That’s probably the best way to do it. But I suppose if on-demand resources takes off, you may get into trouble.
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App Thinning is the reason apps aren't syncing to iTunes
- Thread starter Mesut
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That’s probably the best way to do it. But I suppose if on-demand resources takes off, you may get into trouble.
Have you checked in iTunes > Account Info > Hidden purchases whether the app is simply hidden?
I'm pretty sure that encrypted backups do include the apps - am I remembering that incorrectly?
Yes, I think I'm already in trouble.
The least they could do is let you sync sliced apps from the phone and have the option to complete them on iTunes so you can sync to other devices. Whether iTunes would deliver app variants locally is a question.
I restored from an encrypted backup this morning and it restored the apps from IPA files.
The backup is ~250MB and the apps on the phone are ~12GB.
If it is just removed from sales, App Store would have an record of it, and you can still pull it from your Purchased tab. By the Terms and Conditions, they are selling the apps to you "as is", so it should be downloadable regardless of it being removed from sales or not. Launcher before Apple reversed course was an example.
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I have had two instances where I've tried to redownload an app from the Purchased tab and I received the notification "The Item is no longer available."
Same here, I live in the country in he United States where we only have satellite internet. I download apps on iTunes then sync to my devices; the bug where if you sync all the updated apps is still present as well; where it doesn't show they are updated. It has been present since ios8
Hm, I don't like this. It seems there is currently no way to fully restore a device from an iTunes backup unless you happen to have all the installed apps already downloaded in iTunes. Of course I can set iTunes to automatically download newly purchased apps automatically, but how do I download the 100+ apps I currently use on my phone without doing it manually one-by-one? I deleted them long ago since I always update apps directly on the device, so the copies in iTunes were just a waste of space. There should be a function in iTunes to automatically download all the apps that are currently installed on a device when making a backup ...
Doesn't matter if the apps are in iTunes - still does not transfer them to the device. ALL my apps are in iTunes and it continues to download them regardless.
?? Are you saying if I restore an iTunes backup and have the apps in iTunes, they will still not be restored to the device?
happened to me as well. i have all my apps in itunes and restored from a backup but instead of synching, it started to download them on my iPhone. i was on my computer wondering for like half an hour why it does not sync until i unplugged it and noticed the tiny spinning circle indicating it is downloading stuff. super stupid
Yeah, this is a bummer. I had to download *all* purchased apps since I've owned an iPhone and then went through and pruned/deleted the ones I'm not using anymore (had to manually delete over 200 apps from iTunes).
Unless you're as OCD as I am, I suggest doing the same, but just keeping the large apps (200+ MB) in iTunes and restoring the rest of the apps over WiFi.
Both iTunes and iOS9 are extremely buggy.
How does this impact those who prefer to use older versions of apps? Before iOS 9, I'd backup the entire IPA file of an app from my iPhone to a computer, and if I didn't like the app's update, I could roll back using the transferred IPA.
But now that thinned app IPA could, for instance, have the resources for iPhone 5 but not for iPhone 6. Does this mean we'd be forced to update our apps every time we upgrade our devices?
But now that thinned app IPA could, for instance, have the resources for iPhone 5 but not for iPhone 6. Does this mean we'd be forced to update our apps every time we upgrade our devices?
Can someone explain to me how does this work? Is this active right now in every app or does the devs have to enable/update the app
Your existing scheme will continue to work. The .ipa files don't seem to be copied back to the iTunes library anymore and it's still possible to install apps via iTunes.
guess i can delete all the apps in my itunes library then, get back free disk space, apparently theyre useless there now this transfer bug is fixed or apple reverses their intentional change..confusing, pointless, & stupid indeed
Just found out about this as well 
Got confirmation from Apple as well that this is how it is suppose to function.
They need to add a button to see all apps on iPhone and download. I had SOOOO many apps that I have purchased/free since the iPhone 4, and I have 140 apps on my iPhone. I don't have the time to sit and go through all of them to get the ones I need.
Got confirmation from Apple as well that this is how it is suppose to function.They need to add a button to see all apps on iPhone and download. I had SOOOO many apps that I have purchased/free since the iPhone 4, and I have 140 apps on my iPhone. I don't have the time to sit and go through all of them to get the ones I need.
Just found out about this as well
They need to add a button to see all apps on iPhone and download. I had SOOOO many apps that I have purchased/free since the iPhone 4, and I have 140 apps on my iPhone. I don't have the time to sit and go through all of them to get the ones I need.
camera roll fiasco all over again, yup. watch apple revert or fix this in 9.x, well they better.
(+)u saved me some disk space from being able to delete all the apps in itunes library, yay..
(-)u made it confusing as ****
(-)now i have to manually manage apps on my phone (as expected), but now on itunes too? garbage. if u download an app for the first time on ur device, delete it, then take it again, itunes wont download it the second time even if u delete it from itunes. smart, very. (not really)
(-)depending on internet now (apparently) to redownload all those apps when u restore from backup, way to extend the restore time by over 3x for nothing, even if u got "fast internet", & what happens if an app is pulled from the store? oh i have to manually dig through my huge app install history to pick it out
(-)um appdata..? still confused as **** about that
(-)so apple removed a feature, yet left it in itunes showing no sign of removing it, its that hard to remove the transfer purchases option.?
(-)why is there no option to "download all apps installed on this idevice" to itunes from the store?
(-)live in the cloud? that way still downloads gigabytes worth of apps, slowly (compared to syncing speed)
1 plus, endless minuses, great. literially as ticked as i was about camera roll before, i am about this. apps are "thinned", okay um fine..? still whats so HARD about moving those apps from ur device to damn itunes? i only got 1 iphone, i dont care how "thinned" they are for iphone only, put them on itunes anyway..whole thing makes zero sense. itunes should be smart enough anyway when restoring a backup or syncing, to "thin" the apps appropriate for the device its syncing to, problem solved.
Even if the app is thinned as per your device, iTunes must transfer it to pc's hard drive. Once all the apps are transferred, iTunes must connect to interent and download the remaining resources to complete each app. This was the same app can be installed to any other model of iDevice and that time iTunes sends just the required files to the device.
This way, App thinning and syncing will both work.
But if Apple stops selling 8 and 16 GB devices, this App thinning idiocy won't be required.
Finally, if we can't transfer purchases and sync apps, What is the point of iTunes then? Just let us drag drop audio and video files and we won't even use that piece of trash software anymore.
iTunes for windows crashes if we deauthorise the computer. Lmao.
This way, App thinning and syncing will both work.
But if Apple stops selling 8 and 16 GB devices, this App thinning idiocy won't be required.
Finally, if we can't transfer purchases and sync apps, What is the point of iTunes then? Just let us drag drop audio and video files and we won't even use that piece of trash software anymore.
iTunes for windows crashes if we deauthorise the computer. Lmao.
I'm confused on how this is working. I'm upgrading from a 6 to a 6s on Friday. When I make a backup of my 6, the apps won't sync anymore. So when I restore there won't be any apps, other than the stock ones, on my new phone? Does that mean that I have to manually download each app again, and then reorder them and setup my folders to get the layout the way I currently have them on my phone since iTunes won't be able to sync the apps?
dont know, just as annoyed & confused about the whole thing as u, just use icloud i guess..i know that will restore all except itunes synced music/pictures, to the way it was, apps will redownload but their appdata & organization layout is all saved
I encountered this exact problem with the now pulled Ad Blocker 'Peace'.
I bought it on my iPhone as had yet to update the iPad to iOS9. The app was then pulled by the developer so the only copy I had existed on the iPhone. I was unable to transfer it from iPhone to Mac via iTunes - presumably because of App thinning - and with it no longer being available in the App Store (even in my purchase history) there was no way for me to have it on the iPad. I've had the purchase refunded now so I'm not out of pocket but I can see how this could become a problem.
Ironically this issue was something I had speculated about elsewhere when I first heard of app thinning so I'm annoyed with myself for walking into the trap.
I bought it on my iPhone as had yet to update the iPad to iOS9. The app was then pulled by the developer so the only copy I had existed on the iPhone. I was unable to transfer it from iPhone to Mac via iTunes - presumably because of App thinning - and with it no longer being available in the App Store (even in my purchase history) there was no way for me to have it on the iPad. I've had the purchase refunded now so I'm not out of pocket but I can see how this could become a problem.
Ironically this issue was something I had speculated about elsewhere when I first heard of app thinning so I'm annoyed with myself for walking into the trap.
This did happen to me while using the previous version of iTunes and thought it would be fixed when the latest version with support for iOS 9 would get released... It's still not fixed even with the latest iTunes installed?
The most reliable step at the moment is to download apps from iTunes and enable automatic app downloads on your iPhone or iPad (if you want).
I think Apple has to solve a lot of problems here. I didn’t think it would be such an issue. App thinning is great, even if you don’t have a 8/16 GB device. Downloading completely unnecessary resources is wasteful.
I think Apple has to solve a lot of problems here. I didn’t think it would be such an issue. App thinning is great, even if you don’t have a 8/16 GB device. Downloading completely unnecessary resources is wasteful.