Apple rolled out the seventh, and probably the final, iOS 16 developer beta on Tuesday. While there weren’t any notable feature additions, the beta’s code suggested that the company might allow you to uninstall the Apple Wallet app in a future update.
The code spotted by 9to5Mac and Macrumors suggested that Apple will make the Wallet app deletable in iOS 16.1. Currently, users can hide the app from the home screen but can’t remove it from their iPhones completely. While the app stores tickets and orders, it is also responsible for storing your credit and debit cards that work with Apple Pay. So if users remove the app, Apple Pay won’t work.
Apple is facing antitrust charges after an investigation by the European Commission alleging that the company is blocking iPhone’s NFC stack so competitors can’t develop wallet and payment products rivaling Apple Pay.
In February, the company unveiled “Tap to Pay” to let third-party apps use iPhone as a payment terminal. Last month, the firm started testing Apple Pay support for third-party browsers including Google Chrome and Microsoft Edge with iOS 16 betas. However, there is no indication of Apple letting payment apps use the iPhone’s NFC stack directly.
Apple also released iPadOS 16.1 beta on Tuesday and noted that it will skip the fall update of iPadOS 16.0 and will straight away ship a 16.1 update to all users.
