Restoring new iPhone 4S from iCloud backup has created an app sync nightmare with iTunes

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Restoring new iPhone 4S from iCloud backup has created an app sync nightmare with iTunes

I've restored my new iPhone 4S from iCloud and plugged it into my computer to sync over the apps so they wouldnt have to redownload via iCloud. Hit the initial ok dialogue button, which had an auto-sync apps option checkmarked under it (this was the only dialogue option and only checkmark). Now iTunes wants to reload all apps and erase app data.

The phone is peforming as expected, downloading the apps one-by-one from iCloud, however, I won't be able to sync the phone, as leaving apps sync checked will rewrite all apps (erasing app data and adding apps I don't want on my phone), and unchecking apps sync will delete all apps from the phone. I've tried removing the ~/Library/iTunes/ folder, hoping it would force iTunes to re-initialize the sync config. This didn't help at all.

Any suggestions? I really don't want to re-restore from iCloud, but thinking I'm gonna have to and hope that not checking the auto-sync apps (when the phone is plugged in for the first time) will fix the issue. It's rather mindnumbing that there doesn't appear to be a less painful option for the simple task of setting up a new device from an old device iCloud backup. Thanks in advance and I apologize if this is hard to follow.

Larry

Posted on Oct 14, 2011 11:59 AM

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Answer 1

Oct 14, 2011 12:10 PM in response to lhymes

One thing you could try is replacing the sync data on your Mac with the sync data that's on iCloud... I don't even know if this is possible... but if it is then look for such an option. Or generally just sync from iCloud -> Mac.

Can you do that?

I don't have Lion and I haven't set up anything for iCloud yet, since MobileMe was so buggy that I wanted to wait until they had the kinks worked out of iCloud. So I am just trying to think of helpful guesses.

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Answer 2

lhymes Author

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Oct 14, 2011 12:11 PM in response to DaddieMac

Does not appear to be unless I'm missing something :-/. I've resorted to re-restoring from iCloud and see if that makes a difference I will update as soon as I have an answer. All input is greatly appreciated. Thanks!

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Answer 3

Oct 14, 2011 12:28 PM in response to lhymes

Is your Mac running Lion 10.7.2? That's the only iCloud-aware version. You might want to make sure you run Software Update on it.

Also if your Mac is on Snow Leopard then it's not going to be compatible with iCloud.

If you are like me and do not want to upgrade to Lion because the new Finder is lame (bugs galore, low-contrast buttons and gray bland icons, laggy animations) and because they took the downloads window out of Safari and couldn't even get the title bar textures to match, then just don't use iCloud? I don't plan to.

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Answer 4

lhymes Author

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Oct 14, 2011 12:31 PM in response to lhymes

Ok, so this is pretty infuriating. I've gone ahead and restored from iCloud again. This time when I plugged my phone into iTunes for the first time, I unchecked the option to automatically sync apps. As expected, the Apps are not set to sync now, however, the computer does not display the apps loading on the phone, so if I did go ahead and turn on App sync, I would end up losing all app data. It appears that I will have to let all apps redownload from iCloud before I can do anything regarding syncing with iTunes. I can't believe this is the only option. I suppose I could turn off iCloud backup on my iPhone 4, allow it to create a local backup, then local restore onto iPhone 4S, then turn on iCloud backup. That seems a little too band-aidish to me, though.

Larry

Edit: Yes, I have 10.7.2 and all available system updates as of today (10/14/11).

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