The removal of the app store from iTunes my be the last straw for me and make me move to Android.
I find browsing and buying apps painful on the iPhone or iPad so I think my love affair with Apple will now be over.
Bye bye, it was fun while it lasted by after almost 10 years it’s time for me to move to Android and back to Windows and avoid the Apple tax and (what are for me) stupid changes to usability along with abysmally high prices and crippled upgradability
I think that, until every time I update my Windows Bootcamp.
Then, when I see how long it takes, I happily retreat back to the MacOS!!
Luckily apparently you can still sync apps over manually if you have the file downloaded which is good, sad Apple had to make things more complex though.
Good god. It hasnt happened yet. Has it?
Happened with yesterday’s release of iTunes 10.7 :o
With multiple iOS devices and a family account it is better to download once via iTunes and then sync devices, yes?
Bugger. I havent updated. Guess I wont. Well not yet anyway
In the not so distant past that used to be our issue too, especially for large apps, since our internet speed was so terrible.
Then Apple brought in App Caching through MacOS Server which meant once it was downloaded once everyone got the local copy (which was brilliant!) so the problem largely went away for all those shared apps and OS updates. If you have lots of iOS and/or Macs around this is a pretty good option if you have bandwidth/quota concerns.
Then came auto updates and things tended to happen overnight when things were connected to power so it didn’t matter if things trickled in slowly.
These days I’m lucky enough to be on unlimited 100Mbit cable and it’s not something I even think about anymore 
All going to be moot now, eh, with the apps disappearing from itunes?
This is such a bummer for me. I am on mobile broadband. I update the apps for 2 iPhones and 1 iPad on the Mac and then sync. I haven’t updated iTunes yet and will keep it that way as long as I can.
Kevin
my iOS devices when synced with the mac don’t seem to be properly updating all apps in an older version of iTunes anymore anyway.
I think it was a bad move to remove the App Store and App syncing from iTunes. I know many people don’t use it and that fine, but there were many people who did.
It should have been a user option on whether apps synced and backed up using iTunes. I have to manage 6 iOS devices in the house and downloading an app only once for all my iOS devices was great for me.
The main thing I will miss though is being able to browse the App Store on my iMac. It was so much nicer to see the apps on a large screen rather than on my iPhone.
Hopefully the App Store can return sometime, maybe not in iTunes, but as a stand alone app like the Mac App Store.
I agree, but for slightly different reasons. I don’t particularly care that Apple removed app syncing from iTunes, it wasn’t a huge deal for me, but the removal of the App Store now means that I cannot browse apps from my Mac.
I can’t click on an affiliate link on my Mac and buy an app when I’m reading a review on the web, which is cutting an already limited revenue stream for many Apple blogs, this one included. Forcing people to browse iOS apps from an iOS device — I honestly can’t think of a reason why Apple would want to.
I use the iOS version of the App Store so infrequently I’m not even sure if you can see the same information that used to be in the iTunes Store from your iPhone/iPad, but one thing that will go away is browsing iPhone/iPad-specific apps. The iPad App Store gets both, but on iPhone, it’ll only show you iPhone apps, AFAIK.
This was not the move I was expecting when people were clamouring for iTunes to be less bloated. Here’s hoping the iOS App Store comes back to the Mac someday.
Also, if I’m writing a review, a task I often do on my Mac, how the hell am I supposed to get the link for an app? Use the universal clipboard feature? Email the link to myself?!
Yes, not a lot of thought seems to have gone in to this change as there is a large amount of ill feeling around it from a large number of people - even more so than the removal of floppy drive or optical media (it’s getting right up there with the headphone socket removal 
)
Perhaps we are all expected to move to iPad Pro models, use keyboards, and treat our ipads as laptops and replacements for our Mac computers. I had intended to do that but its starting to feel like thats where Apple is driving us.
Old thread. New discovery, for me in any case.
Accidentally discovered iTunes 12.6.3 release.
Seems Apple released a new version of iTunes after 12.6.2 that allows app syncing to iTunes.
Further iTunes updates are ignored, meaning you stay on 12.6.3 and are not prompted to update. Which I don’t mind on one of my machines.
I prefer to have a backup of my iOS devices on my computer, apps included.
Yep, this Apple support page is the one to keep an eye on:
(The latest version of iTunes that supports syncing apps and the App Store is 12.6.5, by the way.)
Good to know. I guess thats been updated yo be Mojave compatible, in which case, On my way! to grab it. I don’t use itunes to sync apps very much, but when I want an older version of an app which I may still have saved elsewhere on my computer or an ext drive, the itunes that allows sync is the only way to get it. eg, I detest what Sygic has done with its Nav apps, and I want the last older version which I liked. Yes, its old and doesnt have the most recent maps, but I dont need those really, i dont go faar afield anymore and the local maps are just fine.
[edit:] oh crap. Not compatible with Mojave. Well I have been considering a downgrade from Mojave anyway, the poor old Mac Mini (2012 model) is really starting to struggle.
Thanks for that.
I was just so pleased to discover I could actually backup my iOS devices to my computer I didn’t think to look further.
Just shows how pig-headed I am. I have ignored prompts to update iTunes from 12.7 on. Can’t believe I just found out this info now.