Apple is finally forcing app developers to offer easy ways to delete your account

If you want to delete a third-party app from your iPhone, Apple makes that process pretty simple. You touch and hold the app icon, it does its little wiggle-dance, and you can delete it right there on the spot. Deleting the account for that app can be a different story.

That’s why Apple is adding a new developer requirement that will make deleting third-party app accounts a much easier process. As of now, there are no regulations on deleting an account from a third-party app on the App Store.

That app may require you to visit a website you’re unfamiliar with or complete some other meaningless task to delete your account, in hopes that you’ll just forget about it. Starting early next year, Apple is changing that.

On January 31, 2022, all third-party apps that require you to create an account must have an option that lets you delete that account from within the app itself. That means no more multi-step process before you can even find the account deletion option.

It’s no accident that deleting an account from one of these third-party apps is, most of the time, a complicated process. These companies do that intentionally, in hopes that you’ll just forget about the account and they can hold on to as much of your data as they can.

Apple’s new developer requirement will be a pleasant change in the third-party app landscape. There’s nothing that says that developers can’t continue to make account deletion a complex process within the app, so it will be interesting to see how they interpret this new rule when it becomes official early next year.

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