iPhone 7 - Revert to old app version on iOS 15.7.1

[SpaceClick]

I have an iPhone 7 with iOS 15.7.1

Recently I tapped on an app that was "offloaded" from my iPhone automatically a long time ago. When I did so, it restored the app and everything was working fine. Then, the next day, I was notified that there was an "update" to the app, so I told it to update (I have automatic updates turned off).

When it updated to this new version, the app no longer worked in the way the old version had. I could no longer perform certain actions and I am guessing this was intended behavior, or at least behavior that will not be "fixed".

My goal now is to revert back to the old version of the app to get this functionality back.

I do not backup to iCloud, but do have a backup I made through iTunes from 12 days ago. The version of iTunes that made the backup and is currently installed is an older version (version 12.9.5.7) and is running on Windows 7.

I am wondering what my options are to revert to the older version of the app?

I am leaning towards just doing a complete restore of the iPhone using the 12 day old backup. I have not made many changes to any data on any of the other apps within the past 12 days, and I can backup separately any changes I did make and later manually restore them after the iPhone backup is restored (although I would appreciate any advice that anyone may have on what things I should be sure to check to make sure I don't loose anything, examples such as: any notes I may have made in the notes app (only one new/updated note within the last 12 days), photos I took since the backup (already emailed those to myself), etc.)

Note that i don't use iCloud for almost anything, so the only backups I have are from periodic iTunes backups and any app-specific backups I do.

Can anyone tell me if this will even work? Can I restore the backup from 12 days ago and then tap on the "offloaded" app icon and have it restore the old version of the app? I assume this is what will happen because that is what happened when I tapped on the "offloaded" app previously, it downloaded the old version of the app from the app store, not the most current version (the current version has a date of 11/16/2022 and I tapped on the "offloaded" icon on 11/24/2022, so after the new version should have already been available for download.)

At least i assume that is what happened. When iOS "offloads" the app, it is my understanding that it deletes the app, but keeps the data associated with it. Hopefully when you tap on the offloaded app icon, it does not do anything on the app store that will make tapping on that same offloaded app icon again (once it's restored) load the current version of the app instead of the older version. I would assume it would not load the newest version because the app data that is saved is for the older version (and may be incompatible with newer versions of the app), but I don't know if that is how it works or not. I'm not even sure if "offloaded" app information is stored in the backup (I hope it is).

I would appreciate any information or help anyone can provide on this. Thanks!

 

[FreakinEurekan]

Apps themselves aren’t included in the backup, so there’s no option to restore apps from there. Only app data is in the backup. Most likely, you’re SOL - contact the app dev and ask them to put back whatever feature they removed in the update.

 

[SpaceClick]

Thanks for your reply.

I actually went through with the restore and it did indeed restore the old versions of some apps. While you are correct about the apps themselves not being backed up, when you do a restore, it loads the version that was installed at the time of the backup from the app store ( at least if it is still available).

In my case, I did the restore and about 8 apps loaded their old versions. Immediately the app store shows that there were updates for these apps (even though I had applied those updates since the backup was taken).

Unfortunately, there must be a special thing in place that allows the app developer to not allow the older version of the app to be restored, as it loaded the most recent version of this app even though the other apps were able to load the older versions.

Even some apps that are no longer in the app store were restored on my phone, which surprised me. I guess that even some apps that are no longer available for sale on the store are still available to be downloaded in situations like this.

By the way, the app was "FiOS TV Mobile" for Verizon FiOS. The old app allowed you to view on-demand programming for a premium channel even if you don't subscribe to that premium service if there is a "free preview" currently in place for that service. So this past weekend they were offering free previews of HBO and Cinemax, and during that time I was able to stream "Game of Thrones" without a problem, even though I don't subscribe to HBO. After I updated the app, I was no longer able to view on-demand programming unless I explicitly subscribed to the service. This really makes little sense, since during the "free preview" can can view all of HBO's on-demand content from the cable box.