It's an "out of sight, out of mind" type of thing, which isn't the same having an uninstall or a disable option. I appreciate that Google is primarily an analytics company and they need us to use their 'free' products to generate this information for others, but I gotta tell you, there's a whack of their stuff I'll never use, taking up valuable room on my Nexus.Putting them on a homescreen all by themselves does nothing.
Its just a pity that Google is tagging along with imposed software lark, rather than let the user choose which of their products to use.
But it's still there on your device, whether you 'disable' it or not.
In that regard, Android is not far off - you needn't place any unwanted app (as found in the App screens) on your home screens. Well, no, you can't disable unwanted embedded apps in iOS, but I have placed them in a folder called 'Junk Drawer' and then placed that in a home screen by itself to be forgotten. I appreciate that Google is primarily an analytics company and they need us to use their 'free' products to generate this information for others, but I gotta tell you, there's a whack of their stuff I'll never use, taking up valuable room on my Nexus. You can't with iOS-you can't even hide them on the homescreen, can you? (Unless that's a new feature on iOS7-I'm mostly familiar with iOS6.)Well, no, you can't disable unwanted embedded apps in iOS, but I have placed them in a folder called 'Junk Drawer' and then placed that in a home screen by itself to be forgotten.
At least you can disable a lot of those types of apps with Android. You can't remove iTunes, Appstore, Newsstand, etc.