iTunes cannot sync... apps installed on the iPhone could not be determined.

Despite the fact that more and more people are reporting this same problem every day (there are at least a dozen other threads about this -- all from the last two weeks), I'm still getting the "Your phone probably died, so you'll have to buy a new one" spiel from Apple and AT&T.

Unless all of our phones coincidentally "died" at the same time, this has to be a problem with iTunes / Apple servers / iCloud talking to them.

Does anyone know how to submit an official inquiry or bug report to Apple -- aside from the "Feedback" page? I know there aren't very many 1st-Gen users left, but that doesn't mean the issue should just be swept under the rug.

Well there are probably quite a few 1G iPhones out there and I could see that with a new version of iPhone out a prroblem could show up more at this time. However, this experience is leaving a bad taste in my mouth as I have wasted a large amount of time on it and it really looks like Apple wants me to buy a new phone every few years, since the quality of support and reliability of old versions goes down and I have no need to do that when the new versions don't add the phone features missing for me as a world traveller based in the USA.

Confirmed!

I was getting the same error message. After reading your post, I updated all my apps in iTunes. Sync worked as normal after that. Now we'll have to see if this happens again when other apps are updated.

Thanks, jp_ofarrell!

Wilby Gremlin has the answer. This is for Windows. You need to go to the Control Panel of your computer, then click on "Hardware and Sound" and click on "Device Manager". Click on your PC's name and on the upper level, click on "Action" and then "scan for hardware changes". Restart your ITunes and everything will be fine.

Thanks Wilby Gremlin!!! I call Apple people to choose this as the best answer. Enjoy folks!

I have the same problem on a 4S model for the past week. When initially plugged in, the phone will sync to transfer purchases but it will not allow the adding or removal of apps using iTunes. In iTunes, the app window for teh phone will only show the left side with teh list of apps. It will not show the right side which has the representation of the iPhone's app screens. None of the sugegstions in this post work for me. Anyone have anything more?

Updating the apps in iTunes worked for me, too.

For those of us who rebooting the PC and the iPhone did not help for.....

I would have to say that the iOS upgrade to 5 which caused all the app makers to update the apps is the cause of this problem.

Going in and updating ALL of the APPS on my iPhone led me to find apps that something required I update to iOS5 before updating them. I do not wish to update to iOS5 at this time so I had to go through every app individually until I found the ones that were not currently compatible.

I had to simply write down the apps to remember later, and DELETE them off my phone. These app makerss will sometimes realize this and update their app to be compatible with iOS4, then you can download them again later. Or maybe you will get iOS5 at some point and can re-download them then.

Then doing a sync on the PC will work. :-D

Huzzah!

RE: ... apps installed on the iPhone could not be determined

This just worked for me…

Restart iTunes

In the Apps tab, hover cursor over apps that are no longer on phone and click the X to delete

Sync

I got it to work once by:

restarting my computer

restarting iPhone.

It worked.

Now, it's back. Same error message on my next sync.

This is obviously a bug that Apple hasn't fixed...

After upgrading my iTunes to a version that supports the CLOUD 10.5.1.42, I then went to my Apps and selected Check For Updates. iTunes updated every single app. Hit Sync and it completed successfully.

Just reading thru the posts - yes, got the same fault "the apps installed on the iPod could not be determined" ya dee ya dee ya. Haven't upgraded my iPod 3G to iOS 5 yet, still running 4.3.5

so rebooted as suggested, then it goes a bit further with the Sync, does backup, looks OK, then back to the same error.

First time this has happened, but since the last Sync I've loaded some apps via the iPod, not iTunes - possible that there are some glitches between the iPod iTunes Store and the one on iTunes (PC v10.5)?

questions too whether iOS 5 is worth the risk for the iPod. any thoughts?

OK, try rebooting iTunes, the PC and the iPod - this time it worked 😕

THANKS, that worked for me!

It's not just 1st gen iphones. My gf's 3gs (using a macbook) just got this problem. My old 3gs and my new 4s haven't had this problem yet. Hopefully one of the solutions will work for her.

I had the same issue with iPod tounch 2nd gen. What I had to do was go to 'Edit' "Preferences" and unclick all the automatic transfer boxes in the 'Store' section. Then, when I synced again, it worked.