Why do we need iTunes on Mac to update/keep our apps?

[MrMister111]

When I haven't used iTunes on my Mac for a while I have literally 10's of updates to do for all the apps. I mainly use wifi sync now if I want to sync a song to our iPhones.

However, as all apps are in the cloud, I sometimes delete them, or buy them if free for example, and can then just re-download when I want on my iPhone.

So why do we need to keep, update and store all the iOS apps on a Mac now? It's pointless no? We can't play them, they do nothing on there but take up space. They are all accessible on are iDevices from the cloud.

Am I missing a point here? Even backups don't need to use iTunes on a Mac now, as iCloud does it. Music, podcasts etc are able to be used on both a Mac and iOS so can understand this, but apps I just can't.

Someone enlighten me, or can I delete them all off my Mac to save the update process and a little bit of space.
Thanks

 

[Spacial]

It was Apples way to capture the customers & lock them in. Just look how well it worked. Highly proprietary, expensive and limiting Apple now has more cash than they know what to do with. A brilliant strategy that hooked millions.

 

[benwiggy]

It was Apples way to capture the customers & lock them in. Just look how well it worked. Highly proprietary, expensive and limiting Apple now has more cash than they know what to do with. A brilliant strategy that hooked millions.

Err... what has this got to do with iPhone apps being stored on your Mac?

ITunes has certainly become a bloated curator of all sorts of digital files since it was originally just an audio library that synced to your iPod. I suspect that we may see some of these functions being farmed out to other applications in the future, like iBooks is doing with eBooks.
In any case, it's good to have a local backup, as well as the cloud. They're not going to take up much space -- maybe 10Gb?
But you may be able to delete them if you wish. Try it, and let us know how you get on.

 

[Weaselboy]

So why do we need to keep, update and store all the iOS apps on a Mac now?

Unless you want to use iTunes to create a local iOS backup you don't need to ever use iTunes with an iOS device any longer. You can just update apps and backup to iCloud like you mentioned and just never touch iTunes.

I know many iPad owners who don't even own a computer and they get by just fine.

One downside I discovered with the iCloud backups though is it does not save your passwords, so a iCloud restore will require reentry of passwords in all your apps. A local and encrypted backup to iTunes saves and restores the passwords, so it makes upgrades much less painful.