App Thinning is the reason apps aren't syncing to iTunes

[Mesut]

I received the confirmation from Apple that this is not a bug and it is intended.

Maybe if enough people complain, they will make it work again.

For those who are confused, I will update the original post later explaining what App Thinning is.

 

[soniasim]

I received the confirmation from Apple that this is not a bug and it is intended.

Maybe if enough people complain, they will make it work again.

For those who are confused, I will update the original post later explaining what App Thinning is.

It's weird though, that if you already have all the apps downloaded on iTunes and you restore your phone and choose to set up as new and not restore from backup, if you then choose to install the apps from the Apps tab on iTunes, it installs them normally, without redownloading them.

 

[newellj]

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."

I have had that happen a couple of times in the past. I now download a copy of every app as a backup. I do the same thing with movies and TV shows.

 

[sanke1]

This plain sucks.

 

[chrizzz09]

Quick question... if i updated my phone via OTA are my apps on my phone automatically thinning down or do i need to update them or redownload them for the thinned version?
Because right now, i haven't seen a difference in space used on my phone.

 

[alanholden]

I've just backed my phone up to iTunes so that I can restore when my 6s arrives, but what exactly will I be restoring? For example will this include text message history, photos, and contacts?, but I will have to redownload every app from the App Store manually?

 

[soniasim]

?? 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

Guys, some days ago, I restored my phone to iOS 9 and set it up as new. So after reading your posts, out of curiosity, I thought I'd try to make a back up, then do a restore to iOS 9 and restore that backup. I did this and all went through seamlessly, all apps synced to my phone through iTunes, it didn't have to redownload them and actually the procedure took less than it used to take under iOS 8. So maybe this is a glitch if you're trying to restore an iOS 8 back up to a device that has iOS 9 installed? Also, I did this having the latest iTunes installed.

 

[lancastor]

To get the benefits of AppThining, I have to delete the app on the phone and redownload it from the AppStore. Right??

Is this working with every App?

 

[marf1million]

Guys, some days ago, I restored my phone to iOS 9 and set it up as new. So after reading your posts, out of curiosity, I thought I'd try to make a back up, then do a restore to iOS 9 and restore that backup. I did this and all went through seamlessly, all apps synced to my phone through iTunes, it didn't have to redownload them and actually the procedure took less than it used to take under iOS 8. So maybe this is a glitch if you're trying to restore an iOS 8 back up to a device that has iOS 9 installed? Also, I did this having the latest iTunes installed.

Did you update any apps since updating to ios9 and when you restored them were they the newly updated apps that restored to your phone or were they the old versions that you had backed up since ios8?

Old versions that are already saved in iTunes will copy over to your phone, but once you update them on your phone they won't copy to iTunes and iTunes will only copy over the pre ios9 version.

 

[soniasim]

Did you update any apps since updating to ios9 and when you restored them were they the newly updated apps that restored to your phone or were they the old versions that you had backed up since ios8?

Old versions that are already saved in iTunes will copy over to your phone, but once you update them on your phone they won't copy to iTunes and iTunes will only copy over the pre ios9 version.

Hmmm, actually, I have not updated any apps since I reinstalled iOS 9 yesterday.

But, some days ago, when I tried to install iOS 9 for the first time, by doing a restore and then restoring from my back up from iOS 8.4.1, it did not install the apps from iTunes, like it did now. It was saying "Preparing to copy items" and it kept showing the circle spinning on the status bar, so I unlocked the phone and noticed that it was redownloading the apps instead of copying them from iTunes.

Also, after it was done, what you're saying was happening - meaning, when an app was updated it didn't copy the newest version to iTunes, I had to download it on iTunes too, to get the copy over there.

So, since at this point, after I did everything from scratch, the apps did install automatically from iTunes, while previously they did not, I suspect that when I get an update, if I install it through my phone and then do a sync with iTunes, it's going to copy it over there automatically.

I will make sure to post what happened, when I get notified for an update of an app.

 

[dyn]

But if Apple stops selling 8 and 16 GB devices, this App thinning idiocy won't be required.

App thinning is more than just reducing the amount of disk space an app uses. The app can be rebuild for the specific model you are using and thus give you a much better performance. It doesn't have all the additional code and checks that it needs when it has to run on multiple models.

The app thinning "idiocy" will still be required in the future and it is fine as it is. The only real problem is with syncing to iTunes. This is not as simply as you might think. Just think about what needs to be synced and what if you have an iPhone as well as an iPad? If you have only 1 iOS device then simply syncing whatever is on that device will suffice. If you have more then both versions need to be synced and this leads to conflicts since you are syncing the same item (not entirely the same but on filename level, etc. it is). There could be a solution where the iOS device only syncs information about which apps are on it to iTunes which will trigger iTunes into downloading the entire app. This will cause another problem because what is going to be synced to the device when you wipe it? The entire app? If so then the entire app thinning is moot. That would mean that iTunes would need to do what the app store servers are doing: figure out which components are needed and so on. That in turn would require quite some computing power. It is something you definitely would not want to do on a client, it is something you want to do on a cluster.

Did you update any apps since updating to ios9 and when you restored them were they the newly updated apps that restored to your phone or were they the old versions that you had backed up since ios8?

Apps need to support the feature too iirc. I've tested it with Color Zen and the version on my iPad got updated to 1.7.0, the one in iTunes is 1.6.11. After syncing the version numbers are still the same so it is not transferred from iPad to iTunes. It reminds me of another bug I've seen with the App Store since iOS9 launched. A lot of updates are not visible everywhere. I've had updates showing up on 1 device but not in iTunes or another device as well as it showing up in iTunes and another device but not on the second device or any other combination. In case of Color Zen it doesn't even find it in the App Store when searching for it (in iOS and iTunes).

 

[Rigby]

Guys, some days ago, I restored my phone to iOS 9 and set it up as new. So after reading your posts, out of curiosity, I thought I'd try to make a back up, then do a restore to iOS 9 and restore that backup. I did this and all went through seamlessly, all apps synced to my phone through iTunes, it didn't have to redownload them and actually the procedure took less than it used to take under iOS 8. So maybe this is a glitch if you're trying to restore an iOS 8 back up to a device that has iOS 9 installed? Also, I did this having the latest iTunes installed.

Thanks, that's a relief. At least we now know that is still possible in principle. I guess I have to bite the bullet and manually download all my 100+ installed apps in iTunes if I want a fully functional local backup.

 

[newellj]

App Thinning is the reason apps aren't syncing to iTunes from iOS 9.

If you haven't noticed already, when you update an app Over-the-Air it doesn't transfer the IPA file to iTunes even if it's not a thinned version of the app.

Circling back on this. I'm not sure the problem I'm noticing on my Air 2 is exactly what the OP describes, but it may be related. Before installing the iOS 9 PB, my Air 2 would update apps when synced with iTunes. It stopped doing that with the iOS 9 and 9.1 PB. I did a DFU restore to 8.4.1 and it still doesn't update apps when I sync with iTunes.

Related or no? Anyone else having the same issue? Does this deserve a different tread?

 

[Crzyrio]

Circling back on this. I'm not sure the problem I'm noticing on my Air 2 is exactly what the OP describes, but it may be related. Before installing the iOS 9 PB, my Air 2 would update apps when synced with iTunes. It stopped doing that with the iOS 9 and 9.1 PB. I did a DFU restore to 8.4.1 and it still doesn't update apps when I sync with iTunes.

Related or no? Anyone else having the same issue? Does this deserve a different tread?

When you are in 8.4.1, try click "Transfer Purchases to Computer". It will then update the apps and transfer as well.

I really missed this feature, as it came in very handy when you wanted to do Clean Installs. Now I have to go through the store and individually download 140 apps.

 

[mcdj]

Ebay recently updated their iPhone app to be universal. The reviews are horrible and I have no intention of updating. But now I can't extract a copy of the version I want to keep from the phone, and I don't have the older version in my iTunes library because I never downloaded it thru iTunes, just via the phone.

So what happens next week when I get my new iPhone 6s? Does the ebay app automatically update itself to the new crappy version?

Isn't there some way to prevent this? In the past, I would simply transfer my purchases to iTunes, but that doesn't seem to work anymore.

 

[saudor]

Apps never get removed from the App Store, they are only hidden from the shop page. The latest version of every app you bought can be downloaded from your purchase history. Developers still submit entire (i.e. complete) universal apps, even when they use on-demand resources (ODR). These apps are then uploaded to the App Store and it will distribute the thinned/ODR versions to users. So when you have an app that uses ODR and is removed by the developer, the app will still function normally, because the entire app is still available in the App Store.



This.

This is partially true. The apps that apple removes for things like violating T/C such as embedding an emulator in a calculator app, etc.. Those disappear. There's a lot of apps I own but can no longer download from iTunes purchases.

Guess I gotta update apps from within iTunes too.

 

[Yun0]

Guys, some days ago, I restored my phone to iOS 9 and set it up as new. So after reading your posts, out of curiosity, I thought I'd try to make a back up, then do a restore to iOS 9 and restore that backup. I did this and all went through seamlessly, all apps synced to my phone through iTunes, it didn't have to redownload them and actually the procedure took less than it used to take under iOS 8. So maybe this is a glitch if you're trying to restore an iOS 8 back up to a device that has iOS 9 installed? Also, I did this having the latest iTunes installed.

cause u probably still had the apps in the itunes library, delete them from there, then try to restore backup. according to someone its SUPPOSED to have the device start downloading all the apps again, like when u restore from a icloud backup, with appdata intact..but im still too afraid to try it, well i guess even if it screw everything up i could still restore from icloud but...

 

[lancastor]

Which variant is downloaded when I buy an App within iTunes? I'm confused.

 

[hideous cheese]

Which variant is downloaded when I buy an App within iTunes? I'm confused.

If you buy via iTunes on Mac you should get the fat version as it is unable* to predict which iDevice it will be used on later.


*I suppose if you only had one iDevice registered to your ID it could assume this is the version to be served but not with multiple devices or universal apps.

 

[inscrewtable]

There is no need for that. Just go to iTunes settings > store and check apps under automatic downloads. Whenever you purchase an app on your iPhone/iPad, iTunes will download its very own (complete) copy as well. If you ever need to set up a new device or restore from backup, it will transfer the complete versions.

There is a small problem with this. In the past if you downloaded an app to your iDevice and then deleted it immediately because it was crap, then it would not transfer over to your App library in iTunes because it was not on your device. If you check the App box in auto downloads, it will not transfer all the apps you have bought in the past over to your iTunes App library, but it will begin doing that with any future Apps you buy. So from now on if you check that App box for auto downloads and you then download and immediately trash an App, you will find when you next sync the iDevice that the trashed App will now be in your iTunes App library, until the end of time. Because of this I will leave the Auto App download box unchecked and manually download any Apps.

 

[lancastor]

I think app thining isn't live yet.

My Garageband on the iPhone was 720MB. I have deleted it, to check the new app thining feature and re-downloded it from
the app store. Now the app is 732MB.

 

[newellj]

When you are in 8.4.1, try click "Transfer Purchases to Computer". It will then update the apps and transfer as well.

I really missed this feature, as it came in very handy when you wanted to do Clean Installs. Now I have to go through the store and individually download 140 apps.

Thanks, that was already set.

 

[asleep]

App thinning in iOS 9: Explained
BY RENE RITCHIE

As devices have multiplied app sizes have increased. Here's how Apple plans to thin them back down...
...
What you need to do

The nice thing about app thinning is that it's absolutely transparent on the customer's end. As long as developers are building for iOS 9, and making sure they tag their assets and resources as best as they can, the App Store will handle everything. All you need to do is download the updates when they're ready and the newer, thinner apps will be yours.

For 16 GB device owners, every megabyte will matter. But even for 64 GB or 128 GB device owners, being able to fill storage with real, useful apps and content and not a bunch of stuff we don't need is a huge win.​

 

[Yongkykun]

Bummer. Guess we have to adapt to this "new" system Apple has implemented then. But I suppose Apple has succeded in making iDevices that no longer needs a desktop though they are making (forcing) us use iCloud to backup and restore which really use tons of internet data which doesn't come cheap.

 

[Mesut]

Circling back on this. I'm not sure the problem I'm noticing on my Air 2 is exactly what the OP describes, but it may be related. Before installing the iOS 9 PB, my Air 2 would update apps when synced with iTunes. It stopped doing that with the iOS 9 and 9.1 PB. I did a DFU restore to 8.4.1 and it still doesn't update apps when I sync with iTunes.

Related or no? Anyone else having the same issue? Does this deserve a different tread?

Apple's response was that apps will not be transferred from iOS 9 devices deliberately.

Using the "transfer purchases" option should work for devices with iOS 8.4.1 or older. If it's still not working it deserves a new thread but I assume you've solved this by now.