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How to: Delete Apple’s iPhone apps
by Peter Ha on September 17, 2008


I’m certainly nowhere near the cusp of 148 apps on my iP3G, but I know some of you are getting close or are already at the maximum. The process sounds pretty tedious, IMO, but if you’re really gung-ho about it then clear out 10 minutes or so of your day. Oh, and you’ll need 9 full pages of apps for this to work.

Move all unwanted apps to the bottom of the 9th page and do as Macenstein tells you.

Now, the key to deleting these apps is that you are not really deleting them so much as you are “banishing” them to the hidden 10th page on the iPhone. Kind of the iPhone version of Superman’s Phantom Zone, this 10th page is a virtual storage area that Apple includes for holding apps that you download if you happen to already have all 148 spaces (9 pages) full of apps. In order to banish apps to the Phantom Zone, you simply need to start “pushing” the icons off the screen. As you may have noticed in the past, when you drag an application from one page to another, it pushes all the apps on that page down to the right 1 space. Well, that’s what we are going to do here. Begin by making sure Page 8 has at least 1 more application on it than the number of apps you want to delete on page 9. Now, press and hold an application on page 8, causing the apps to wiggle, and then begin dragging applications from page 8 to page 9. As you release each application, you will see the bottom right-most app disappear. Keep moving apps over, bumping apps to the hidden 10th page until you have gotten rid of all the apps you do not want.

Comments rss icon

  • Maybe I am missing something, but removing applications from an iPhone is not this obscure. Connect your iPhone to your computer. It should then show up as a DEVICE in iTunes. In order: select it, select the Applications tab, and choose to “Sync Applications” but only the “Selected applications.” Deselect those you want removed. Then hit either the “Sync” button or the “Apply” button. The deselected Applications are removed from your iPhone.

  • Is this some convoluted way to show us your discovery of a “hidden tenth screen?” When on earth would this be useful or timesaving? Just delete the program by holding down the homescreen button and then in iTunes next time u sync. R we missing something?

  • Maybe some people like to think they know a secret technique and write about it for the good of everyone when, in fact, no one really cares.

  • Mainly useful if you want to “hide” the on-board applications. i.e. you download a stock app and you don’t want the native stocks app, you use this technique to hide it.

  • I think what you might have missed, is its to show a way to “remove” Apples applications, the ones that do not give you the option to delete. Just my observation on this posting.

  • Yea, perhaps I’m missing something too… When I want to remove an app from my phone I just hold down on the icon till they wiggle (like I was going to move them) then tap the ‘X’ in the corner (like deleting a webpage) and it says “Are you Sure” and I say “Delete” and ‘viola ..

    Theyre gone!

    Another nice thing I’ve noticed is that when I sync to iTunes it usually “respects my wishes” unselects them from the “Sync these apps” list.

    Not sure what you guys are trying to do that’s different.

  • Thanks “larabee”. That makes sense. We can’t delete those or deselect them from the ap tab in iTunes. You should have titled this article for them. My brain is now content.

  • This is a simple way to “delete” or hide the native Apple apps.

  • READING IS FUNDAMENTAL people… it’s for apps that you CAN NOT just simply remove in iTunes or by pressing the icons until they wiggle…

    Idiots!

    • Mr. Fundamental,
      Where in that article did you “read” it was talking about native apps? The title ambiguously says “Apple’s iPhone apps.” Sorry us idiots didn’t have the privilage of posted comments to make us feel so perspicacious. We humbly bow to your intellect.

      • I think you were just supposed to, you know, assume. Considering the screenshots show all of the Apple apps at the end of the 9th screen. And I think someone who works at CrunchGear would be pretty aware that you can delete apps that aren’t Apple’s.

      • Wha-tha,

        The thing you idiots are missing is that the title tells you which apps this article is about: Apple’s apps. That’s pretty clear. Not third-party apps, Apple’s apps.

  • yo guys!
    we still didnt get solution in here..we dont mean we want to HIDE buddies!! we want to delete(arase) mind u ,those applications are not part of “Iphone Ingine” they probably can be removed! but how!?

  • If you have a jailbroken iPhone you can delete the system apps if you so desire.

    Just access your phone via ssh, go in the ‘applications’ folder and delete the folder called ’stocks’

  • I love you ,Jay ,, simple and easy ,,THANK YOU !!GEEZZZ

  • Everyone ,just do what Jay say’s ,pretty easy ,I love em.lol

  • Simple and effective, I like it. So obvious I didn’t even think of it. BUT, if I want them back, how do I get them back?

  • Tap and hold down the icon of the application you want to delete. After a few seconds your screen will start to “wiggle” and an X will appear next to each of the apps you’ve installed via the App Store.
    Tap the X next to the icon of the app you want to remove. When prompted, select Delete

  • Hugo,

    Hold down the icon STOCKS for a few seconds and when it starts to wiggle do you see an X to delete it? No… read the thread before posting useless comments.

    To delete those apps, jailbreak, then use SSH to remove as listed above.

    Or maybe Hugo’s fingers are magic?

  • if u have downloaded the app from itunes, delete it in your applications library (selecting ‘move to recycling bin’ on second prompt) and next time u
    sync, it will be automatically deleted.

    by the way, im only 11.

  • if u push them to the hidden area instead of deleting them you can still call them up with spotlight

    btw i’m only 7

  • I Have A Belly Button…

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