after ios 5.1 update apps won't download

I was able to fix the problem by restoring the phone from back up. No need to set up as a new phone. My wife's iPhone is having the same problem. I wll reset her phone as well of the problem won't go away

icloud back has been off (except bookmarks, notes and find my phone so I will turn those off and try)

what is the point of icloud if it has to be off?

This is definitely a software bug in iOS 5.1. I have a 32GB White 4S, I was on iOS 5.0.1 up until the weekend and everything was almost perfect, I held off on updating to iOS 5.1 but the promise of better battery life etc can't be turned down. Just to be on the safe side, and the fact that I had too much free time lol on Saturday morning, I did a clean restore on my 4S to iOS 5.1 and I even set my phone up as a "new" phone.

I've been getting these app download issues ever since, it is really hit and miss. For example I just got home from work and downloaded Angry Birds Space and a bunch of updates for apps on my phone, everything downloaded instantly and installed, however a few minutes later I decided to download that free Hunger Games app and that is just sitting there marked as "waiting" on my phone. At some point this app will download and install, maybe an hour or two later, this happens every day since iOS 5.1 was installed.

None of the solutions presented on this thread are guaranteed to work, restoring your phone as new won't work, so please don't waste your time doing that. Most of the "fixes" being recommended on this thread sound like simple coincidences, as this problem seems to come and go, sure apps might download fine now but the problem will occur again at some point in the next few hours/days etc, whenever you decide to download an app.

It's clearly a software bug that Apple need to fix.

I totally agree with you Carlitos81. I did the new update on both my devices (iphone 4 and ipad 2) the same day over the air. The iphone 4 is fine, can download and update apps no problem. The ipad however is hit and miss. Since last Saturday when I did the new IOS update I haven't been able to download or upate apps on the ipad2, only if I sync to itunes on the computer will it push them through. However, last night I decided to leave my wifi on and see if anything happened overnight. This morning I clicked on the appstore icon and it prompted me for my apple ID so I entered it, and then 3 apps started downloading (they had been waiting for a day). I was super excited so I then clicked on the next 4 apps that needed updating and now they are stuck waiting. So really it's all just hit and miss and I'm starting to lose faith in Apple as they haven't replied to the ticket I emailed them 4 days ago nor have they addressed this issue.

It worked. I followed the direction to backup and restore the phone and the problem has gone away. Outstanding. Thanks

Worked for me too... for a day -.- Restored my iPhone4 yesterday and today I downloaded a few apps... all good but a few hours ago a random free app froze and that was it. back to iTunes sync 4 me until they fix it (and I hope they'll fix this really soon)

Mine is the same hit and miss Apple sort it out please, im have to to down load things on my mac then sync via the usb cable, not even wifi sync.

Point is, this is Apple's problem not all of ours.

I've sent email to the folks at some Apple news blogs with a link to this thread. Feel free to do the same. If Apple isn't paying attention to their own support forums, maybe they'll pay attention if we can get this on some apple news sites. Just sayin.

Here's some e-mail addresses for Apple news sites we can inform till some attention is drawn:

news@appleinsider.com

arn@normalkid.com

jlgolson@macrumors.com

pcwletters@pcworld.com

letters@macworld.com

I miss Steve already. He wouldn't have let this fly.

okay I sent emails to the list above lets see if it helps.

Your suggestion about signing out for iTunes worked for me as well but, by any chance, did you then have problems signing back into iTunes after signing out to get the 'waiting' apps loaded? I tried signing back in but the store won't display the sign in section even after a regular power down and a hard reset.

Has anyone else encountered this? Or found another way around the issue aside from hard resets?

I am experiencing the same problem on my 4S, all the apps that I try to download won't get pass "waiting" stage. This happened after I updated to iOS 5.1

I also updated my iPad 2 but I am not experiencing this problem, "YET."

Please help. Thanks!

Yesterday, after running into the 'wait' problem with apps on my iPhone 4s, I followed the advice of some on this thread last night and reset the phone (Settings > General > Reset > Reset All Settings). All of my apps, photos, videos, emails and text messages were not affected by the reset. I just had to reset basic settings (i.e. my wi-fi passcode). It has been almost 24 hours and so far so good - everything appears back to normal, I am able to download and update apps.

After the 5.1 update I had the issue where my apps wouldn't install and just froze in "waiting" mode.

I was also losing 10-20% battery every hour, compared to being at 50% at the end of a day with heavy use, having network issues and sometimes missing iMessages.

I followed Ookpic's instructions last night, and since then have updated two apps with no problem and my battery is still at 97% an hour after removing it from the charger (which isn't anything special, but by this time yesterday it was at less than 80%). I just really, really hope my battery stops draining non-stop; it's kind of too early to tell how that will go right now, but it seems better so far.

What I did:

1. On iPhone Settings\general\iCloud\storage & Backup: turned off "back up to iCloud"
2. Plugged iPhone in to laptop using USB.
3. In iTunes in left column, right clicked on my iPhone and selected Sync.
4. In iTunes in left column, right clicked on my iPhone and selected Backup.
5. Disconnected my iPhone from laptop
6. on iPhone, Settings\general\reset\erase all content and settings
7. iTunes in left column, right clicked on my iPhone and selected Restore from Backup.

It took about an hour for the full process, and because I did restore from back-up, all my app organization and iMessages and everything were still as they were before, as Ookpic had said they would be.

THANK YOU OOKPIC!

@Morton20

No Problem, you're welcome. The only caveat I see with your procedure is if you use iTunes Match, it may blow away all your music. If you have a lot of songs on your device AND are using iTunes Match, the backup and restore might not include songs. So then you would have to re-download all your songs again from the cloud. If you are on 3G only or on a bandwidth limited package with your ISP, it may take a while to get them all back.

@Scottfromleesburg

It is the next day and I'm still working fine with getting new apps, updating apps, songs etc. I really don't believe this is an iOS 5.1 issue even though it started happening for me directly after I updated using the delta update OTA. The Backup and Restore procedure I layed out does nothing to the iOS firmware. All it does is refresh your data on the device. It even states that in the warning box before you do it.

Therefore I assume that nothing in the iOS version is being touched.

@cmomgowood

You can turn iCloud back on after doing the procedure. BTW I only turned off iCloud Backup. I did NOT turn off any iCloud services like mail, calendar, etc. In fact if you prefer to use iCloud as your backup then I would turn it back on AFTER you do the procedure I layed out on page 14. Then do another backup to the iCloud to ensure you have the most up to date backup on the cloud as well.

Thankks, Ookpic. I don't use Match :-)

I forgot to mention that I also turned Back Up to iCloud back on afterwards and re-synced to iCloud after the restore, as you advised.

I totally see why you're saying this isn't an OS 5.1 issue, but it seems strange to me that all of these problems appeared for me and so many other people immediately after updating to it, and without any other changes being made.

My battery is still not doing great (it's gone from 100% at 6:45 am to 88% at 9:30 am with no usage at all), but it's still WAY better than yesterday. Do you have any advice about that?

My battery life was amazing on my 4S until I did the 5.1 update. I haven't changed any settings, other than turning off a lot of things like Siri yesterday to see if that would help; there's nothing I did that can explain it other than the update, but then I know a lot of people whose battery life was not affected by it.