All Sections

Future versions of iOS might let users uninstall core Apple apps

If you have an iOS device, at a guess you also have a folder of unused apps called something like ‘Apple’. You soon might be able to get rid of it.

iOS comes with a bunch of pre-loaded apps, the number of which grows every year; some are more useful than others and more often than not, the less useful ones get relegated to a folder on your home screen, never to be tapped again.

Aside from being a visual nuisance, this ever-increasing roster of untouched apps also takes up space – arguably one of the most precious commodities on an iPhone, right after battery life.

Presently there’s little you can do to get rid of Apple’s first-party offerings, thus the ‘folder of despair’ as we’ll call It, but future releases of Apple’s mobile operating system may finally actually let users uninstall those redundant core apps – some of them, at least.

In an interview with BuzzFeed News, Apple CEO, Tim Cook revealed that it’s something his company is ‘looking at,’ but it’s not a simple case of letting users uninstall pre-loaded apps left, right and centre. The ability to uninstall a particular app will be dictated by how intertwined the app in question is with the rest of the operating system.

Offerings like Tips and Stocks shouldn’t be too hard to remove, but more prominent inclusions like Safari and Maps won’t be going anywhere anytime soon. The impending push to iOS 9 will also cement once optional Apple apps like Find My Friends and Find My iPhone as permanent fixtures on you iOS device, taking things in the opposite direction. The new News app will also feature in the update.

Whilst we now know it may well happen, Tim Cook gave us no indication as to when being able to remove, or even simply hide select offerings from Apple’s own app collection would become a part of the iOS experience. Here’s hoping for iOS 9.1.

Read next: Google finally takes steps to curb Android’s bloatware problem

Comments

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *