Apple! Sort Your Apps Out!
Remember that glorious time when you controlled what was installed on your phone? No me neither, but it would be nice wouldn’t it. Both Android and iOS have a knack for forcing apps upon you and you can’t do anything about it — some worse than others. Apple were first to stop the network dominance and resist any carrier software on their handsets. However they still load a hefty amount on of their own — and this practise has an even worse consequence for Apples first party apps and thats the lack of updates.
There are arguments for the level of bloat on Android handsets, with some from US networks containing massive amounts of apps that are never going to be used and even duplicating services. Although iOS doesn’t suffer from network bloating like this, it does suffer from Apple stuffing everything onto your phone if you use it or not. Apple now install more than 30 apps along side the OS — granted some of these are necessary. However they go as far as an Apple watch app for everyone — and even add another 1 on to your phone if you ever pair an Apple watch!
The bigger issue is these apps are not tied to the app store like those installed by Google during the CMS certification, so updates to any of these require a whole OS update. Apple rolled out 8.4 purely for the Apple music update — granted with bug fixes in tow I am sure but this practice seems more than a little OTT. Image if a security hole was found in a first party app — any fix would require a hefty update to the OS just to fix a few lines of code. When if the same is true for a google service it can be fixed almost instantly.
Bugs remain unfixed for weeks or months while Apple seek to ratify the need for an OS update, with or without a description in the changelog! A whole OS update requires time, power in your phone and a Wifi connection. Where as any app store app could be updated within a few hours with necessary fixes, Apple signing the update permitting of course.
So Apple giving users the option of downloading the apps or not will solve two problems in one swoop. I know you can do it as you pester me to download keynote et al every time I do a restore of my iPhone. Do the same for things like music, podcasts, maps, ibooks etc and you will not only save time updating but space on my phone!
