Users of the newly launched LG Nexus 5X and Huawei Nexus 6P will be able to remove some of the Google apps that come preloaded. The information was confirmed by Dave Burke, Vice President of Engineering at Google during a press conference. The good thing is that the apps can be removed without rooting your smartphone.
At the conference, Burke said, “With the new Nexus devices, we’ve reduced the number of preloaded apps on the phone, to make the out-of-the-box experience cleaner and simpler. We’ve also developed a new system that moves over a quarter of our apps to a post-setup installation phase, which means they can be uninstalled just like any other apps.”
The list of apps that are allowed to be uninstalled include: Google+, Google Docs, News, Slides, Weather, Play Books, Fit, Keep, and Sheets. Other apps like Gmail, Play Store, Settings, Phone, and Clock will remain on the phone and can’t be removed. As of now, it is only for the Nexus 5X and 6P and it is not confirmed whether it will be made available for the users of existing Nexus devices.
The ability to remove at least some of the apps could prove to be a great relief for many users especially the ones who go for the 16GB base model in case of Nexus 5X. Google has been blamed from time to time for making it compulsory for its OEM partners to install all the Google apps, listed by it, even if they want to include only a couple of them. Last month, Google changed its guidelines for its OEM partners and removed Google+, Google Play Books, Play Games, and Newsstand from the list of Google apps mandatory to be installed on devices. With this change and the latest announcement related to ability to remove some of the Google apps on latest Nexus smartphones, it looks that Google is working to make the devices bloatware free or at least reduce the number of preinstalled apps. Incidentally, Apple CEO Tim Cook also said Apple might let users to uninstall unwanted default apps from their iPhones. But he didn’t reveal the exact timeline for the release of this feature