Updating Apps - Necessary to update on computer?

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Level 1

5 points

Updating Apps - Necessary to update on computer?

Updating apps through iTunes on my Windows Vista PC is incredibly slow. I have been updating apps on both the computer and on my devices (iPhone 6plus and iPad 4 on IOS 9.1.3, iPhone 4 on IOS 7.1.2) Updating directly to a device seems to be quicker. Constanting updating the apps directly on both the computer and each device would seem an unnecessary duplication of effort.

Is it necessary to update apps on the computer? If the apps on the devices are kept updated directly onto the devices, won't the apps on the computer get updated when I do a sync?

On the other hand, I assume that if I only upgraded apps on the computer, the apps on the devices would probably get updated when I synced and it would save me downloading the upgraded apps multiple times (for each device seperately). However, the update through iTunes on the computer is so slow, I think I would still prefer to do the upgrades directly to each device, even though it involves multiple downloads.

Any thoughts or advice would be much appreciated.

Homebrew plus Toshiba Satellite, Windows Vista

Posted on Apr 28, 2016 6:01 PM

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Answer 1

ckuan

Level 10

120,686 points

Apr 28, 2016 6:23 PM in response to itobor

Here's the breakdown.

1. The new iOS supports "App Thinning"

When you download directly from a device then only the resources (size of images, screen resolutions, ...) that are used on that device are downloaded.

The downloaded app for example on an iPhone 5 does not have resources for other Apple devices (iPhone 6, iPhone 6 plus, iPad mini, iPad...)

One reason the download is quicker since it's smaller

2. The apps using computer iTunes to download have all the resources needed for all supported devices when you sync.

It's also a backup in case the developer pulled the app from the app store then you won't be able to re-download from the app store.

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Answer 2

itobor Author

Level 1

5 points

Apr 28, 2016 7:22 PM in response to ckuan

ckuan,

Thank you for the prompt and informative reply. Food for thought.

I take it then, that if I download updates from computer iTunes the update will then sync to any (un-updated) device that I later sync to that computer.

However, the converse will not be true. If I update an app from an IOS device and then sync to computer iTunes, the update will NOT go over to the computer because it will be the "thinned" version and not suitable for syncing over to OTHER IOS devices.

Is that correct?

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