These 5 Apple apps could disappear tomorrow and I guarantee you wouldn’t notice

• Stocks
• Freeform
• Numbers
• GarageBand
• iMovie

Something I’ve thought about for a long time is why the makers of smartphones and other devices go out of their way to bundle the apps that they do. A few are obviously necessary, tied into basic OS functions. But there’s a tendency for companies to go above and beyond that, delivering apps that are only meaningful to a niche audience, or no more than a way of selling additional products and services. I’m looking at you, Lenovo Vantage.

Apple does steer away from the worst bloatware I’ve seen. Nevertheless, there are a number of preloaded apps on Apple devices that I never use, whether because other apps do the same thing better, or the tasks they accomplish were never of any interest to me. I’m sure a lot of you are bound to disagree with this list because of your own preferences, but I also suspect that a lot of you are going to be nodding your heads, wondering why Apple felt it was important to make these apps available to everyone by default.

A brief note here: typically, Apple does let you delete these apps, so they should only ever be a temporary annoyance. If there’s a problem, it’s just the fact that we have to perform clean-up duty instead of getting a choice.

Stocks

A glimpse at the other side of the fence?

I’m not naive — I understand that for a number of people, their retirement plans are tied to an investment portfolio. Others may be professional investors and analysts, or have simply been granted stock at some point. For all of these parties, tracking the stock market isn’t a convenience, it’s a necessity.

My issue is that many (if not most) people aren’t that lucky. Serious investment is often nothing more than a dream for them, much like house ownership. But since they do need smartphones, tablets, and computers, the Stocks app just sits there as a painful reminder that — as Lewis Black once put it — someone’s getting rich, but it ain’t you.

Even the people that do need to follow stocks may be better served by other tools. Apple’s app seems reasonably well-designed, but it’s not intended to provide analysis beyond common stats and trends. If you do own a substantial amount of stock, it may only be a way of flagging your attention before turning elsewhere for advice.

Freeform

Great in concept

More than any other app, Freeform embodies Apple’s fantasy of how people work. If you’re not familiar, the app is used to create collaborative pinboards full of sketches, diagrams, and attached files and web links. You can talk to fellow collaborators using Messages or FaceTime, and draw with a stylus if you own an iPad. Apple’s official screenshots are chock-full of beautiful images and diagrams for idealized projects like fashion design and park restoration.

Realistically, very few people work in an environment where Freeform makes sense. Yes, some jobs do require creative brainstorming — mine is one of them — and in some cases, a digital pinboard may be a useful way of exploring ideas. But that alone narrows things to a small subset of Apple users, and even fewer people inhabit a workplace where everyone has an iPhone, iPad, Mac, or Vision Pro. Freeform would have a lot more value if there was a Windows client too — but then, it wouldn’t be a hypothetical selling point for the Apple ecosystem.

The app actually seems to shine best as a personal tool, rather than a collaborative one. In that context, it may be worth experimenting with as a free alternative to things like Goodnotes.

Numbers

The also-ran of spreadsheet apps

There’s nothing fundamentally wrong with Numbers. Indeed, it’s refreshing that in 2025, Apple is still bundling a full productivity suite that doesn’t require a subscription, or even a one-time purchase. If you’ve got a new Mac or iPad, you can hit the ground running on many work or school assignments.

Of Apple’s three iWork apps, however, Numbers is the most redundant. Pages makes for a solid offline word processor, which is handy given the risks of keeping your writing in the cloud, as well as the cost of a Microsoft 365 subscription. Keynote, meanwhile, may be as good as anything for presentations if you don’t have to collaborate with others. But Numbers…well, Numbers isn’t as elaborate as Microsoft Excel, which is the business standard for spreadsheets, nor is it as conveniently accessible as Google Sheets. If you don’t have an Apple device, you’re stuck using a scaled-back web interface.

You can certainly get serious work done with Numbers. It’s just telling that on its official webpage, even Apple touts Excel compatibility as a key feature.

GarageBand

Wonderful in the right hands

Of the apps I’ve listed so far, this is the one I’m most positive about. My son’s favorite thing in the world is making music and sound effects on his iPad . While he doesn’t use GarageBand at the moment, tools like it do open digital music creation to people who can’t afford Logic or Pro Tools, or in some cases, don’t know how to play an instrument. Professionals may sometimes use GarageBand to knock out the rough version of a song before they bring it to the studio or fellow bandmates.

My complaint involves the app’s storage footprint, which is relatively big for something that’s either pure entertainment or of limited serious use. The current Mac version is nearly a gigabyte, and it’s larger still on iPhones and iPads, measuring 1.7GB. That may not sound like much when even iPhones are starting with 256GB of storage — but that’s space that could be put towards photos and videos, not to mention the pre-recorded music you’re more likely to consume.

iMovie

Trapped in the middleground

I hesitated a little about including this app. It can be a great introduction to video editing for kids and teenagers, and a simpler option for those of us who just want to make a five-minute clip instead of churning out the next Oppenheimer or One Battle After Another. Most importantly, it costs nothing, which is welcome given how much it costs to try something like Final Cut Pro or Adobe Premiere Pro.

If iMovie isn’t enough, it might be better to dip your toes into Blackmagic’s DaVinci Resolve, which is not only free but a true pro-grade tool.

The reason I did pick iMovie is that it sits in an increasingly strange middleground. Over the years, Apple has added more and more editing options to the Photos app for iPhones, Pads, and Macs, going beyond trimming to include things like filters, basic audio mixing, and slow-mo sections. If that’s not enough, it might be better to dip your toes into Blackmagic’s DaVinci Resolve, which is not only free but a true pro-grade tool — some of the movies edited with it include Nope, Elvis, and Top Gun: Maverick. You’ll get more options than iMovie ever will, and maybe even a foot in the door with Hollywood if that’s your interest. The only reason to pay for Resolve’s Studio upgrade is if you really are working on a commercial production. Resolve may of course be overkill for you — but I’m not sure who’s clamoring for iMovie anymore.