Following the launch of Apple's iOS 10 app this fall, the company said Monday that users will finally be able to delete most of the default apps from their iPhone.
In theory, this is great news for anyone who has amassed apps like Mail, Maps, Tips, Reminders, and Stocks in a folder that they'd like to delete. In practice, however, some apps may not be so useless.
As far as we know, the only pre-installed apps you won't be able to remove are Safari, App Store, Find my iPhone, Messages, Phone, Photos, Settings, Wallet, Clock, and Camera.
On the one hand, this is very encouraging news, it seems that the company has finally woken up and accepted that millions of iPhone users do not want to remain exclusively on pre-existing applications.
On the other hand, if users delete Apple's core apps, it may cause problems for other apps that rely on them.
We wanted to see what would happen if we deleted the much-maligned Map App – which many other apps use as their sole mapping service.
For example, the Yelp iOS app uses Apple Maps. Yelp currently doesn't offer a Google Maps option. So if you delete the default Maps app in iOS 10 and open Yelp, you might get the wrong information.
It's not just Maps, though. Other apps rely on the built-in Mail app to send emails, and the Weather app to find local weather information. In fact, that's probably why Apple won't let you delete Safari — because so many third-party apps rely on it for their built-in browser.
It's entirely possible that most major developers will have fixed all default app issues by the time iOS 10 is released.
