iOS Software Download Progress in Finder

I'm finding that Catalina has removed a lot of formally very user-friendly features. It is really rather disheartening to be honest; I don't think this was an intentional thing on behalf of Apple, i.e. I don't think they set out with the mindset of "lets remove a bunch of features that are really helpful to our users." I think it speaks more to the fact that they are expending less rigor in ensuring that they are delivering updates that live up to their formally very high standards. Very sad; I would just hope that at some point, Apple realizes that the more they chip away at the user experience, the more they lose their competitive advantage, or their "moat" in investment terms. As time goes on, the value proposition of Apple products continues to erode. Their products demand a sizable price increase over their competition. As time goes on, I'm finding that I continue to pay "premium" pricing for ultra-sub-premium product. I'm seriously considering migrating to another platform.

While there is a small circle progress indicator in the Finder side bar next to your iOS device plugged in, Apple has made a huge mistake not proving more information for the download, such as estimated time remaining or a percentage. This is very frustrating and quite honestly a bonehead move by Apple, continuously changing processes for the worse. I hope in a future update the add an estimated download time and percentage when hovering over the attached device in the Finder side bar. (not holding my breath they will fix this any time soon)

Also in the new Catalina update, when you accidentally disconnect your phone during download, it will stop the download and once reconnected, you have to start all over.

This is tedious when using a semi broken wire.

I sure hope they will fix this soon

TaylorBarr, I absolutely agree with you. It is a simple feature that helps users to make decision if they want to update now or later for personal reasons. I was wondering when I could not find the update status from my finder. I hope Apple brings it back.

In my case it always gives the same answer:

total 7864416

-rw-r--r--  1 luis  staff   3.7G Dec 28 14:43 iPhone_4.7_P3_13.3_17C54_Restore.ipsw

The first time I run this command is Dec 29 at 10:43, then I believe something is wrong at least in my case

Completely agree!

Since you go through this on a regular basis, could you please tell me how you finish the restore?

.

So I had to force my iphone into recovery and like you said after 15 minutes it kicked out of recovery... how do I restore it?

I forced it back into recovery and had to start the download... it is a 15-minute vicious cycle.

Please help me find out how to complete the recovery.

If you can help me I would greatly appreciate it!

Yeah this is really dumb. I’m happy using the terminal, but Jesus Christ, I still wouldn’t do that. Was going to update my daughter’s iPhone 7 to iOS 13, but no way without some idea of how long it’s going to take. Bin iTunes, whatever, but why even allow the phone to update with the computer if you’re going to take away the progress bar?!?

Its disheartening to see that Apple has really taken user experience and the ease of operation for granted. As i see that people have been complaining since October 2019 and few have reported the issue directly to Apple, till date no one from Apple has acknowledged the problem ,leave alone finding a solution to the issue. Im really foreseeing a doom for Apple if it continues to have this attitude.

I hope someone from Apple will acknowledge this post and find a solution to this trivial problem

You know what “Assume” makes of u and me.

It is a design change. Only a problem if you don’t like it. So without a problem there is no solution.

Howeve one workaround is to use Apple Configurator 2 for which has a progress bar for some data movements if that floats your boat.

There is no workaround for Sync. Just observe the circular arrows and the pie.

Make a feature request at Apple.com/feedback for replacing the progress bar - I have.

They will read that, but not this thread.

Apple is creating mess, by each update it removing features from iTunes, Like earlier I can download iPhone apps in Mac and update in all my iPhones, Apple removed that feature, then it removes Ringtones button and so on , sometimes I think that Apple collaborated with Android so that Apple users use one Android phone to do the simple things, like Apple still don't support Call recording (every Android is capable of that ) Apple is just copying features from Android, I still remember SWIPE Keyboard feature was there in my first Android phone back in 2012 the same feature added in iOS 13 now in 2019 **** .

None of which answers the topic, because the point still stands: Apple removed something pretty basic, namely telling users the size of a phone update and approximate download time if they decide to update their phone using their Mac - and for no apparent reason.

FWIW I do the opposite. Because I have 30GB a month cap on WIFI and 100GB a month on the phone I tether the Mac to the phone hotspot and use Mac Finder to download the update. I know the update is around 3GB so I follow it on Activity monitor watching network Received bytes on AMPDevicesagent. . More accurate than a progress bar.

As soon as the download completes the phone changes to update and the tether drops.

Bottom line is Finder can be used to download major updates on WIFI and activity monitor will, erm, monitor activity.

No problems

I wrote a script based on timkuo313's answer that keeps running and updating the size of the files. (You can exit it by ctrl+c)

for (( ; ; ))
do
  ls -lhrt ~/Library/iTunes/iPhone\ Software\ Updates && sleep 2 && clear;
done

Save this in a shell file, run

chmod a+x path/to/your/file.sh && path/to/your/file.sh

still same issue till today mid march! its been since catalina almost 5 months 3 major updates and no news or any feedback! tragic. its like recently with some actions they want us to use iTunes in Windows PCs and not Mac OS! extremely saddened!

VolsRam14 wrote:

Since updating my MacBook Pro to macOS Catalina, which removes iTunes, I can no longer view the download progress of updating the software for my iPhone. When updating through iTunes there used to be a progress status bar giving me an idea of time to download. But now, since the updates occur through Finder, all I see is a spinning icon next to my phones name. Is there any way to show the download progress and time left in this new Catalina update?

Well now this exactly is my problem and I didn't even know that the phone times out after 15 minutes. And obviously 15 min. is not enough time for the download to be completed. Any idea how to workaround this? Isn't there a way to just download the ios version as single and upgrade the phone with a local file?

Very frustrating and the irony in all this is that apple claim to build the best intuitive infrastructure? You really kidding with us? Any windows pc provides more comfort. That's for sure.