Apple has sent a reminder to developers that every app on App Store would require an account deletion option. The reminder has come ahead of the deadline of June 30, 2022. The company has also asked to keep the deletion process easy to find in the app..

Overview

In its recent news post, Apple has specified that developers cannot get away with just providing options to temporarily disable or deactivate an account. It has stressed that “people should be able to delete the account along with their personal data.”

Earlier, app developers were asked to make the necessary changes to enable account deletion until January 31 2022. However, the deadline was pushed back to June 30, 2022, so that developers could get additional time to integrate and implement the required changes for the account deletion process. 

Apple has provided a support post explaining the account deletion offering. It says that providing users with the choice to delete their app account and data associated with it, would give users better control over the personal data they could be sharing. Thanks to a statute like the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), this has become an increasingly widespread concern 

As Apple illustrated in its support post, over the past few years, users are more concerned about having control over their personal data. The increase in users’ concern has come after significant developers have been engaged in making the account deletion or unsubscribing process as difficult as possible.

Although it may not appear to be a major change on the surface, simplifying this often complex process would benefit users trying to unsubscribe or deleting accounts on some popular apps like Facebook or Amazon.

The truth is, apps like these, and many others, usually make it tough to find an option for account deletion under different menus in settings. These settings are designed to either attract you to stay or frustrate you into giving up.

Hence, Apple making it mandatory to have an account deletion option, which “should be easy to find in your app”, is great headway for users who want a break from an app or are tired of those numerous frustrating menus and tempting messages in pop-ups every time they start the process to quit an app.