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.
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".
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.
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.
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.
Of course they could be separated. What I'm saying is that considering that some of the apps are not completely sandboxed, the simplest decision to make is to just keep all of them.
Plus, it helps Apple's branding: as long as they're not forced into separating the apps and the APIs, like Microsoft was, they won't.
Safari really couldn't exist in the app store, considering that many third-party apps have links that open a page in Safari and thus it needs to be always installed. I take it this is sarcasm?
They have http:// URIs, which happens to invoke Safari as the registered handler on every iPhone.
There's no reason (other than Apple policy) why that URI handler couldn't be registered as Opera or Firefox. That's how it works on other platforms.
Even on the iPhone developers can register most URIs (e.g. myuri://) to start up their own apps as long as it isn't a protected one, unless they changed that recently.
I have third party apps on my laptop that have links which open a page in a browser. Doesn't mean I can't delete Safari or get updates to it outside of system updates. If I delete my browser and then can't get links to open it sounds like I'd need to install a browser.
There are reasons why you wouldn't want a browser though, which at the moment you can't do.
I guess they are different to normal sandboxed apps downloaded from the app store, since they have higher access to the iPhone (reading emails, controlling settings), and can multitask (email, ipod).
They may in fact not be apps at all, but just part of the system, with access via the icons. They are just made to look like apps. They may have hooks that mean they can never be deleted (like new mail), but only hidden, since there code is needed.
We may be able to draw some insight from the Apple Store app as well. Like iBooks it was shipped separately. Like the App Store and iTunes apps the Apple Store app lets you make purchases from Apple.
Is it simpler to have all the "purchasing apps" together, bundled with the iPhone/iPad or to strip away more system apps? The iPad didn't ship with calculator, stocks etc. The answer might go right back to Gruber's point: the iPad itself shipped out of the OS release cycle while the Apple Store app shipped just before the new OS in part to aid with the purchasing of iPhone4. Maybe both of these will be included in iOS5 next year.
I think apps from the app store need to be individually signed for each user, which wouldn't be possible on a generic install. At least, not presently.
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").
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.
# 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!'
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.
The backup-update-restore process has become so lengthy at this point I'm sure lots of people skip minor point releases just so they don't have to endure this 30-60 minute process. Either App Store packages or small OTA updates focusing exclusively on security patches would help a lot.
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.
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).
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!!!
What Gruber says makes sense for apps like Mail and Safari, but Stocks and Weather feel so grandfathered in.