So…following up on this a bit since iTunes doesn’t do apps anymore, iOS 12 will be out in a month or two I guess, I’ve still got limited bandwidth living in my RV, and we’ll probably be updating our iPhones in November when we get back to FL for the winter as well as updating to iOS 12 when it’s released.
I’m working on how to best update my devices without having to redownload all the apps up to 4 times each (2 iPhones and 2 iPads between my wife and I).
I can’t remember offhand if updating from iOS 10 to 11 back last fall required reloading all apps from backup and/or the App Store…or if only iOS itself got updated…anybody remember? I’m thinking apps all got reloaded from iTunes.
Between that and the new phones…I figure I’ve got two options. Option 1 is to either do the new phone shuffle at an Apple Store and use their bandwidth or visit a friend with high speed Internet in their house with a case of beer and a couple of steaks in trade. Option 2 is to use the older version of iTunes 12.6.4 that while no longer being updated still does manage apps. I have a VM with El Capitan installed on it…I can install the older app capable iTunes on that (or on our primary laptops) and do the phone swap and iOS upgrade shuffle there…then reinstall the current iTunes that’s actually getting updated once the changeover is complete. My only concern on that one is…will the app capable version of iTunes properly recognize new iPhone hardware and software and get the new phones up to date…anybody know one way or the other?
Any other options I’ve missed…I do have iCloud caching enabled in the RV so mostly the apps would only have be downloaded from the App Store once…but that’s still a lot of GB to get.
Updating the OS does not normally require anything to be done with 3rd Party apps. They will all be exactly where they were before the update. It’s possible that a few won’t have been updated to work with iOS 12, but that’s on the developer.
I backup and sync through iTunes on my Mac. I also apply all updates through my Mac. In my experience so far (< iOS 12) apps have never been re-downloaded. I think new iOS versions have been essentially installed over the old system so that apps, documents, and settings have simply been preserved in place. Of course I guess that only works if you chose to “update” as opposed to format and install from scratch. If bandwidth is your worry I would suppose you would also want to chose that update route.
Since iTunes was updated to not show the apps, I have a Carbon Copy script that was looking in the app folder and archive any apps (in case I needed to go back to a previous version or wanted an app that was removed from the App Store).
I notice that it still runs and backs up a lot of new apps every week. So I assume the apps are still being updated when I back up my devices. Whether they are pulling from the App Store directly, or updating from the syncing device, I am not sure, but the folder seems up to date.
Thanks…I couldn’t remember from last fall if all the apps got reloaded from iTunes…I typically download the .ipsw file and manually choose it for updating the OS instead of letting iTunes get the download since that results in a smaller total download for the 4 devices.
Hmmm…I wonder why mine are different…the newest app in my Mobile Applications folder is from February. I’ve synced and backed up to the laptop multiple times since then both via wifi and Lightning cable…I figured since iTunes didn’t do apps any more that the Mobile Applications folder was essentially useless at this point.
I just tried both a cable sync and also a Devices->Transfer purchases menu command and none of the newer apps on the phone synced down to the laptop. They used to do that…but as I understood it an app downloaded from the App Store via iTunes used to have all of the various software parts that any iOS device might need while one download while one on an individual device only has the pieces that it needs…if that’s true then I can see why they would no longer transfer from say an iPhone back to the laptop and thence on a subsequent sync to say an iPad.
I just looked at My Mobile folder and the last update is from Sept 2017. I think that the CC script was running a long time to compare the folders and archive the differences. The last entry that created a _CCC SafetyNet folder was the same time. I guess I can delete this script.
My mistake. I was mistaking the computer processing information as something actually happening.