Tim Cook Wants iOS Users 'To Be Happy' By Making Unwanted Pre-Installed Apps Deletable

If you know anyone that’s been a longtime iOS user, chances are that they have a “junk” folder on their device that is used to banish unwanted Apple apps that they don’t use. These apps come preinstalled with every iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch and cannot be deleted. They can’t even be hidden unless you jailbreak — but jailbreaking can have some unwanted consequences if you aren’t careful.

In a wide-ranging interview with BuzzFeed, Apple’s Tim Cook was surprisingly open about the wishes of some iOS users to be able to remove these junk apps. Users either want them gone to reclaim whatever little storage space their taking up, or more likely, to end the process of creating a junk folder in the first place to hide these apps in the first place (we’re talking all the OCD’ers out there).

“This is a more complex issue than it first appears,” said Cook. “There are some apps that are linked to something else on the iPhone. If they were to be removed they might cause issues elsewhere on the phone.”

This is perfectly understandable, and we definitely see where Cook is coming from with regards to removing certain built-in apps. However, there probably isn’t much if any deep-linking involved when it comes to apps like Tips, Voice Memos, Stocks, Find Friends and iBooks (which used to be a separate download).

“There are other apps that aren’t like that. It’s not that we want to suck up your real estate; we’re not motivated to do that,” Cook added. “We want you to be happy. So I recognize that some people want to do this, and it’s something we’re looking at.”

Even if you take into account how much more open Apple is under the leadership of Tim Cook, it’s actually quite surprising that he took the time to even acknowledge such a question, no matter how trivial it may be in the grand scheme of things. Now on the topic of bumping base storage on iPhones and iPads from 16GB to 32GB, we know where Apple stands on that matter…