can be disruptive. I have a Samsung Alpha from ATT, moved to Cricket and each time I opened my contacts for the first week or so it would complain that it couldn't contact ATT to retrieve my contacts.

OS Modifications are a mixed bag, some features were truly nice to have and integrating things well but on the flip side its pretty confusing for people each phone is basically a new OS. "Wait the site said go here than here, then click this button... where is "here"... oh oooops Samsung decided to rename or move the icon". Computer makers don't modify the name of the control panel on your windows PCs (I know windows is not open source).