new computer: How to NOT lose iPhone apps?

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I have had to reinstall my OS, and after installing iTunes again and wanting to sync my iPhone, iTunes says it is going to wipe the iPhone and install only what's in my iTunes. But some apps are downloaded and installed directly from the iPhone, so they are not in iTunes. Even if I download them into iTunes, iTunes will still wipe my iPhone and reinstall the apps -- but I lose my apps' data!
--> How do I avoid losing my apps' data but still being able to sync to iTunes?

Please note: I don't care if I lose music/video on the iPhone. I *do* care about the app data.

  • I called Apple Support; they said it's not an iPhone question but an iTunes question and I must post the question at apple.com/support.
  • I wrote to Apple and got a reply about how to manage my music manually (using the checkbox). That wasn't my question, but they seem to not have read it anyway.
  • Now I'm posting here instead, confident that you are better able to answer my question. Thanks for your time!
 
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Thank you for the link. I don't think it's what I am looking for though, because my situation is that I have downloaded apps directly to my iPhone that are not in my iTunes, and it is these applications' data I want to keep. I have not synced with iTunes since before I installed these apps, so my iTunes doesn't know about them.

I'm afraid that if I just download them from within iTunes and then sync, then iTunes will still (it warns me of this intention) first wipe my iPhone and then install the apps+audio+video ... but by then the app data will be gone.

I'm looking for a way to keep the app data. Perhaps jailbreaking is the only way to do that? I have deliberately not jailbroken my iPhone yet because I'm happy with it as it is, but this is a point to consider. I'll have to look into that, I guess. Thank you.

(I'm frankly a little disappointed of the software experience and -quality, but perhaps it's better on a mac than on Windows. But the iPhone works well enough as long as I don't sync and just use it by itself.)
 
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Thank you for the link. I don't think it's what I am looking for though, because my situation is that I have downloaded apps directly to my iPhone that are not in my iTunes, and it is these applications' data I want to keep. I have not synced with iTunes since before I installed these apps, so my iTunes doesn't know about them.

This would not be an issue if you had backed up your system before reinstalling OS X and then restored your user. If you had restored your user (and thus the iTunes Library) from the backup, your iPhone wouldn't know the diff between the old install and new install. You also failed to sync everything in advance of wiping your system clean. Doing a sync in advance of making a backup (not to mention actually making a backup afterwards) is BASIC to simple computer maintenance... don't blame Apple for not holding your hand even further.

As it is... I'm curious why you felt you had to reinstall the OS in the first place. Short of an outright hard drive replacement or last ditch effort to resolve a problem that has always plagued your system since installation or since a major update, that should never really be necessary.
 
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I do keep regular PC backups but I infrequently sync my iPhone, and that's what is biting me now. Believe me, I didn't wipe my computer for fun. And I wasn't prepared for it. Oh these are the joys of Windows. I was preparing to downgrade my PC from Vista to XP (actually install XP fresh on a new disk), but then the Vista drive died on me, just a day too soon.

Pretending the drive hadn't died: when I download apps directly on the iPhone, iTunes accepts these new apps into the iTunes backup and plays nice. This is what I want to achieve now, too.

I fail to understand why it won't work, since my iPhone is clearly mine and I'm signed into the app store on it using my Apple ID; and my iTunes on Windows is also logged into the app store using the same Apple ID; shouldn't this be enough verification for iTunes that I'm not stealing apps off of a pal's device? Why won't iTunes accept the iPhone apps just as it used to do?
 
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I do keep regular PC backups but I infrequently sync my iPhone, and that's what is biting me now. Believe me, I didn't wipe my computer for fun. And I wasn't prepared for it. Oh these are the joys of Windows. I was preparing to downgrade my PC from Vista to XP (actually install XP fresh on a new disk), but then the Vista drive died on me, just a day too soon.

Pretending the drive hadn't died: when I download apps directly on the iPhone, iTunes accepts these new apps into the iTunes backup and plays nice. This is what I want to achieve now, too.

I fail to understand why it won't work, since my iPhone is clearly mine and I'm signed into the app store on it using my Apple ID; and my iTunes on Windows is also logged into the app store using the same Apple ID; shouldn't this be enough verification for iTunes that I'm not stealing apps off of a pal's device? Why won't iTunes accept the iPhone apps just as it used to do?

Ooooh.... you have Windows. My sympathy. *smacks forehead*

You can re-download any app you've paid for off the iTunes Store w/o re-paying for it. They do keep track of it, believe it or not. Obviously any data created by the apps that you were looking to save won't get restored since that's saved in your iTunes Library, but the apps themselves are a simply matter of re-downloading. Just go through the process as if you were buying the app for the first time... you'll eventually get a notice that this is a free download.
 
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BTW... in iTunes, make sure you have "authorized" the computer using your Apple id that you use for your iPhone purchases. Once done, re-download all the Applications again from the iTunes Store. Once all download, hit Sync. With the apps re-downloaded and existing on both the computer and the iPhone, hopefully it will now re-sync any app data also.
 
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Problem solved!

I risked it. I turned on "sync" and then accepted the warning that my iPhone will be wiped. (I copied my iphone's photos to the computer first.)

Interestingly, the first thing iTunes did was to download Skype from my iPhone into my iTunes -- whaddayaknow, apparently it DOES do exactly what I wanted to do. Hopefully the app data from those other apps were also copied?

... and then it wiped the iPhone (as per the warning) and copied everything over from iTunes into the iPhone again.

I have no understanding how this stuff works, perhaps my apps got their data from the app's server... at any rate, the data is there (again?).

I now sync everything between itunes and my iphone, such as I wanted to do. Not sure I understand why this works, but hopefully it'll just keep working.

Thank you for your input!
 

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