You bought yourself a brand new iPhone — congrats! Now it’s time for the fun part: downloading apps you’ll use consistently to help with work, play, and keeping your life on track. But before you even start down that road, did you know there are ways you can set your phone up for success from day one? If you a previous Apple phone owner, you already know how frustrating it can be to get to a point in your tech-owning life when your phone begins running out of storage, or loses battery life faster than it seems it should. One way you can help prevent that from happening is by looking at some of the pre-installed apps that come with your phone and deciding if any can go. This is the first app to delete when you get a new iPhone, according to Apple experts.
The Stock App
Apologies to anyone who uses the Stock app and loves it — of course, this tip doesn’t apply to you. But an overwhelming number of tech experts listed the Stock app as the number one app they’d get rid of to save a little space on a new iPhone.
“There is no one specific app that should be deleted first when you get a new iPhone in order to preserve battery life and storage space,” notes Ryan Kirkwood, Chief Technology Officer at Freedom Dividend. “However, a good candidate for deletion would be a pre-installed app that you don’t use or need. For example, the Stocks app can be deleted if you’re not interested in following the stock market, or the Tips app can be deleted if you already know how to use your iPhone. Keep in mind that deleting an app will not free up a ton of storage space, but every little bit helps.”
Meanwhile, Brenton Thomas, founder of Twibi, says one app you should focus on getting rid of instead isn’t a pre-installed app, but one you may rush to download that takes up a considerable amount of resources.
“The first app you should delete from your new iPhone is the Facebook app,” Thomas says. “Facebook is a notorious battery drainer, and it can also take up a lot of storage space. If you don’t use Facebook very often, you can delete the app and save yourself some battery life and storage space.”
Some other pre-installed apps that Thomas recommends deleting (unless you think you’ll use them) include:
- Weather
- Games
- Social media apps
- Streaming apps
- News apps
Other Battery/Storage Tips
While deleting a few apps may help prevent battery and storage issues in the long run, it’s what you do every day — how you manage your settings and your app habits — that really matter, Kirkwood argues.
“There are a few general tips that can help preserve both battery life and storage space on an iPhone: be conscientious of which apps you download and use and delete any apps you no longer need,” Kirkwood says. “Another way to preserve battery life is to make sure that your screen brightness is set to a lower level, and to disable features like location services and Background App Refresh when you’re not using them. Finally, you can free up storage space by deleting photos and videos that you no longer need, as well as deleting old text messages and voicemails.”
