Once upon a time you could organize/rearrange the apps on your iphone via your computer screen while the phone was plugged in. My phone is currently on 11.0.3, and my itunes is 12.7.0.166, so both up to date, and I no longer see this option available.
Does it no longer exist? If it does can you show me where to find it? Searches in Google and Apple Support only point me to outdated articles.
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 This can be used to copy apps (including apps that have been withdrawn from the store), ePubs, iBooks, PDFs, and tones from your computer to your device.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automatically when there is an updated app, and I'm not interested in hanging on to old apps that a developer has withdrawn, nor do I need to rearrange my apps often, so while the change is drastic, I don't think it really affects me much.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
yep, that is a bad move by apple. Apple is supposed to be easy to use, useful functions..using a phone to arrange 30-100 apps is not worth attempting..painful.. trying to flick an app three, four pages across...fark... thats why I came looking for the iTunes arrangement area..
come on fix it please...
be like nike! Just do it.
I use apple configurator 2 on my macbook. It let's you organise your screens via actions>modify>home screen layout...
And lot's of other stuff too, I've got profiles for my email accounts, certificate profiles for 802.1X wifi access etc... works great
kind regards
--Peter
I only came across the same problem recently - foolishly decided to sort my apps alphabetically. This artcle on lifehacker - search for "lifehacker ios 11 app organizing" if the link gets removed is better than the single icon, and with a bit of practise, then could replace iTunes.
https://lifehacker.com/ios-11-finally-gets-app-organizing-almost-right-181881916 5
You have to have it flat and use two hands - one to hold the first icon, the second to select the icons to group, or to swipe through pages of apps.
Now . . . Apple has become complicated interaction through all "APPLE ENVIRONMENT" . . . Now, you can't see and organize your applications from iTunes, those two verification steps aren't easy to recover iTunes account matched to specific device (which was lost), etc... I was a “Apple believer”, since Steve Jobs aren't with us, it’s not user friendly as used to be . . . maybe is time to try Android!!!!
I Agree.. Why doesn't apple ask us what we would like.. instead of.. Hey, We change some things hope you like it.. Kinda sounds selfish huh???.. Hey apple.. just ask , We will tell you.. You need to get back to the way you where. Care about what people want.. not Apple... Just saying... Have a great day.
stevefromlittlerock wrote:
I Agree.. Why doesn't apple ask us what we would like.. i
Because that has never been the way Apple has done things. They believe they know the best way to do things and they do them. Sometimes they change their mind. But not often.
You just responded to a 10 month old post that has been answered many times already in the thread since the original question.
There is also another option to using an older version of iTunes if you have a Mac: The Apple Configurator 2 app in the Mac app store.
iTunes, Photos, Safari are all severely hampered relative to say OS10.7, not to mention the ugly, windows inspired interface of El Capitan. I just don't understand *** apple is up to. Seems they change things just for the sake of change. I've yet to see something new and think, "yeah, that is great"
The point of a smartphone is to have and use apps.
Like others here I have a number of pages of apps.
Trying to rearrange or reorganise these using the phone is hopeless.
Why did Apple remove such a useful facility from itunes?
My question is - is there anywhere to complain or leave feedback on this?
deepbluesee wrote:
The point of a smartphone is to have and use apps.
Like others here I have a number of pages of apps.
Trying to rearrange or reorganise these using the phone is hopeless.
Why did Apple remove such a useful facility from itunes?
This is a user-to-user forum. "Why" questions here are unknowable, and technically violate the terms of use to discuss Apple policy.
I find organizing apps on my phone trivially easy. Of course, I have only 290 3rd party apps; if you have more it might complicate things. I did try a few times using iTunes, but it was incredibly cumbersome because iTunes was really slow in moving and redrawing. I have my apps in 4 Home screen pages, and 29 logically organized folders. I can find any app almost instantly by logical folder and app name, or I can just use search to find an app.
Hahaha, well that *****. I only used iTunes to organize my app icons. I would only plug in a device a couple of times a year for this reason when it got too chaotic. Even with the (slightly) enhanced ability to do this on device with iOS 11, it was still 10 times faster & more efficiency to do it with a mouse and the ability to see more than one screen at a time.
I guess the good news is I never need to launch iTunes again.
That version is up to 12.6.5.3 now, but you're right, it isn't supported on Mojave. Your only options there are Apple Configurator 2, or maintaining an older OS to boot into for app management. I have it installed on a High Sierra partition for testing.
tt2
Done. They don't ever pay any attention. It is increasingly clear to me that Apple iTunes ONLY knows how to manage music. They don't hold a candle to Microsoft when it comes to managing anything other than that.
For non-MAC users, iTunes is a nightmare. It is increasingly clear to
me that Apple iTunes ONLY knows how to manage music. They don't hold a
candle to Microsoft when it comes to managing anything other than that.
how to organize apps with itunes?
