Transfer Purchases no longer working

There is all manner of talk that it MUST be done like this because of

"App Thinning".

Either the iTunes/App Store developers just don't want to make the effort

to make all this new stuff transparent to the users and have things work as they always

have, or they were simply told not to and do it in a way to push it out as fast as possible

and the users be ******!!!! After all, iTunes does know what device is plugged in

and Apple knows what devices and apps you have.

As for me, I have also sent my displeasure to Apple via the feedback channel.

Will probably fall on deaf ears though.

The problem is NOT with transferring apps from computer to device. The problem is with transferring apps from device to computer.

If you purchase/download an app on an iOS9 device that app will not transfer to your iTunes library when you sync.

Everyone says its because of app thinning but I guess apple should give us an option if we want to use this stupid feature or not. I just saw the size of the Whatsapp update v2.12.9. On the iPhone 6 ios 9.0.2 and on iTunes(latest version) it shows the same size. Wheres the App thinning here? If I download the whole file on my phone it better go onto itunes. I hate wasting my internet usage cause i have a limited usage per month.

Also i just noticed iTunes has a separate tab for "apps for iphone" and "Apps for ipad". If they have this feature why cant they just sync and backup my iphone apps onto my PC?

I'm sure its a bug and its not because of app thinning.

So, I have successfully managed to cross my broadband connection download limit.

All thanks to downloading and updating 6 idevices due to this dumb stupid regressive change by our loving Apple Inc.

Yes, the El Capitan download fiasco also had a role to play here with the 3 macs.

As for App thinning I'd just compare it to my response when asked about my weight...basically A LIE.

Kudos Apple...thank you for helping me become more aware of my idevice addiction.

Awareness being the first step towards bringing change. 🙂

Sorry folks; don't have a cure for this transfer purchases issue. Tried everything.

PS: I remain totally impressed with how this has been hushed up on all Tech Sites.

Pakzadn wrote:

....

🙂Sorry folks; don't have a cure for this transfer purchases issue. Tried everything.

PS: I remain totally impressed with how this has been hushed up on all Tech Sites.

The only cure in a situation like yours is to only download updates and new apps

in iTunes, then sync the devices to iTunes which will then download apps to the

devices. Isn't this "new improved method" so much more convenient?

As for El Capitan, you could have downloaded on the first machine and then

made a bootable installer for the others (Create a bootable installer for OS X - Apple Support).

My phone had been failing to wake up when being pulled off its charging dock since my upgrade to 9.2 so I did a restore last night, wherein I noticed that iTunes warned me that several apps that were on my phone were not successfully backed up to my iTunes and I'd run the risk of losing them when I did the restore.

Since I sync my phone constantly with my iTunes library I thought that this was clearly an error on the part of iTunes or at worst some random app that was on my phone that was now pulled from the App store.

When the restore completed, I noticed that several folders were missing apps that I had recently downloaded and upon checking they weren't in my iTunes app library even though I had synced the phone earlier that day.

That's when I googled "itunes sync not backing up apps" and found this (and other) threads detailing the issue.

From what I can tell, people have been told by Apple that this is to do with new "App Sliming" protocols. Here's what I did that got my syncing back up and running again in all of my subsequent testing.

Update your phone/iPad to the latest OS.

Update your iTunes to the latest version.

Under "Preferences" > Store make sure "Apps" is checked off on the auto download section.

On your account icon (the little head silhouette next to the search bar in the top right of iTunes) go to "purchases" and (mostly for the sake of monitoring/testing and if you don't have an innumerable amount of apps in the cloud, select the "download all" option to pull everything you have in the cloud down to your local storage. I know that this isn't a reasonable move for some of you, but going forward, if Apple IS in fact monkeying with their local backup protocol this is the best way to keep tabs on stuff, store everything you own local and track what isn't copying to local with the "sync" or "backup" feature.

Once everything is downloaded, you should have NOTHING in your "purchases" section in the cloud (because you've pulled it all down. It will repopulate there as/if you delete stuff from your local storage.

Once I did all of that, newly downloaded apps that I downloaded to my phone and iPad work fine with "sync" they transfer over to my local storage just fine, despite allegations that I see from other users in this and similar threads that Apple has phased out local backup via the Sync feature.

I'm going to keep checking the cloud "purchases" section under my account after each sync session to see what winds up there vs what transfers locally to my computer/iTunes.

I believe that this may have just been a functionality overlap with some new features between iOS 9.+ and iTunes 12.3.0.44. Backing up from iOS 9 to older versions of iTunes prior to 12.3.0.44 omitted some apps that had been flagged with "slimming" protocols.

In my subsequent tests after getting everything restored and updated I was unable to get any newly downloaded or updated apps to NOT sync locally or transfer over to my computer.

If any of my recommendations are redundant or unnecessary please feel free to point out what and explain clearly, in layman's terms for myself and anybody else reading this/experiencing this issue.

Hope that some of this helps! I'd be terribly upset if Apple somehow phased out the ability to back apps up locally via iTunes and required that you download everything from the cloud in order to maintain backups as that's several extra steps that I wouldn't want to keep up with. Doing weekly "syncs" with my devices is all but a ritual for me now and it has always served me well for quick restore sessions as needed.

Oh, BTW, restoring my device seems to have fixed my dock wake up issues too. 😉

New feature: "App Thinning": To make apps smaller they are being customized for specific hardware when downloaded from Apple directly to a device with iOS9. The variant of an app downloaded for a retina iPad may not be suitable for a non-retina iPhone. Transferring from one device to a computer to a different device may result in the wrong version being used and Apple has disabled transfer from device to computer in order to prevent this happening. If you want a backup copy on your computer you can transfer a non-thinned version directly from the Store to the computer which should you need it can be transferred to any i-device (but will take up more room).

https://developer.apple.com/library/watchos/documentation/IDEs/Conceptual/AppDis tributionGuide/AppThinning/AppThinning.html - iOS9 App Thinning > "Slicing is the process of creating and delivering variants of the app bundle for different target devices. A variant contains only the executable architecture and resources that are needed for the target device." ... "The App Store will create and deliver different variants based on the devices your app supports."

Ah, so, after a few days of testing in various combinations of devices to iTunes/local backup, I see that purchases do in fact no longer transfer from devices when syncing.

The ONLY ways I see that you can get your purchased apps to your local storage is:

Go to Preferences>Store and check off Apps, Music, Books, etc. and, if your computer is connected to the internet, as soon as you download the apps to your device they will automatically download to your iTunes on your computer.

OR, click on the account icon and download them from the cloud.

I've also noticed the following app behavior.

An app that has been updated to the latest version on iTunes WILL update an out of date version on a device during a sync session.

An app that has been updated to the latest version on a devices WILL NOT update an out of date version on iTunes during a sync session.

So, where in the past you could do ALL of your updating on your device or on you iTunes and then have updates transfer both ways, now it only works from iTunes to device.

Okay, so, I guess this is the new normal. I'll just have to get out of the habit of syncing my phone with my iTunes on a weekly basis and instead just make sure that everything I've purchased on my devices is auto-downloaded to iTunes on my computer. I'll make my "backups" of my phone less frequent.

I see a lot of people parroting Apple's announcement about "normal behavior" in iOS 9 for this stuff, but can anybody fully explain what the benefit of this is in PLAIN ENGLISH?

I am pleased I found this thread.

When iOS 9 came out I did a clean install - factory reset the reinstalled from backup. I was surprised at how long it took the apps to re load. I have since been as usual backing up my iPhone, then tonight I realised there was lots of apps on iTunes that had not updated to the latest version and new apps that were missing. I tried backing up again and at no point did iTunes say backing up apps. I thought I had a problem, I am glad I found this info here.

I thought I had been doing the right thing with my updates, but no.

Now I am not going to enter into the pros and cons of this new system. But I will say I am very unhappy that it was´t made obvious to us all by Apple. It is a major change. A definite communication issue!

Rather than sort through all the apps I do and don´t want I have just downloaded my entire purchase history to my Mac and have changed the preferences so new purchases are now automatically downloaded to the Mac.

I really think Apple should have posted some info on the iTunes Device Summary screen.

Yup Richard, that's exactly what I've done too.

I pulled down my entire cloud of apps to local (many of which hadn't been transferred to my computer since my upgrade to iOS 9) just in case Apple decides to nuke any of them that I happen to like or use (it's happened in the past, hence my regular "sync" backup sessions) and I set iTunes to auto download apps.

That's going to be the "new normal" where I was previously syncing to my computer once a week.

I suppose if the apps are auto-downloading without me even having to sync that is TECHNICALLY more convenient ... but any time there's a dramatic change in the way I do things with ZERO explanation from the company that's making said dramatic change I feel a bit burned.

Glad that you found the thread too and glad that I played some small part in clearing up the same confusion that I was experiencing.

Hi Frankie,

I will be changing my backup procedure. First open iTunes, click on device and backup to iTunes as before. Click File>Devices>Transfer purchases. Then click on my account go into purchases to check all apps have been downloaded, if not download them. Next go to updates (on iTunes) ensure the app updates have been downloaded, if not download them. After a couple of times checking all is ok I will stop testing the App downloads.

As you say there has been ZERO explanation from Apple. People need to be informed. I think the minimum would be a nice large dialogue box in iTunes. This could appear after you connect your device explaining the changes and suggesting if you would like to have a local copy of your apps, to go to the preferences and change the settings, or better still a question would you like local storage of Apps, Music and / or movies. Click the ones you want and it changes the preferences for you (and downloads the apps you currently have on your iOS device).

Finally I would like to say I like the idea of App Slimming and think its a great idea in that it saves filling an iOS device with unnecessary data.

Gordon, If you have an app on your device that you never backed up to local storage, check your purchased app cloud under your user account icon.

It may be there.

If the app is not there and you hadn't previously synced to back it up to iTunes prior to iOS 9 you're probably out of luck.

In the past I would have recommended backing up all of your apps locally, at least once a week just in case something got pulled.

Though, if a game is pulled by a developer it is typically based on incompatibility. Does Fight Control work properly without crashing on iOS 9?

....

Finally I would like to say I like the idea of App Slimming and think its a great idea in that it saves filling an iOS device with unnecessary data.

Except for some of the graphically intensive games, how big a difference

will there really be in reality? How many app developers are really going to

take the time to tailor their apps to work on different devices and keep track of all those

different files that need to be created for different devices? What developer is going to

make an app look really good on iPadPro and then fiddle with files to make it smaller

and look good on an iPhone?