Avoiding losing Apps in iOS5 iPhone update

[karansaraf]

Apologies if this has been asked here a lot already (I have a feeling it will have, although I haven't been able to find a similar thread during a quick search).

I have been in the US for a couple of weeks and have been waiting to get back to England to update. Whilst I've been here I've read about a lot of people losing all their apps in the iOS5 update for iPhone 4 and I wanted to avoid this happening.

I'm going back home tomorrow and will be updating on Saturday.

Can anyone give me any advice how to achieve a problem-free upgrade?

Many thanks for your help.

 

[MacDawg]

I didn't have any issues... just upgraded no problem

 

[saving107]

Can anyone give me any advice how to achieve a problem-free upgrade?

Update your iPhone from the computer you normally sync your iPhone with.

In the past you were able to just go to any computer (with iTunes) and just press update without any issues, but iOS 5 seems to do thing differently. Even if you update your iPhone, it erases everything and then at the end restores your data from a back-up, and it restores your Apps from your computer.

So if you update your iPhone from a friends computer, and your apps are not on that computer, it will not restore your apps until your get home.

 

[pcunite]

When upgrading your iOS4 device to iOS5 here are some tips to make it a speedy process.

* Download directly from https://forums.macrumors.com/posts/13567002/

* Connect the device to your computer and manually copy photos and videos to a safe location.

* Delete these items from the phone (especially if you have several gigs worth).

* open iTunes and dismiss the "upgrade blah" option it provides.

* Right click on the connected device and choose "Backup". Wait until finished.

* Right click on the connected device and choose "Transfer Purchased Licenses". Wait until finished.

* Do a SHIFT + click "Restore" (CMD if on MAC), and choose the ipsw file you downloaded.

* When iOS5 is finished loading, you'll need to do a few click throughs on the phone. Afterwards, in iTunes choose the "Restore from backup" option (yes this is horribly named) to restore only contacts and other data Apple won't let you access directly.

* Choose "Apps" from the top bar and "sync" to restore applications.

* Copy photos and videos back to the device if you removed them in step 3.

 

[slu]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; CPU iPhone OS 5_0 like Mac OS X) AppleWebKit/534.46 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.1 Mobile/9A334 Safari/7534.48.3)

When upgrading your iOS4 device to iOS5 here are some tips to make it a speedy process.

* Download directly from https://forums.macrumors.com/posts/13567002/

* Connect the device to your computer and manually copy photos and videos to a safe location.

* Delete these items from the phone (especially if you have several gigs worth).

* open iTunes and dismiss the "upgrade blah" option it provides.

* Right click on the connected device and choose "Backup". Wait until finished.

* Right click on the connected device and choose "Transfer Purchased Licenses". Wait until finished.

* Do a SHIFT + click "Restore" (CMD if on MAC), and choose the ipsw file you downloaded.

* When iOS5 is finished loading, you'll need to do a few click throughs on the phone. Afterwards, in iTunes choose the "Restore from backup" option (yes this is horribly named) to restore only contacts and other data Apple won't let you access directly.

* Choose "Apps" from the top bar and "sync" to restore applications.

* Copy photos and videos back to the device if you removed them in step 3.

This is crazy. Just update and wait. It doesn't take that long.

 

[gtmac]

How do you copy photos back?

 

[Gillespie81]

ya i lost apps, itunes removed about 100 apps that i had to put back on. and then i did the wifi sync and had to uncheck all the settings because of something and then lost all my apps, and had to reinstall them..

 

[TLewis]

The people who lose apps were likely impatient. That, coupled with Apple not really telling you when the upgrade and restore are complete, probably makes people think that they've lost their apps: https://forums.macrumors.com/posts/13625604/

Edit: as others have said, the one big assumption is that you're upgrading from the system that you normally sync with. Just make sure you do a full sync before doing the upgrade (the upgrade should do one, but it's better to be safe).

 

[stix]

Just wait until the whole thing has finished.... not when you can start using your device again but when iTunes has finished doing its stuff. Only then is everything back where it should be.

 

[pcunite]

How do you copy photos back?

When you hook up an iPhone to a PC (not sure on the Mac) you can browse the device kinda like a USB key.

 

[RevB52]

When I upgraded my 4, Apps were missing on the screen even though they showed in Settings, on iTunes when synced, etc. Out of curiosity, I rebooted the phone, and they all magically showed up on the screen. I'm talking like 50 or so.
After that, smooth sailing.

 

[Thetonyk123]

I didn't have any problems all smooth (except the 3200 error)

 

[Statelymwhite]

The whole sync process is lame. My phone is the center of my life, not my Mac. When I upgrade my phone OS, I want all my apps and settings to still be there. I shouldn't need a 12-step process to ensure that. Maybe on a PC this would be acceptable, but Apple is better than this.

Put it this way, I recommended some family members to upgrade to iOS5, but when they asked me how, I told them "It's really convoluted... you might want to take it to the Apple store." They shouldn't have to do that, and I know that even that isn't really a good option. I just don't want to deal with it anymore than I have to.

 

[karansaraf]

Command & click Restore just takes me to the bit where it downloads the file again, rather than allowing me to choose the file that I've already downloaded to my computer. Is there an alternate way to just choose the file I downloaded (I don't want to have to download the file again)?

 

[Rayallday]

Update your iPhone from the computer you normally sync your iPhone with.

In the past you were able to just go to any computer (with iTunes) and just press update without any issues, but iOS 5 seems to do thing differently. Even if you update your iPhone, it erases everything and then at the end restores your data from a back-up, and it restores your Apps from your computer.

So if you update your iPhone from a friends computer, and your apps are not on that computer, it will not restore your apps until your get home.

But if your computer was destroyed like mines in a fire

 

[irDigital0l]

i had 0 issues for 5 devices

 

[statcat]

PRoblem with Iphone 4

So my teenage son has an Iphone 4 and upgraded his IOS to 5.1 over the cloud without first following the instruction on the thread.

Now even I restore and re-sync and I cannot get his APPs back. After an APP syncs to the phone it dissappears. WHen I go to the APP Store and try to re-install the APPs that I have purchased not on this device from the iCloud the install icon is grayed out as if the App is already on the device (when it is not ).

What are my next options? Completely erasing everything off the phone and re-installing and re-syncing.

Or will this give me the same problems wince it wll re-install using IOS 5.1?


I have tried everything I have read on these type of forums and nothing is working.

 

[irDigital0l]

You could try asking Apple. Go to iTunes > Purchase History > Report a problem.

Not saying it will work, but its worth a shot.

Tell them that you purchased the app, but after upgrading to iOS 5, you can't get it back.

They might give you a code in which you can redownload the app.

I had a problem long ago (not with iCloud). I purchased this game called FlightControl and somehow after I downloaded it, it didn't appear in my account. Apple then gave me a code so I could redownload it for free.