The Microsoft apps that come pre-installed on the Galaxy S6 and Galaxy S6 Edge are just one example of Samsung bundling in apps that not everyone will be happy to see taking up storage. Especially considering the latest flagships from Samsung no longer come with a microSD card slot, making that internal storage even more precious than before. Samsung has had a bad reputation for taking up so much of the internal storage on their devices out of the box, and last year’s Galaxy S5 was one of the devices that had the least of its internal storage available out of the box.
This week has been an interesting one for those looking to remove unwanted ‘bloatware’ from their devices, with word that Samsung would allow you to remove the apps, and then word coming in that this wasn’t quite the case. In an interesting twist, Samsung has issued an official statement to UK tech site TechRadar which outlines the following: “Samsung Electronics is committed to providing the best possible mobile experience to customers. As part of this effort, Samsung has allowed users to remove the pre-installed applications on Galaxy S6 and S6 edge. The number of applications that can be removed from devices can vary by regions and mobile carriers.” Even so, this isn’t strictly true, as the apps on the Galaxy S6 and Galaxy S6 Edge can only be disabled, and not “removed” as Samsung calls it.
Removing the apps would mean that the app is no longer stored on your device, thus freeing up the space it once took. However, disabling an app is basically hiding it away, the only time you’ll see a disabled app is from the settings menu. Needless to say, the two mean very different things and Samsung will no doubt upset many customers with their choice to keep apps on the device’s storage. There’s no denying apps like Microsoft’s OneNote and Skype might be useful to a lot of users, but a lot of users would rather get rid of them – along with all the other pre-installed apps – in order to free up precious storage.