

Daring Fireball: Apple’s System Apps - barredo
http://daringfireball.net/2010/06/apples_system_apps

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caryme
Why can't system apps go in the app store? They could be installed by default,
but able to be uninstalled and then reinstalled from the app store. Think
Apple's Remote app.

What Gruber says makes sense for apps like Mail and Safari, but Stocks and
Weather feel so grandfathered in.

~~~
Timothee
The thing is that some SDK functions are dependent on those apps and thus need
to exist somehow. Because a third-party app can use the SDK to send an email
from inside the app, Mail needs to be around. Same thing with Maps, Safari,
Photos… (and of course, the App Store)

On the other hand, you're correct, Stocks, Weather, Calculator, etc. are
completely independent, thus could be deleted without causing trouble, but I
wouldn't be surprised if the decision went down to the simplest one (at least
for now): no default app gets deleted, period.

If you don't like having the extra system apps, (I don't for some of them), to
quote Steve Jobs on an unrelated topic: "not that big of a deal".

~~~
commandar
This demonstrates exactly why Gruber completely misses the point every time he
tries to nitpick the Android team's statements about not using private APIs.
While Gruber wants to make it about hollow point scoring, what the Android
guys are getting at is that they've made a conscious design decision to have a
clear distinction between what is system level and what is application level
specifically to avoid getting stuck in this sort of situation.

Yes, your Android phone has apps you probably can't uninstall, but that's a
_distribution_ decision rather than something that was forced on them by
technical limitation.

~~~
sandGorgon
[http://www.engadget.com/2010/03/29/exclusive-android-
froyo-t...](http://www.engadget.com/2010/03/29/exclusive-android-froyo-to-
take-a-serious-shot-at-stemming-plat/)

Android Froyo onwards, a lot of system apps are going to be downloadable
separately, just so that you dont have to wait for your service provider to
build an OTA update for you.

~~~
commandar
Well, like Engadget mentions, they'd already broken Maps out like that a while
back. The entire reason they _can_ do this is because they've kept their
first-party apps out of the system level and exposed the functionality they
need publicly.

The official Facebook and Twitter apps integrate with system contacts, for
example, not because Google integrated them at the system level, but because
Google provided an API to allow this with the Android 2.0 release.

One of the things that continually impresses me about Android is the fact that
Google took so much care to create a clean architecture that opens up the door
to a lot of cool opportunities for any application developer.

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mithaler
I do not understand at all why there needs to be any distinction whatsoever
between "system apps" and "app store apps".

Yes, it's _the way Apple does things_. But why? Linux distros have used
package management to push updates for everything from the kernel to the mail
client for over a decade now. It's not like the technology is new. Internally,
there can't be much of a distinction between the two categories of apps. So
why can't they be pluggable like everything else? I get that they're an
integral part of the device's UX, but I can't think of any reason why they
can't be upgraded through the package manager all the other apps use.

Maybe the reason is maximizing the wow factor upon upgrading, and even that
seems like a minor benefit compared to the advantages of, y'know, rapid
security patching.

 _EDIT_ : Timothee above mentions that other apps depend on them, and I
suppose it's true, version-based dependency management does seem a little
overly complex for such a device (it's definitely not like Apple to say
something like "This application requires Mail 2.53.x to run").

~~~
DLWormwood
What would happen if you delete the App Store app itself?

If nothing else, a couple of the apps _have_ to be handled differently, to
prevent bricking the device (or, at least, force an iTunes sync to restore
functionality). Unlike the Finder, Springboard has no menubar or some other
location to provide UI independent of apps. So, the App Store and Settings
apps have to be protected at a minimum.

~~~
chronomex

      # apt-get remove apt
      Reading Package Lists... Done
      Building Dependency Tree... Done
      The following packages will be REMOVED:
        apt apt-utils base-config
      WARNING: The following essential packages will be removed
      This should NOT be done unless you know exactly what you are doing!
        apt
      0 packages upgraded, 0 newly installed, 3 to remove and 17  not upgraded.
      Need to get 0B of archives. After unpacking 3183kB will be freed.
      You are about to do something potentially harmful
      To continue type in the phrase 'Yes, do as I say!'

~~~
wfarr
Yes, because your average joe user is going to have any idea what they're
doing. The simple fact of the matter is that the iPhone is made for mass
consumption, and things like this would outright deter many users from using
the iPhone — let alone _wanting_ to use it.

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minotaurous
Gruber writes that it'll be "un-iPhone-like" to hide unwanted system apps from
the home screen through the Settings app.

You can show/hide the bundled Nike + iPod app through Settings app. And it's
not even new in iOS 4. "Un-iPhone-like" indeed.

~~~
ugh
It’s very much un-iphone-like. They should put it in the App Store.

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tonydev
When you consider a huge portion of the user base - especially the iPhone user
base - the simplicity of 'deleting' an app is fairly dangerous. It's not
totally impossible to remove an app in your pocket by accident. I'd hate to
have to explain to my mother why her mail app was suddenly missing. That said,
allowing for some sort of on/off toggle in settings would be welcome.

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CrazedGeek
For what it's worth, if you jailbreak your iOS device, there's a few ways of
hiding apps from your home screen (both Categories and SBSettings do it, and
I'm decently sure the Winterboard settings do it too).

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lushootseed
Wow! Daring Fireball is indeed an Apple Fanboy!

He advocates the fact the the world's best tech company cannot really solve
such a trivial issue like removal of built-in apps and instead suggests a
workaround and hide them!! Any programmer could tell you that Apple can build
the apps just like any other apps in the AppStore and have them available for
free. Guess it is too hard of a problem when you don't want to solve it!!!

<http://thecaseagainstapple.blogspot.com/>

