watchOS 6 to include more control over installed apps

Jun 19, 2019 07:45 GMT  ·  By

In addition to iOS 13, which itself will bring significant improvements to the iPhone, it looks like Apple wants its overhaul to happen on the wrist as well, so the upcoming watchOS 6 will also integrate a series of major enhancements.

One of them is support for removing first-party apps, which essentially means that users will be allowed to delete almost all stock apps if they don't need them.

Uninstalling an app from the Apple Watch works just like on the iPhone. Users need to long-press on the app grid to enable the jiggling effect and then press the small X symbol to remove a specific item. However, this only works for third-party apps, as Apple doesn’t allow users to remove the ones that the Apple Watch ships with.

This is an approach that has also been used on the iPhone, as users were not allowed to remove the pre-installed stock apps.

Removing stock apps

However, the Cupertino-based tech giant apparently has a change of mind, so watchOS 6 will enable the removal of Breathe, Radio, World Clock, Timer, Stopwatch, Walkie-Talkie and several others, as discovered by TechCrunch. If users want them back at a later time, they can simply re-download the apps from the App Store.

As far as third-party apps are concerned, nothing will change in this regard. Removing an app from the Apple Watch deletes it from the iPhone as well and vice-versa. This behavior, however, won’t apply to the apps that come pre-installed, as Apple has tried to separate stock apps available on the Watch from the ones on iOS.

The best example in this regard is the Clock app, which comes with several built-in modules on the iPhone, while on the Apple Watch, these are offered as separate apps called World Clock, Timer, Alarms, and Stopwatch.

watchOS 6 is projected to go live in September this year, and the aforementioned changes should make their way to the beta builds in the coming releases.