How to Stop Suggested Apps Appearing on Lock Screen of iPhone

New versions of iOS offer an interesting featured called Suggested Apps, which uses your current location to recommend or suggest an app to use or download based on where you are and what you may be doing. For example, if you walk into a Starbucks, the Starbucks app could be recommended on the lock screen of your iPhone, or in the app switcher screen. The suggested apps are fairly subtle and many users probably won’t even notice them, displaying as a little faint icon in the bottom left corner of the iOS lock screen, across from the camera icon, basically in the same placement as Handoff icons appear on an iOS screen. Despite being very understated, not all users want suggested apps appearing unsolicited on the screens of their iPhone and iPad.

Whether it’s to keep things uncluttered on the locked screen of a device, because you don’t use the feature, or because you don’t want to have the location usage potentially impacting battery life, you can easily turn off suggested apps in iOS. This will completely stop them from appearing on the lock screen of your iOS device.

How to Turn Off Suggested Apps in iOS

1. Open the Settings app on your iPhone or iPad
2. Go to “iTunes & App Store” and scroll all the way to the bottom
3. Under ‘Suggested Apps’, toggle the switches for “My Apps” and “App Store” to the OFF position
4. Exit Settings as usual

Note that you can customize this a little bit and get the best of both worlds. For example, by leaving the “My Apps” feature on, an app like the Starbucks app would be suggested only if it is already on your iPhone. Given that many location and store centric apps are actually quite useful, that’s a pretty good way to go, particularly if you frequent somewhere that has a useful app.

Many users don’t realize this feature exists, and if left enabled (which is the default in iOS), most people will only see it when they’re at someplace like an airport, a shopping mall, or a popular retail location with a relevant app experience. If you haven’t seen it before, this is what it looks like:

If you swipe up on the App Store icon when it appears (or the icon of a specific app that’s already installed on the iPhone), either the app itself will open, or the App Store page for that app to download will open.

By toggling the above settings off, you won’t see those anymore.