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Comment by randomsearch | Hacker News Reader

I have never heard anyone ask for a way to remove an app without uninstalling it. Seems like weird feature creep to me. Edge case, just stick the app in a folder...

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Nearly every iOS user has a folder called called "junk" to deal with apps they don't want on their home-screen but also can't uninstall. This isn't an edge case at all...

Is the solution not to allow people to uninstall them, rather than just a better way to hide them?

Often times the "junk" app is a third party app that the OS allows them to uninstall but they can't uninstall because they need to have it once a year for checking something.

There's also apps you just want for the integration they may provide (for example, a keyboard app) but don't want to install the entire app.

I have the Pocket app installed on my iPhone, because I want to be able to share stuff to Pocket, but I don't ever actually use the Pocket app to read stuff.

Then there are utility apps, such as the app that I used to setup my wifi, that I rarely open but still want to keep around in case something goes wrong.

There's all sorts of reasons to have apps installed but not showing in the most prime real estate in the world.

Nah, I have (for one example) a collection of apps that just exist to power the real version on my watch.

Note that these apps actually do something in some cases, like I have a Twitter app (Chirp) where I'm pretty sure the heavy lifting happens on my phone and the watch just does the display.

That's not what the post I replied to was saying:

> Finally, a way to remove apps from the home screen without uninstalling them

You're talking about a different problem.

The solution in your case is surely to allow the apps to be uninstalled!

It's kinda like not putting all the app shortcuts on your desktop. Maybe people don't know that they want it.

I would love that. Extensions (ad blockers, keyboards, etc) in particular are super awkward because they install a full app. I also have a couple regional apps that I use every couple of months they really don't deserve home screen space even if its in a junk folder.

What? This is a complaint I hear often from ios users. "I know you don't want to see this app, too bad just stick it in a folder you don't want to see either" is not the kind of super slick UX that made ios popular.

I have six apps on my Android homescreen: browser, mail, sms, clock, notes and maps. That's all I always use every week. I definitely need my TOTP app, Duo for work, the calculator and of course camera and phone apps, but I don't use any of them frequently enough to want them on the homescreen.

Think start vs desktop for windows or dock vs finder for mac os

You can already search for the app you want, though.

Ah ok. So the difference here is I do not think of my phone like I think about a computer.

Suddenly a lot of Android makes sense - they’re trying to build a little computer that fits in your pocket! Aha! I see!

I am not sure that’s a good model for designing something that is fundamentally not a little desktop computer.

You mentioned "sticking an app in a folder" -- that's as much a computer metaphor as anything.

A folder is an office metaphor, surely.

So is a desktop.

Speak for yourself. I use widgets heavily on Android and keep a clean app-less home screen. Every app is just in the drawer. As well, there are many things that one can do on Android that are simply not possible on iOS, such as using git to interface with files and querying a remote server. That's just me, though, I know the vast majority don't care about this functionality.

Yeah, totally, I get that for some people they'll see Android like that and for people like yourself the "mini computer" paradigm makes total sense.

Just not for the gigantic market that Android has.

I've always found Android's design to be really weird compared to iOS or Windows Phone, but seeing it as a "mini computer" explains why their design doesn't make sense to me - because I see phones as a separate form factor that fundamentally changes how it is used [by most people].

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