So how do we backup with this iTunes?

[Bryan Bowler]

Its really not as simple as you say. I have thousands of apps in my purchased tab over the last 10 years. I know have to write down the apps I use and then search for them on the new device. And no, the majority is not happy. Clearly you have not read the main-page thread. Removing Apps does not "clean-up" iTunes at all. It had its own tab. You could chose to ignore it if you wanted to.

You are aware that even in the USA, there are data caps on some ISP providers, right? It is not hard to use 250GB in a month (AT&T).

Self-induced issues. I hope things get better for you!

 

[LizKat]

If you’re not restoring from a back-up, then instead of clicking install in iTunes, you can tap to install the app in the Purchased tab. You’re getting worked up over nothing. As for the majority of us, it’s great to see iTunes cleaned up. It was a crowded disaster before.
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If you are in a country where wi-fi bandwidth is limited and expensive, then I can understand your concern. But the vast majority of the developed countries in the world do not have anything to worry about.

Yeah but then thousands of nooks and crannies of the USA qualify collectively as not yet a developed country, thanks to the FCC setting the bar really low regarding what is "broadband" as deployed so far.

Millions of others and I will be less than thrilled to download all this stuff at max 6MBps (rated) DSL or 12Mbps (rated) in areas where a provider bothered to upgrade. It easily takes half an hour or more for us to download 2 GB one time. I have two tablets, phone, ipod touch and two other phones used WiFi only.

I offloaded most optional even if useful or entertaining apps from most of my iOS devices, and in some cases also hid them entirely from my purchases. I won't be buying more unless Apple makes available an app manager app, something to emulate what the code for the iTunes 12.6.x app-related functions offered.

Meanwhile every update, every new purchase over air for each iOS device in the house? Ugh.

To me it was great having the app, music and movie stores all just a tab click away on previous iTunes versions so the iTunes application was not broken in that respect and adhered to Apple's UI guidelines. I had other issues regarding loss of playlist manipulation functions over the years, but that's a different story.

Bottom line Apple plainly broke the application for milliions of slow net access users when they released 12.7. I still think it has mostly to do with an ongoing dumbing down of iTunes to make it behave in the long run pretty much just like some future iteration of the iOS music app. That's a horrible prospect to anyone who uses features like our current ability to maintain multiple iTunes libraries and specify the desired one at launch time. That feature lets us use different ways of handling and viewing the metadata in each library, and allows us to specify different library processing methods when adding new material, and different storage locations for related media.

All that stuff better not go away or I'll really be done accomodating these successively disappointing "streamlined" releases. I'll be off to some other platform if iTunes turns into "fake iOS" no matter how efficiently the pared down program seems to run.