how to organize apps with itunes?

Management of apps, books, and tones has been removed from iTunes 12.7. See Changes in the new iTunes - Apple Support for details. The intention is clearly that management of these generally takes place on the device.

See the Manually add items from your computer section of Manually manage content on your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch using iTunes - Apple Support for the control that remains. This can be used to copy apps (including apps that have been withdrawn from the store), ePubs, iBooks, PDFs, and tones from your computer to your device. The File Sharing feature for copying data between apps and the computer is still there. You can also use iCloud Drive, or Dropbox to move content to and from the device.

A long time criticism of iTunes, at least from some quarters, is that has been that it has become bloated. Perhaps this is an attempt to address that. I let both my iOS devices update automatically when there is an updated app, and I'm not interested in hanging on to old apps that a developer has withdrawn, nor do I need to rearrange my apps often, so while the change is drastic, I don't think it really affects me much. I'm more irritated by the changes to iTunes U, and iBooks in iTunes for Windows.

See Deploy apps in a business environment with iTunes - Apple Support for access to iTunes 12.6.3 if you want to revert to a build with app management features. Windows users need to uninstall the current copy of the iTunes application first. See Empty/corrupt iTunes library after upgrade/crash for steps to revert to a pre-iTunes 12.7 version of your iTunes database.

tt2

If you use MacOS, Apple has a tool called Apple Configurator. Its purpose is to simplify deployments for educational and enterprise institution. Among many tools included in it, you can also find (you guessed it) a home screen layout organizer.

To access it:

1. Install the app.
2. Connect your iPhone via USB to your Mac.
3. Launch Apple Configurator.
4. Click Actions > Modify > Home Screen Layout.

These replies don't really answer the question. Now that the apps section has been removed from iTunes, how do you organize your apps on the phone? Manually moving apps on the phone screens has always been a suboptimal way to organize apps. Is this another downgrade by Apple?

Your options are to manage on the device, which can be done whenever you and your device are in the same place, but can be a little fiddly at times, or you can revert to iTunes 12.6.3.6 and manage your apps when you, your device and your computer are all together. If your copy of iTunes as is unresponsive as mine sometimes is you can have almost as much difficulty reorganizing apps in iTunes. Choose your pain.

tt2

Idiotic idea to demand rearranging apps on the phone and preclusing it on the laptop, where it is way way more convenient. Time for apple to either add that back in to itunes or make a dedicated app available.

This is very bad news for me. I have 8 pages of apps on my iPhone and have relied on the iTunes app to easily make order of chaos in the past. This has made it easy to use folders to advantage and strategically organize the first couple screens of apps for efficiency of use. Now, I must do this on the phone itself. When I'm trying to add to a folder on app page 1 or 2, the existing apps overflow to succeeding pages and apps I'm used to in a particular location get shoved down to the next line, different column, different page, etc.

Yes iTunes had become a weird grab bag of functions, but iPhone app organization really needs help by providing the functionally of the Mac's extra screen acreage. Please Apple! Listen to our plea!

Making us rearrange on the iphone was plain idiotic but no one cares what we think.

It is a real pain to sit there & rearrange on the iphone with fat fingers, apps disappearing, screens

moving etc etc.

It was soooo much easier on the pc where you could easily see the complete set up all at once.

Left microsoft because they always knew 'better' and apple is no different - just herd us along.

Sorry to see things going in the wrong direction.

With Windows you need to uninstall the current version of iTunes before you can install the older build. See also Empty/corrupt iTunes library after upgrade/crash to revert to a version of your library that can be read by iTunes 12.6.3.6.

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iTunes Installer Completed

Errors occurred during installation before iTunes could be configured.

That error suggests a problem removing the old version of Apple Software Update. Try repairing Apple Software Update from the programs and features control panel first. See the second box of Troubleshooting issues with iTunes for Windows updates for further advice. You will also need to revert to an older version of your database as shown in Empty/corrupt iTunes library after upgrade/crash.

tt2

See Deploy apps in a business environment with iTunes - Apple Support for access to iTunes 12.6.3 if you want to revert to a build with app management features. Windows users need to uninstall the current copy of the iTunes application first. See Empty/corrupt iTunes library after upgrade/crash for steps to revert to a pre-iTunes 12.7 version of your iTunes database.

Would save you from having to purchase Android versions of anything that isn't free. Purchases are not transferable between the two ecosystems.

tt2

Thanks for the info. Even bad news is ok when accurate 😟

I preferred being able to organize apps both ways for different reasons.

When I searched Apple.com I found this still on their website (iTunes 11 for Mac: Sync and organize iOS apps). This was misleading even though it says "iTunes 11" in the title, I never thought Apple would remove such a prominent, user-friendly feature from future versions of the software.

Thanks again for the info.

Oh *groan*, somebody must have already mentioned Apple does not read this forum for this kind of feedback, just other users like yourself who are tired of reading posts that don't really contribute anything new.

Somebody must have already posted this link:

http://www.apple.com/feedback/itunesapp.html

Oh, and please stop canonizing Steve Jobs. He was the founder of Apple's "give them something and tell them they like it" philosophy.

This is a user to user forum. Apple decision makers do not monitor these discussions. If you really want to “officially” complain, use the feedback form:

https://www.apple.com/feedback/iphone.html

otherwise, you can read the thread you posted in for ways in which you can continue to manage your apps on your computer. Including the iTunes version that retains that feature.

iTunes started out as a quite nice music playing/organizing app. It was called SoundJam before Apple bought it.

In my opinion, a good solution would be a dedicated phone management app, sort of a consumer version of Configurator 2 (which is an option to consider, by the way). But, I don't see it as a likely part of Apple's plans. But, perhaps if enough people submit feedback....

Product Feedback - Apple

Perhaps I'm lucky and the fifty years of piano playing resulted in stronger hands.

pat0653 wrote:

The iPhone and iPad are great bits of hardware. iTunes is a really rubbish bit of software.

I agree that it was useful to rearrange apps on the laptop rather than the small screen of a phone. Why has this gone and, with 994 complaints on this site, when is it coming back?

994 complaints. over 1 billion users. Let's see: 994/1,000,000,000 = 0.0001% of users cared enough to comment. Doesn't sound like that an overwhelming majority, or even a sizeable minority, does it? There are many more comments and complaints over the fact that it now takes 1/4 second more to delete a message in the Messages app.

To answer your question, no one knows, because Apple doesn't publicize their plans, but my guess is never, because it is even rumored that Apple is planning to kill iTunes entirely.

For the nonce, if you download iTunes 12.6.3 you can still manage apps on it. Or download the free Apple iPhone Configuration Utility (Apple Configurator in the Mac App Store) and use it. And if you want to let Apple know your view on the subject this user-to-user forum is not the place to do it; instead use https://apple.com/feedback (All of which you would know if you had read the thread you posted to).