South Korea Wants Deletable Pre-Installed Mobile Apps

The South Korean Ministry of Science drafted industry guidelines that would oblige mobile phones manufacturers to allow users to delete any pre-installed software on their handsets, helping them obtain more data storage atop of boosting battery life.

Removal of so-called bloat-ware could boost phones` battery life and allow for more data storage for users.

“The move aims to rectify an abnormal practice that causes inconvenience to smartphone users and causes unfair competition among industry players,” said the Ministry of Science, ICT and Future Planning in a Korean-language press release.

South Korean regulators think some pre-installed un-removable software is unnecessary and people should be able to decide what to keep on their mobile devices. Exceptions to these rules will be applications that enable near-field communication (NFC), Wi-Fi connectivity, customer service and the app store.

Yonhap News writes that “Samsung’s Galaxy S4 released by SK Telecom has a total of 80 apps pre-installed, including 25 apps loaded by the telco, 39 by Samsung and 16 by the OS provider Google,” taking up a lot of memory. The new regulation would allow users to delete at least half of those apps.