Q: Syncing Apps to iPhone 6 / 6 Plus Stuck

Try the lightning cable that came with the iPhone 6 - it's working for me.

Tried the wi-fi only and the airplane mode - still hanging up and then saw a post online to try the new cord and it worked!!

Credit to Sabastian Goodwin (http://sitesdoneright.com/blog/2014/09/ios-8-iphone-6-waiting-for-apps-to-sync-i s-stuck)

SOLUTION. I had backed up to my iMac, not iCloud. But I did have my calendar and contacts and "important data" on iCloud. I had a thought. I went back to factory settings. I FIRST signed into iCloud. Then I signed into iTunes. Then I plugged into iMac and SET UP AS NEW PHONE. Gave iPhone 6 a new name. I'm now copying over all my music and videos and pictures after making the selections on the iPhone 6 screen in iTunes. Only problem: The text message history has been lost. Oh well. I can at least use the thing now!

The Sync over WiFi worked for me to transfer the apps and it was a lot faster than downloading from the App store.  There is still some weirdness to work out after syncing because what I see on iTunes is not what I see on the iPhone.

Jay

This is soooooooo annoying.  None of these are working too well for me.  My WiFi seems to drop out before it even gets to the apps (probably unrelated), and I still get hung up when syncing in airplane mode.  I'm now going with the painful approach and just unplugging when it hangs up, restarting iTunes, and starting the sync over.  Soooooooooooo annoying.

This worked for me:

1. Without your iPhone attached, ensure all apps on iTunes are updated to the most recent updates
2. Connect old iPhone and transfer all purchases from the iPhone to iTunes
3. Backup old phone locally to iTunes with encryption selected (this ensues that passwords and app data are saved)
4. Ensure the new iPhone 6 is reset to Factory Defaults
5. Only perform the initial setup on the phone and select "Restore from iTunes backup"
6. Connect the iPhone 6 to the computer and select the backup to use as the restore seed
7. Walk away - don't interfere with the process. When iTunes restore effort reaches the copy apps stage, watch carefully, but be patient. If there are many apps, iTunes will organize them in batches, so you may not see complete information in the status bar. iTunes may also look as though it is stuck, but watch carefully as it still may be processing the batches. iTunes should reach the point where it finishes batching and is only copying apps to the new iPhone.
8. The process completed itself

I have an i7 iMac with OS 10.9.4.

Same problem, except with an iPad.  Most frustrating.  The solution posted below using the sync cable failed to work.  However, it does seem that big apps cause the problem.  Perhaps there is a timing issue in iTunes.

None of the solutions seem to work for me.... When will apple address this HUGE issue?

I had the syncing problem with 2 new iPhones 6's. Had problems even with turning on Airplane mode with no WiFi. Here's what finally worked for me...

- Make sure you have a good backup of your old phone in iTunes.

- Put new phone in Airplane Mode and restart it and iTunes.

- Plug the phone into USB but stop any automatic syncing.

- In Summary Page "Restore iPhone" and let it do its thing.

- What is interesting about Restoring iPhone is that on both of my new iPhones I got a window to "Update Carrier Settings" and said yes (I'm on T-Mobile).

- Completed the Restore and used the old backup to restore from.

- While the backup was copying over, I completed the "Welcome" screens on the iPhone.

I'm using Mac OS X 10.9.5

On my system, everything was up to date and backed up just before I transferred everything (iPhone 5 to iPhone 6). The first time it hung on the second app file (of 70+) it tried to transfer (actually a map database for Navigon). It stuck there for well over a half hour. I found this thread, but decided simply to try again. I force-quit iTunes (it wanted to keep synching when I tried a standard quit) and did a soft reset of the phone (holding the power and Home buttons). On the next sync, everything worked without having to change to WiFi sync.

I did notice that the file order seemed to be a bit random while syncing. It transferred about 36 apps, transferred music, podcasts and some photos and then transferred a bunch more apps. It finished up by transferring another batch of podcasts. I never saw an iPhone sync that way before, but it worked.

IMHO this may be worth trying before changing over to or from a WiFi sync.

That sounds agonizing.  I pushed through and eventually got thru the App section.  I'm now loading photo's and it "seems" to be doing better.

my phone won't sync at all with either of those options.

When I try either and click sync (or apply), the apple logo flashes at the top and says "Beginning Sync" but then it goes away and nothing happens.  On Live Chat right now, but so far nothing is working. 

This is extraordinarily frustrating. I am experiencing the exact same issue. So far no success with any solutions.

You may need to de-activate you old phone from iCloud.

iCloud: Remove your device from Find My iPhone

My issue was different, my iPhone 6 was only being seen by iTunes with it plugged in via the USB/Lightening cable, even though the Sync with Wi-Fi option was selected.

1 - I had made my backup of my iPhone 5 prior to switching over to my iPhone 6

2 - I had restored my iPhone 6 from my backup (it did not hang as mention in these posts)

But selecting the iPhone 6 when connected via cable there were some things that just weren't right, no phone # being displayed.

I tried the suggestions in the post about killing the ApplesMobileDeviceUpdater (which is killed when you close iTunes), disabling/enabling wifi on my device, rebooting my device, rebooting my mac, none of these resolved my issue with iTunes seeing the iPhone 6 via wifi.

I went and looked at my iCloud account and the devices connected to it, I had forgotten to delete my iCloud account from my old iPhone before I wiped it. This required me to re-Activate my iPhone5 to remove it from iCloud and then wipe it again. After doing all this, I connected my iPhone 6 via cable to iTunes, toggle/sync'd the Sync with Wi-Fi option, performed a sync with the cable (Dropbox was syncing every time until I logged into the app on my iPhone, kinda weird too). When I finally unplugged the iPhone 6 from the mac, iTunes still recognized it.

I'm just wondering if there is a confusion factor going on up in iCloud if you devices are still activated and your using the backup from the old device.

Upgraded from 4s to 6.  The restore got stuck on app 30 of 107.  It was the Amazon shopping app so I knew after five minutes it was stuck.  I unplugged the USB / lightning, waited a few seconds plugged it back in and hit synch and no more problem on apps.  Music didn't load though.  I had to deselect music, synch, reselect music, synch and the music loaded. 

Just to clarify,

I was able to restore my iphone 6 from the back up I did of my 4s to the computer in itunes.  All of my contacts, text messages and photos transferred onto the new phone, but the apps and music did not.  I am just trying to sync now, as you normally would anytime you plug your phone into the computer and I keep getting the apple logo at the top to flash once and say "beginning sync" but then it goes away, and nothing happens. 
I've tried restarting my computer, and my iphone 6.  I haven't tried wiping it and starting over from scratch which I guess I should now.  ugh.

Also live chat has basically had me on "hold" for like 5-10minutes.