An apparent bug in iOS 15 is causing Apple Music to force itself back into your home screen dock, even if you’ve previously deleted the app from your device. This means that if you delete Apple Music from your iPhone and re-download it from the App Store, the app will automatically go back in your dock and replace whatever app was previously there.
Update: Apple has confirmed to 9to5Mac that this is a bug and it is investigating.
The bug was first spotted by iOS developer Kevin Archer on Twitter. Archer posted a video showing the process of downloading the Apple Music app from the App Store, and the app automatically going back into the default spot of the home screen dock. This is the far bottom-right position, which is where the Music app is located in the stock home screen configuration on a new iPhone.
While the video shows the Apple Music app replacing Spotify in the dock, TechCrunch notes that the issue affects any app located in that spot of the dock and is not exclusive to just Spotify.
We found the Apple Music app replaced all sorts of apps that were in users’ docks, including first-party apps like the built-in Camera app, as well as other third-party apps, like Twitter. Another developer, replying in the Twitter thread, noted Apple Music bumped out Apple’s Safari app from their iPhone dock, as well.
TechCrunch also notes that some users have noticed that Apple Music will also take over as the music app Siri uses for voice commands. This isn’t necessarily true, however, as Apple doesn’t offer the ability to set a default music app for Siri commands. Instead, the company says that Siri uses intelligence features to choose a music service and that choice can change overtime.
9to5Mac’s Take
Apple added the ability to delete stock iPhone apps with an iOS update several years ago, allowing them to be re-downloaded from the App Store.
iOS 15 code analyzed by 9to5Mac indicates that there’s an internal iOS file with the default position of each app on the home screen, which is used to organize the apps after you restore your phone. It appears that Apple simply never tested what would happen if you reinstall a stock app from the dock after deleting it.
While it’s easy to assume that this is some sort of “anticompetitive” practice (and some of the usual characters on Twitter have already done so), that doesn’t appear to be the case. As the code mentioned shows, this is just a bug that Apple is likely to fix in a future update.
Author: Chance Miller
Source: 9TO5Google
