Why did these Apple apps not reinstall after factory reset?

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Level 1

10 points

Why did these Apple apps not reinstall after factory reset?

I just got a new iPhone 17 Pro Max. After completing the initial setup, I noticed that several extra Apple apps were already installed on my Home Screen without me having to download them:

Apple Store
GarageBand
iMovie
Keynote
Numbers
Pages

I then went to Settings > General > Transfer or Reset iPhone > Erase All Content and Settings because I wanted a completely fresh start. After setting it up again from scratch, I noticed that this time those six apps were not automatically installed — only the standard built-in apps appeared.

Is this normal behavior? Does iOS treat these apps differently after a factory reset, installing only the core system apps and leaving these extra Apple apps for the user to download if desired?

iPhone 17 Pro Max, iOS 26

Posted on Sep 23, 2025 9:12 PM

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Answer 1

muguy

Level 10

93,010 points

Sep 23, 2025 9:25 PM in response to Luis-T

Those apps are not installed by the OS but by the user.

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Answer 2

Luis-T Author

Level 1

10 points

Sep 23, 2025 10:11 PM in response to muguy

Thanks for your reply. Just to clarify — those apps were not installed by me. During the very first setup of my iPhone 17 Pro Max (straight out of the box, before I downloaded anything), they appeared automatically on the Home Screen. I didn’t go into the App Store to install them myself.

After doing a factory reset and setting it up again, only the standard built-in apps appeared, and those extra Apple apps were no longer pre-installed. That’s why I was wondering if iOS handles the initial setup differently (installing some Apple apps the first time) versus after a reset (only installing the core apps).

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Why did these Apple apps not reinstall after factory reset?

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