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New iTunes Metadata Suggests Users May Soon Be Able to Hide Stock iOS Apps
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Re-posting mingistech's post as everyone seems to be glancing over the obvious.
Good news, I suppose, but this has literally never been a problem for me. Are some people so anal that they really don't want a second page with a tiny folder of apps they don't use? You could even shove them to the back of a folder's pages and forget about them there. Choice is always a good thing, but I just don't get the outcry.
My theory about why it has taken this long is that Apple needed to build in a way to replace the stock apps. Why hide Safari unless you can completely replace it with Chrome system wide, so that apps open links within Chrome instead? Same for the Calendar and using other replacements such as Fantastical, or replacing Maps with Google Maps, or replacing Mail with Spark. Those apps also feed information to Siri, so I expect that if they do something like this, then Siri will get an API to tap into the data inside these apps. I think the first step towards that was when they added app indexing last year so you could Spotlight search for content within apps.
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These are my top requests for iOS X. Beware, this is one of my mega posts!
My theory about why it has taken this long is that Apple needed to build in a way to replace the stock apps. Why hide Safari unless you can completely replace it with Chrome system wide, so that apps open links within Chrome instead? Same for the Calendar and using other replacements such as Fantastical, or replacing Maps with Google Maps, or replacing Mail with Spark. Those apps also feed information to Siri, so I expect that if they do something like this, then Siri will get an API to tap into the data inside these apps. I think the first step towards that was when they added app indexing last year so you could Spotlight search for content within apps.
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These are my top requests for iOS X. Beware, this is one of my mega posts!
- Replace stock apps with third-party equivalents, including all the routing that entails at a deeper level. Each app would be approved as a replacement by providing a minimum functionality necessary for the iPhone to function as it did before. And obviously be able to hide the stock apps it replaces.
- Siri improvements and API. Siri needs to get smarter. Her AI is falling behind the competition and she lacks the basic ability to answer what are often simple questions—instead pointing us to the web. She would also need an API to work with replacing stock apps, and that could potentially be expanded beyond simple stock apps to providing all types of information on demand. The beginnings of this were Spotlight for third party apps, and as well as Homekit capabilities that are more customized.
- Multitasking improvements. The iPad needs the ability to move content between open apps, either through dragging or some other means. There also should be a way to pin certain apps to the multitasking side switcher (whatever it's called, lol), so that my favorite apps will always be available to snap into place. Right now I have to scroll forever to find things. I'd also like to be able to have two Safari windows open side by side. Right now you have to use third-party solutions such as Sidefari. Also, all stock apps should support split-screen multitasking. Furthermore, I don't think there's any reason an iPhone can't have PIP. The display is a little tight, but I think at least 4.7" and 5.5" users should be able to have a little window open.
- Better iPad Pro software. We need full keyboard support for all shortcuts, as well as some sort of redesigned file system for working on projects that have many components. Furthermore, I think having something like Spaces on the Mac would be great for the iPad Pro. When activating the task switcher, going to the right could present other open spaces. Going to the left swaps out your current space with whatever app you select. There would be a button you could tap to create a new space. Spaces are just collections of two apps snapped together. This could be handy for quickly switching back and forth between multiple things. For instance, consider a creative who works in social media. It could be handy to have Mail and Slack up side-by-side in one window, Twitter and Facebook open in another, and perhaps a drawing app and Photos with reference images open in the third. Then you could easily switch between spaces while working with your team, keep on top of social media, and designing illustrations for social media. It would be great if these spaces were really easy to switch between with a gesture or something. I think Pro users, especially photographers, would also appreciate system-wide color calibration controls. Oh and the Apple Pencil—there should be an easy to add simple, standard API for it in any app where users can markup stuff. And there needs to be some kind of expanded USB support when using their adapter. Sometimes Pros need to scan a thing for a project, lol.
- Fully customizable control center. It would also be neat if I could change the location of where I swipe to activate things. For instance, I use control center less, so I'd like to have it put at the top of the display, which is more difficult to reach. And my widgets and notifications could be an easy swipe from the bottom. I use Notification Center a ton on my 6s since Touch ID is so fast that I often miss my notifications. I've gotten better but it still happens.
- The ability for developers to swap to disk. I don't understand a lot of the details behind caching mechanisms in iOS, but the way I understand it is that it's not anything like desktop operating systems. This could be because mobile NAND isn't as durable as desktop NAND found in SSDs, so it can't take as many read/write cycles. With newer, faster, more durable chips coming to market in recent years, I hope they're able to more fully cache things to disk. This would enable creatives and other people with demanding software needs to get software that can swap things from RAM to disk, minimizing some of the RAM limitations on iOS. NAND is getting faster and faster, and I think I read something about Intel making this NAND that was like almost as fast as RAM was several years ago. So maybe they will wait for that to hit the market, idk. I just think it could help make better professional software.
- Dark mode, fully integrated into the OS and stock apps, with an API for third-party developers. Some of my favorite third-party apps already have a dark mode, and I think this would only encourage more to make one as well. iOS is too bright.
- I'd like to see Apple Pay let you pay person to person. It would be cool if you could even use iMessages to send a payment to someone, say, up to a couple hundred bucks or something for free and then charge a fee over that.
- It would be nice if Apple could expand their animated wallpapers selection, with perhaps the ability to install them from the App Store.
- I'd like to see 3D Touch more fully implemented throughout the OS. Things like peeking at messages in notification center. Or that recent mockup of how you could use 3D Touch to customize things like Control Center.
- I'd like to see some new features for iCloud, and more base storage for free accounts. Some of the new features could include recognizing what is in the photos on my iCloud storage so that I can easily search for things. Google has been rolling this out. My coworker showed me on her Android how she can view all the photos of her dog by typing a dog emoji. Their neural networks stuff is pretty crazy and Apple is behind in that area. It would also be nice to have iCloud storage shared among family members. We could still have separate content, but I'm paying for storage I don't use for myself and my wife. They also need to keep working on Maps. Hopefully we will get street view soon as Apple vans with cameras have been spotted all over.
- General improvements to stock apps. I prefer to use stock apps when possible, especially considering how many email apps have been bought up and shut down in the past couple years. It would be great if we could get some better functionality for email to-dos and things like that within the mail app. Other apps could also use work, such as Apple Music which is kinda tricky to operate sometimes.
- Multiple person FaceTime. My family is flung across the country. So when I do FaceTime for my kid's birthday party, it would be great if I could have two or three people in the same chat without having to setup three different devices for each one.
- Apple needs to relent on the whole game remote requirement for games on Apple TV. It's ridiculous. They should also come out with a first-party controller to legitimize using a controller and set a high bar for quality at a reasonable price of around $50-60, but that's hardware and not software!
That's a fair point. I'm not familiar with how ios is built but if non-critical services are so tightly integrated into the os itself and cannot be easily toggled then I think there's a fundamental os design issue somewhere during development. Besides, using the potential of user misuse of the OS as an excuse to not make the OS itself more user friendly will cause any system to stagnate. Just my 2c.
They still show up in Spotlight and are accessible by Siri though. I doubt it would cause many problems for Siri, but having Apps that you will literally never use mixed within Spotlight results is a bit annoying. Particularly for people who use a lot of 3rd party replacements with similar names.
In that list above...yes "dark mode" please. This will be even larger if they ditch IPS and go with OLED or AMOLED or the likes. B/C then any black are actually LEDs shut off and can help conserve battery. Plus an all black OS would look proper sexy.
Basically these "Stock Apps" are part of the OS. You don't get updates for them individually. They get updated as part of iOS updates. Hiding them would likely be done in Settings. Restoring them to the screen would be done the same way. There's a "front end" component, which is what you see on your home screen. That's what would be hidden. The rest of the app's functionality would still be there in iOS (and some of it is accessible to other apps). You wouldn't gain much space by removing the front end completely. Room for an extra 12MP photo or three. Even on a 16GB model, the difference would be negligible.
Why can't those apps just be in the app store? They can be installed on the phone from a fresh install, but they should still be able to be deleted or hidden with the option to redownload them from the app store if the user wants them again.
Also, Apple already has a way of hiding a few apps by using the restrictions feature inside settings. Why can't we just tap a menu that says "Show or Hide Apps on Home Screen". The user taps that and then has a toggle for every app installed on the device (even third party apps like content blockers or keyboards). You know how annoying it is to have a content blocker show up on your home screen just because it's plugin is installed? Why do I need an icon for a safari plugin?
Also, Apple already has a way of hiding a few apps by using the restrictions feature inside settings. Why can't we just tap a menu that says "Show or Hide Apps on Home Screen". The user taps that and then has a toggle for every app installed on the device (even third party apps like content blockers or keyboards). You know how annoying it is to have a content blocker show up on your home screen just because it's plugin is installed? Why do I need an icon for a safari plugin?
I doubt Safari will be hideable. Probably not Mail either. Or Contacts. The Stocks app or the Weather app would likely be hideable, and they don't need to be replaced with anything. You'd still be able to ask Siri for a current stock price or the weather in Orlando. Siri would use the functionality in the hidden app to retrieve the data and display it.
Get out of here with that post of logic and reasoning. This here is a speculatin' thread for us dreamers pretending that Apple will listen to us. Then again...they did semi listen to us for the SE...
This is nice, but I'd rather have a hide and "compress" feature where all used app data is cleared (including updates) and only a strict amount of app data stays on the device while it's hidden, kinda like on Android.
This could be particularly useful for 16GB devices because it would free up some space.
If a user reenabled the application, updates and additional data could be downloaded on the spot.
This could be particularly useful for 16GB devices because it would free up some space.
If a user reenabled the application, updates and additional data could be downloaded on the spot.
Not sure if anyone has said this already, but this may also be related to some of the new features for education / enterprise. With iOS 9.3, we're able to hide apps with a configuration profile — including stock apps.
Some very interesting stuff going on in that space; I'd expect some of it to spill over into the consumer space eventually.
Some very interesting stuff going on in that space; I'd expect some of it to spill over into the consumer space eventually.
Cool! A value-add for my enterprise users. I could offer an "iPhone Cleanup" service for a small fee per app. LOL.
I don't care if they can't be removed. But at least have a toggle button to hide the app. It can still be opened with Siri, or manually searching for it, or if another app needs to open it.
please give us the choice of deleting these apps that we dont use asap please they take up too much space
All I want to be able to do is delete Apple Maps and set Google Maps as the default so that it can interface with tappable addresses systemwide and Siri. I'll probably be waiting quite a while longer for that.
Yeah, about time. Don't know why they haven't already incorporated something in restrictions, where you already can turn on/off stock apps and features. To easy I guess?
When I've discovered this I was really amazed. And it makes me wonder how many tips I don't have knowledge of yet
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Great list and the best thing, in my opinion, is that your requests aren't too personal. A lot of people would benefit from those improvements. Kudos
This is certainly welcome news (if true). However, like many users, I just dump the iOS stock apps I don't use into a dedicated Apple folder on my iOS devices. Since I typically purchase the 64GB model, space is never a concern. But I would be all for getting rid of the junk Apple folder on my phone.
So sorry everyone but this is already an implemented feature for iOS 9.3 and is an enterprise feature only! You need an MDM solution and to enrol your iPhone(which also must be in supervised mode). You can then hide stock iOS icons as well as force a certain springboard arrangement.
Source: https://developer.apple.com/library...roduction.html#//apple_ref/doc/uid/TP40010206
I also work on projects for a large uk retailer that has a huge iOS estate.
Quote from the source:
blacklistedAppBundleIDs - Array of Strings - Supervised only. If present, prevents bundle IDs listed in the array from being shown or launchable.
Availability: Available in iOS 9.3 and later.
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See my post below and here - you can already use this as it is an enterprise feature as part of 9.3!
Source: https://developer.apple.com/library...roduction.html#//apple_ref/doc/uid/TP40010206
I also work on projects for a large uk retailer that has a huge iOS estate.
Quote from the source:
blacklistedAppBundleIDs - Array of Strings - Supervised only. If present, prevents bundle IDs listed in the array from being shown or launchable.
Availability: Available in iOS 9.3 and later.
Source: https://developer.apple.com/library...roduction.html#//apple_ref/doc/uid/TP40010206
I also work on projects for a large uk retailer that has a huge iOS estate.
Quote from the source:
blacklistedAppBundleIDs - Array of Strings - Supervised only. If present, prevents bundle IDs listed in the array from being shown or launchable.
Availability: Available in iOS 9.3 and later.
[doublepost=1459973435][/doublepost]
See my post below and here - you can already use this as it is an enterprise feature as part of 9.3!
Source: https://developer.apple.com/library...roduction.html#//apple_ref/doc/uid/TP40010206
I also work on projects for a large uk retailer that has a huge iOS estate.
Quote from the source:
blacklistedAppBundleIDs - Array of Strings - Supervised only. If present, prevents bundle IDs listed in the array from being shown or launchable.
Availability: Available in iOS 9.3 and later.
fyi, in settings - general - spotlight, you can decide which apps will show in spotlight search.
not sure about siri though, so far i was only able to use it for dialing calls and setting timers for cooking pasta
(on a side note: i wish one day voice recognition will be able to work with several languages at the same time. my siri is set to italian, and whenever i try to ask her to play an english song/album/band it fails miserably)