A few years ago, Apple finally made it possible to delete all of the pre-installed iOS apps on iPhone and iPad. This was a welcome change and one that Apple fans had been requesting for years. Unfortunately, one of those apps has seemingly decided to take revenge on all of the users who dared delete it. Some iPhone owners are reporting that the Apple Music app installs itself directly onto the dock and kicks other apps out.
iOS 15 bug gives Apple Music prime placement
It’s unclear what exactly is causing this behavior or how widespread it is. Having deleted the app long ago, I downloaded Apple Music from the App Store on Thursday to see what would happen. As soon as the download began, the Apple Music app bumped the Spotify app from my dock. There was no warning that this was going to happen and my phone didn’t give me a chance to tell it whether or not I wanted this to occur.
Some users claim that Apple Music is also making itself the default music service for any Siri requests. The first time that you ask Siri to play music, it will ask you which service you want to use. Whichever service you pick is the one that it will default to in the future. Apparently, Siri is defaulting back to Apple Music for some users due to this bug.
According to TechCrunch, the bug is affecting iPhones across many different versions of iOS 15. As such, it’s unlike that a recent software update is to blame for the annoying bug. The model of the iPhone doesn’t seem to matter either.
See the bug in action
As TechCrunch points out, iOS developer Kevin Archer was the first to bring the bug to light on Thursday. He shared the following video on Twitter today, pointing out that Apple Music only replaces third-party apps on the dock, not other Apple apps:
It’s worth noting that the bug doesn’t seem to affect every iPhone the same way. A software engineer pointed out that Apple Music actually replaced the Apple Mail app in the dock, even though he had the third-party Tidal app in his dock as well.
Considering all of the anti-trust attention that Apple has attracted in recent years, it’s hard to imagine that any of this was intentional. In fact, after TechCrunch reached out, Apple let the publication know that it is aware of the bug and is conducting an investigation. The fact that Apple acknowledged the bug suggests that a fix should come soon.
