Transfer Purchases no longer working

This is stupid and pointless.. why would Apple break something that worked fine???

Agreed... how did I miss the announcement?

Like many here, yesterday I found that I've now got 122 updates outstanding on iTunes that I've already updated on my iPhone but which won't now transfer to iTunes.

I have Mobile Broadband at home which is expensive per GB so I've always downloaded app updates on my iPhone 6+ (on 3 with all-you-can-eat data) then updated iTunes. I do the same for Mrs W's iPhone 5. Both are backed up regularly to my PC and an external hard-drive.

Before I panic - do I really need to update all my Apps on iTunes at all? It occurs to me that if I update the Apps on my iPhone regularly and I back-up my iPhone to iTunes, if I change my phone or have to restore from back-up then the back-up will be up-to-date irrespective of how old the apps are on my PC. I'm sure I must be missing something... advice gratefully received.

williamus wrote:

I've now got 122 updates outstanding on iTunes that I've already updated on my iPhone but which won't now transfer to iTunes.

You run 122 third party Apps on your phone? No wonder you have compatibility and speed issues!

Pete

Who said I had speed or compatibility issues? I have nearly 300 Apps on my 128GB iPhone 6+ and it's running fine...

I just want to know if I have to keep the Apps on iTunes up-to-date or whether it's enough to update the Apps on the iPhone (and keep it backed up) and what the risks are (if any) in not updating them separately on my PC/iTunes

Hi williamus,

williamus wrote:

Before I panic - do I really need to update all my Apps on iTunes at all? It occurs to me that if I update the Apps on my iPhone regularly and I back-up my iPhone to iTunes, if I change my phone or have to restore from back-up then the back-up will be up-to-date irrespective of how old the apps are on my PC. I'm sure I must be missing something... advice gratefully received.

Your restore will restore your settings, contacts etc (depending on your iTunes settings) but not your apps. Your iPhone will download the apps you had previously from Apples server (if you have a lot of apps then it a lot of data). The idea of local backup is in case an app gets pulled from the store or as in my case you dislike a new version of an app and want to keep an old version (therefore don´t update it on your computer - you can chose which apps to update). Another benefit of local backup is the speed of restoring an iOS device, apps are copied much quicker from your computer than downloaded from the App Store.

If you are not concerned about pulled apps or newer versions then save your data and don´t do a local app backup.

What I don´t understand is why Apple didn´t set iTunes to create a folder for each device you have to store the App (ipa) files relating to that device. That way when you back up your iPhone the iPhone specific version of the app is saved to its own folder and when you backup your iPad the iPad specific version of the app would be saved, again to its own folder. iTunes could give you a warning if you tried to put an iPad specific version on an app on an iPhone and vice versa and directing you to download the correct app version.

Richard, thank you.

If I've understood correctly, if at a later date I restore my iPhone from a back-up and I haven't updated my Apps on my PC/iTunes the iPhone will download all the Apps (that need updating) from the Apple servers? I too have several defunct Apps or old versions of Apps on my iPhone and on my PC/iTunes - presumably I wouldn't lose these and could manually copy them across?

I'm thinking that if I update my iTunes continuously over the next year (until the iPhone 7 arrives 🙂) I'm going to spend a lot of time and money (on capped MBB) doing it. For example I have MS Word which is c. 350mb and seems to be updated every other week. If I update my Apps on the iPhones and let my Apps on iTunes get old, then I'll have a dose of pain when I come to restore from back-up... but it won't cost me anything because I can update them all on the iPhone on a fast 4g signal or Wi-Fi.

Does that sound plausible?

Again, grateful for the advice

Hi williamus,

No problem.

You are correct that if you make continual local backups of new Apps and Apps that you update you are doubling up on your data usage. The problem you will have is when you have an App version you like that has been superseded, if you haven't backed it up what will you do? You won´t be able to restore it, as when you download the app from App Store it will be the later version. So its difficult, you may waste many GB of data downloading new and updating old Apps, just in case an app in your opinion changes for the worse.

The first part of your question I can´t answer as I don´t catagorically know how restore works since this change in App backup, I have a good idea, but last time I surmised I was told off by a long time poster. Hopefully someone who knows can give a definite answer, as to whether your old version is loaded onto the phone first and then you are given the option to update, or whether the new version is downloaded directly.

Regards

IT appears that also we have to download our IOS as well to Itunes. It won

I Just plugged the IPad in and it want to download the whole new IOS to ITunes 1.6GB

YIkes.

does this seem right?

Ahhh, now I am more confused and concerned.

My Ipad and Iphone are at IOS 9.1

My Itunes on Win10 PC is at 12.3.1.23

1: Prior to going to 9.1. Doing software update check on one of the devices, I was advised that there was an update available ti the IOS. and that it was of the order of 189 MBytes.

Thought I would do the right thing and plug it into my PC, whereupon there was a notice that an update to IOS was available.

Updated, and lo 'n behold, even though I was at the previous update, it downloaded the whole IOS, nearly 2 GBytes.

Same with the other device. I would have hope at least that some sanity prevailed, and and I would only need to load the update, and not the whole IOS.

2: today I was notified by Icon on the phone and Ipad that there were 2 updates each one.

Went to the PC, and ran an update check, and advised that there were no available downloads. I would have expected a capability of knowing on my PC that there were updated available.

Only method of update of the Apps was to update the devices directly.

Did that and did sync. There was no notice of any apps being transferred one way or the other. Now I believe that I am left in the unenviable position of not having anything of the latest backed up on my PC. Despite that fact that the PC Itunes summary screen shows that I have the option to do a "full" backup on my PC.

Have we gone even further backwards?

Hi grampus1,

With regard to the App updates - you went to iTunes>View>Apps>Updates? The App updates should be there.

Regards

Aha, Thanks. Seems I can't see the woods for the trees.

CHeers.

If you do a restore via iTunes, it will load all the apps that are shown

under My iPhone/iPad apps and were also in some list in your last backup.

If an app or update you had previously on the iDevice, but didn't download to iTunes,

will not load with the restore and you will need to look at your purchased list

to make sure everything is there that you had.

Although it would not save a "double download" issue, iTunes could have

added an "Automatically download updates" to the store preferences as well

as "Automatically download apps purchased on other devices". The option exists

on the iDevices themselves.

Still, the entire issue is just poorly managed because iTunes could have been updated

in such way as to continue the functionality as it was and make all the adjustments

"in the background and invisible to the users". After all, iTunes knows which devices you have

and so does Apple itself. There is already 2 groups in iTunes, My iPhone Apps and My iPad Apps

(don't have an iPod so maybe there is one for it as well if you own one).

Hi all,

I've purchased an iPhone 6s but found that I'm not able to transfer the apps from my iPhone 5s to my iPhone 6s. I've tried to trigger "Transfer App from iPhone to iTunes but it didn't work at all.

Is there any clue or I have to wait until Apple to fix this problem?

Any advice, please?

Thanks and regards,

Tony.

Here is how you do it.

Go to your "purchased apps" on iTunes (which can be found in the upper right under the user account "shilouette" icon). Go to "not on this computer" and download all of the apps.

Then connect your iPhone 5 to iTunes and run a "backup". This will make a backup of what apps you have and how they're arranged on the phone.

Now you can connect the iPhone 6 and "restore backup" and it'll take the apps (that you've downloaded) and arrange them on your iPhone 6 like you had them on your 5.

iTunes no longer transfers apps from a phone to iTunes.

AS an alternative you can set your iTunes to automatically download all apps that you've purchased. You can set that up under preferences>apps on iTunes.

Hi FrankieVirurello,

Thanks so much for your advice.

I could transfer all apps and the relevant data to my new phone.

Cheers