Let’s be honest; stock iOS apps are annoying as hell. At least, most of them are! We’re never going to use them, and we can’t delete them! What the hell, Apple!
Like with most irksome things in our lives, we’d found a way around these useless native apps. Most people would just put them all in one folder called “Apple Junk”, which would then be stashed away from sight in the very last screen.
Someone had found an unconvincing fix to this problem: It was a cumbersome process involving simultaneous dragging of apps and multiple-page folders. And even then, it was more of a glitch that anything
If you’re interested, you can watch the video here:
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FksQtUEbLMk&w=560&h=315]
But there’s good news in sight for all of us. With the new coding in iOS 9.3, there just might be a way to get rid of unwanted apps.
As recently discovered by AppAdvice, Apple’s coding for native apps iniTunes has changed. In layman’s terms: An option to hide/delete preinstalled apps on an iOS device might be possible soon.
A Reddit user, going by the name of “bfodder” started a thread detailing the process. It involves using an application called Apple Configurator 2.2
Here’s the process as told by the Redditor:
- Create a configuration profile in Apple Configurator 2.2 Beta.
- Go to Restrictions > Apps > Restrict App Usage
- From the drop-down box, choose ‘Do not allow some apps’.
- Add the necessary bundle IDs like com.apple.tips, com.apple.stocks.
- Plug in your device and apply the profile.
- The icons will simply disappear from the home screen.
Yes, yes, we know. This is a very complicated process. It shouldn’t be this hard to simply hide an app you’re never going to use. But remember this is a one-time effort. Once you struggle through the process, you’re done! Your apps will be hidden forever.
Also, remember that Apple has not made any announcement about it, so there’s no way to tell if the change in code will survive the next major iOS release — iOS 10. Maybe Apple is just doing a trial run and, depending on the results, it may or may not go ahead with the plan.
We hope it does because those Apps were seriously annoying, sitting on our home screens, serving no purpose at all other than eating up memory! Good riddance!
