Do you ever find yourself looking at your phone and thinking, “what are all these apps doing”? Ever get a pop-up message on your screen saying “curation complete”?
You’re not alone. Many people wonder how to stop their iPhones from creating a new “app” or “album” whenever they touch the screen.
Perhaps, also, you’ve read about curation or heard about the relevant features and would like to know more about it. This could be helpful in deciding if you would like to turn it off, too.
This article will first provide an explanation of what curation is, as well as what it is on Apple devices.
Next, we’ll describe the steps you can follow in answer to the question, how do I stop my iPhone from curating? There are a few simple fixes to do this, and we’ll break them all down for you in this article.
What Is Curation?
Curation is the process of selecting, gathering, and organizing a collection, such as the contents of a digital media library. Essentially, it means gathering a bunch of things together in a particular way.
For example, smartphone makers curate the pre-installed apps before shipping their products out to customers. It is a process that uses judgment to select items of interest from the sea of information available online.
As with many other modern devices, such as Smart TVs, your iPhone has a feature known as curation.
Such devices do this by regularly checking your device’s content and then using machine learning algorithms developed by their manufacturers to provide suggestions for new content or albums.
What Does Curation on iPhones Mean?
On Apple products, more specifically, auto-curating or intelligent curation can be defined as the process of suggesting new applications or other groupings of content for you to download and use based on other applications you have used.
The auto curating feature of the iPhone has become a popular topic amongst Apple users.
The word about curation has been around for a while, but recently it’s been used in relation to the apps on our iPhone. In 2019, Apple brought automatic curation to the iPhone in an update.
Innovation is key. The company’s constant creativity and innovation are two of the features that set Apple apart from other companies, which could explain their success with the iPhone.
The simple reasoning behind curation is that Apple wants to make sure that its users experience content on the device in a new and engaging way.
That said, many people find that they despise how their iPhone automatically curates the apps, photos, and music they see.
They prefer to be in control of the apps and albums on their device or perhaps have other reasons for their preference.
Many times they find the suggestions are not helpful or relevant to their interests, or they’re inconvenient when trying to access their own library.
Luckily, there’s a way to turn off specific sources of curated content on your device in the short term.
If you have not used the feature, how can you know if it works? How do you tell what is curated and what isn’t?
Or, if you prefer not to use the auto-curating feature, how do you stop this feature from making changes to your collections or your device in general? How can you remove or block the curator altogether?
If you’re wondering about any or all of these questions, here’s what we found out.
Curation in Photos
As we said, Apple’s introduction of automatic or intelligent curation on the device is meant to make the experience of reading, listening, and watching your content more relevant.
These features work by displaying recommendations based upon what you’ve already downloaded, read, and watched.
Specifically, this feature has allowed the Photos app to organize pictures according to their dates, location, etc. It also automates albums based on common features, such as photos or videos of pets or from a certain vacation.
This editable photo gallery allows you to curate your images for the perfect look for your shared album or slideshow. Users can also add captions or location tags to help their family members find those favorite pictures in no time.
It could also mean anything from identifying which videos will only be available in 4K resolution, to analyzing which podcasts you’ve listened to recently, or making sure all iPhone apps are sorted by usage frequency.
This gives users a personalized experience based on their interests and past behavior.
How Do I Stop My iPhone From Curating?
iPhone users have looked at their phones with bewilderment, wondering what apps those useless bubbles on their screens always seem to be showing them.
No matter how many times they try to delete the apps, they keep popping back up! The curation process appears to have no end, and sometimes it can be more of a nuisance than anything else.
If you are an iPhone user and want to know how to stop your phone from curating, this article will be helpful for you. Here are some steps to follow in order to disable the curating features on your iPhone or any other Apple device.
Open Your Phone’s Settings Menu
The first step you need to do is to access the “Settings” menu from your Home Screen. You can do this by swiping down from the top of the screen or tapping the gear icon in your upper corner.
If you are an Apple user, you probably know that it lists a selection of apps and music under the “Suggests” tab whenever you open your iPhone. You can also see suggestions on your lock screen when using your phone. If you want to stop this feature for good, then you can do so by following these simple steps:
Do a quick search for “Auto Curating” and turn off the following options: Suggested Apps, Suggested Music, Suggested Videos.
If you find that there are apps and music still appearing on your screen under these categories, then follow these steps:
Select apps and disable them one by one. After disabling each app, please wait until you see it disappear from the list. You can also delete all of them by tapping on “Delete All.”
Delete Suggested Apps Under Privacy Settings
If you want to disable your iPhone from curating apps, follow these steps:
Tap or touch on ‘Delete Suggested Apps,’ located in your Privacy Setting menu in your General Settings. When you do this, you will be able to stop the curating feature of your iPhone.
In case your iPhone already has recommended apps on your screen or to save space, it is recommended that you remove them from the list.
Touching the “Delete All” will delete every suggested app from your screen. Before removing any suggested app, you must remove those apps from your Suggested Apps list if they are included in there.
Disable iTunes From Curating
If you are an Apple Music Subscriber and you want to stop iTunes from curating, then you need to follow these steps:
- Open iTunes on your computer and go to the “Store” section of the window.
- Click on your account name and select “View Account.”
- Turn off “Show Apple Music Connect” by unchecking the box next to it in your account settings. By doing this, you will be able to stop the curating feature of your iPhone. You can access your iTunes account settings by clicking on “Account” after clicking on “Devices.”
- Finally, click on “View Account.”
If you are not an Apple Music subscriber, there is a separate process. To stop iTunes from curating, you need to tell your computer not to show the Apple Music Connect feature. To do this, follow these steps:
- Go to “View Account” and click on “Manage.”
- Uncheck the box next to “Show Apple Music Connect” in your account settings. When you do this, you will be able to disable the curating feature of your iPhone.
Stop Apple Pay From Curating
If you have an iPhone and are thinking about getting the point of sale (POS) terminal for your business, you might be interested in knowing that Apple Pay works perfectly well with the devices from Square and Intuit. However, if you want to stop curating from Apple Pay on your iPhone, follow these steps:
- Go to Settings – Safari.
- Locate the iPay section.
- Tap on “iPay” and then tap “Turn off curation.”
- Click “OK.”
To check that it worked correctly, you should open up Safari and try making a purchase or two.
Why Did My Curation Get Stuck at 90%?
This is a common problem that occurs with many Apple users. The problem that arises with curation is mainly related to data syncing, and sometimes it gets stuck at 90%.
It is essential to know that the error that causes this problem is in your iPhone’s software. This usually means that there is an issue with the memory on your device. It could also mean, however, that there is a bug with the version of your iPhone software.
Some problems may occur whenever a new update comes out for the iOS operating system, as the previous version has bugs fixed in the latest version.
How Can I Fix the Curation Stuck at 90% Issue?
First, ensure that your phone is updated. If it’s not updated and not possible to update, you can try restarting your device or using another app instead of the one that might be causing issues.
That said, if your device is not up to date, we suggest that you install the latest updates on your iPhone. This is important because the new software comes with bug fixes that may solve this problem as well.
After doing this, one of the first options you should do would be to restart your iPhone. Then, once you’ve done so, you can check if it works again.
One common issue that people have with auto curation that leads to this error occurs in the Photos app.
You may notice that some of your photos have a cloud symbol in the bottom right, although the Photos app states that your library is up-to-date.
To make that cloud icon disappear and fix the auto curation issue, first, duplicate these photos. Then, remove the first photos with the cloud icon. After doing this, curation should be able to finish running on all your devices.
Try not to download too many things at once. When you do download something new, consider deleting one of your old apps or games. Doing so will maintain some free space on your device.
If another problem occurs, or these tips haven’t fixed the problem for you, it is advisable to contact Apple Support.
Final Thoughts
Curating is a great feature that can quickly help you manage your device, find new applications, or create new albums or groupings of your content. That said, many people do not enjoy this feature.
For this reason, we’ve discussed above how to stop your iPhone from curating. Also, if you have problems with curating, you should now have some ideas on how you can fix the issue.
So far, these are some of the most effective solutions that we have come up with to stop curation issues.
They will help you solve the current problem on your device and can additionally boost its performance. As previously mentioned, if one solution doesn’t work, another one will. So, don’t stop trying until you find something that works for your device.
These tips should help you understand what curating is, how curating works and how you can stop it if you would like to turn it off. If you still face the “curating stuck at 90%” issue, then an Apple Support technician might be able to fix it for you.
It would be best not to ignore the notification that appears on your screen, as it could be a severe or locally-specific problem.
