I would not consider those essential tools to be “bloat”. In fact; those applications were a part of stock AOSP android at one time.
While it’s true that modern versions of AOSP are much more modularized; that doesn’t make them “Bloat”.
In general; the typically accepted definition of “Bloatware” apps is as follows:
Unnecessary Third-Party Apps that are a part of a(n) (Yes; all of these are required to be true about the app in question)
Pre-Installed (Without user choice or input)
Out of Box Experience (Integrated into the STOCK ROM or VENDOR PARTITION (AKA installed by service provider)
Are Unwanted and Uninstallable apps that has a front-end or launcher icon
are NOT LIBRARIES, EXTENSIONS or KERNEL MODULES (Not providing services to other apps)
NOT PROVIDING ANY SYSTEM CRITICAL SERVICES such as Networking or interfacing with the cellular modem(s) or Service Provider(s) systems to ensure functionality, activation, or network services
Unfortunately; there will always be certain functions embedded into system libraries and other blobs, that you cannot live without, that happen to be doing something you may not agree with. This is why you choose your phone’s OEM carefully and select your brand and model to be the one with the least amount of nonsense. Do your research before purchasing your handset hardware; because once you buy the phone…you’re probably gonna be stuck with it for a while. Not all OEMs, brands or models will let you wipe your phone clean and flash a new ROM on it even.
It depends what you mean by bloat and apps. Is the calculator bloat? What about the phone dialer? In Android, even the keyboard is a separate app.
Even Lineage has “bloat” - do you need a SIM ToolKit app? Perhaps if your provider still uses USSD for network operations.
If you want something slimmed down to the minimum, you’ll have to build it yourself. Because no one else knows what you need.
I would not consider those essential tools to be “bloat”. In fact; those applications were a part of stock AOSP android at one time.
While it’s true that modern versions of AOSP are much more modularized; that doesn’t make them “Bloat”.
In general; the typically accepted definition of “Bloatware” apps is as follows:
Unnecessary Third-Party Apps that are a part of a(n) (Yes; all of these are required to be true about the app in question)
Unfortunately; there will always be certain functions embedded into system libraries and other blobs, that you cannot live without, that happen to be doing something you may not agree with. This is why you choose your phone’s OEM carefully and select your brand and model to be the one with the least amount of nonsense. Do your research before purchasing your handset hardware; because once you buy the phone…you’re probably gonna be stuck with it for a while. Not all OEMs, brands or models will let you wipe your phone clean and flash a new ROM on it even.