Romplestiliskin
Level 1 (20 points)
iTunes

Q: iOS 10: Transferring purchases from device (iPhone) to iTunes not working

I just found out that many apps on my iPhone are not in my iTunes library despite selecting and syncing from iTunes. I never had this problem with iOS 9 before.

 

Is Apple working on fixing this issue or is there something that I can do to transfer the purchases without having to manually download them via iTunes?

iPhone 7 Plus, iOS 10

Posted on Oct 18, 2016 6:52 PM

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Romplestiliskin

Q: iOS 10: Transferring purchases from device (iPhone) to iTunes not working

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  • by turingtest2,

    turingtest2 turingtest2 Oct 19, 2016 3:38 AM in response to Romplestiliskin
    Level 10 (88,143 points)
    Apple TV
    Oct 19, 2016 3:38 AM in response to Romplestiliskin

    A feature introduced with iOS 9 (over a year ago now) referred to as app thinning or app slicing allows each device to download only the code and resources needed by that device, resulting in smaller downloads and better use of storage on the device. As a consequence the device no longer holds the universal version of the app that could be installed on any device so transferring apps is no longer supported. You can however download past purchases from iTunes and/or enable automatic downloads of app purchases to make sure that iTunes always has the apps that you want on your device. A further change to the way restores are implemented means that all private app data is restored and apps that are not in the library are queued for download from the iTunes Store over Wi-Fi, in a similar fashion to the way restore from iCloud works. Not having the apps in your library isn't the drawback it once was, however you are still at risk of losing a favoured app if it is removed from the store and you don't have a local copy.

     

    tt2