Where is Find Friends?

OK I'm at my wits end with this. I have an iPhone 5s as does my wife the only difference between them is that mine is a GSM+CDMA version.
I have installed iOS 9.0.2 on my iPhone, my wife's iPhone and her iPad, all without a hitch except my iPhone does not have Find Friends.
I have installed the appropriate iOS on my iPhone using the .ipsw file for the GSM+CDMA model and even resorted to setting it up as a new phone. This was initially the iOS 9.0.1 upgrade then followed up with the iOS 9.0.2 update. Syncing with iTunes shows Find Friends as "Installed" and while connected to the computer the icon is visible on the iPhone desktops display on the right. I have even successfully moved it from one desktop to another in the iTunes display to no avail. It is not in my Notifications options, nor in the Settings menu.
What else can I try? Is it possible that Find friends is not compatible with this GSM+CDMA model? Everything else works perfectly.

Are you sure the Find My Friends icon is not enclosed within a folder or another icon? If it shows up in iTunes it has to be on your phone.


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Well with respect I beg to differ. I would have replied earlier but i cant get AirDrop to work ahh. So as you will see below Find Friends appears on my Home Screen in iTunes during sync. But in the Apps list on the left it is called Find My Friends, the app I had previously but not installed. You will also see the search window on my iPhone demonstrating that the only item starting with "Find" on the phone is Find My iPhone eliminating the possibility that it is hiding elsewhere. I am defeated by this one. (for now)
View attachment 23024 View attachment 23023

Sorry getting sloppy, should'a resized the phone shot.

Your attachments didn't come through. And the more I read about your difficulty, the more confused I am as to what's going on with the apps on your phone.

Darn, had to refresh the page and restore but they appeared at this end. I'll try again but you are not alone in your confusion. The really disheartening thing is no one else seems to have this problem.

So here are the screen shots for what they are worth. think I must resign myself to not having this app until the next upgrade. The good thing is the phone works really well in every other way and I like this iOS much more than 8.4.1

PS you will notice Fart Cushion is NOT installed. Must have downloaded that in a moment of childish toilet joke humour.

I guess "Find My Friends" just doesn't like you Rod, either that or it's been banned from Bali. ;P I'm with you, I don't understand why it's not showing up on your phone when iTunes clearly shows that it's on your desktop and has been installed. Maybe someone like chas_m can figure it out?

Tou know I did think about the possibility of an area ban, I am in Indonesia and there is a fair measure of internet censorship but my wife has it on her iPhone 5s and her iPad mini and we both used the same ISP and have SIM cards from the same provider.
I did a little more reading about this and found a page suggesting that some other people had experienced "missing" icons on their iPhones since the iOS 9 upgrade. the reason this interested me was because I have found that if I go to the App Store and look up Find My Friends the "Get" button shows "Open" when I click open the app opens on my phone with all of my followers listed and my location. That would suggest that the app is loaded but not the icon.
So the article suggests that restoring from your computer may not be the best way today. They suggested one fix may be to backup to iCloud and restore from there. This would entail backing up the phone (to iCloud), logging out of iCloud on the phone, resetting everything and restoring back from the iCloud. This means I would no longer be backing up to my laptop. Perhaps it's time to accept that iCloud based services are the way of the future.

Hi Rod

I probably don't have a solution for you, but I feel for you and I get the frustration.

It seems to me that the app must be on the phone and in working order, but the means to activate it (the icon) is not visible.

To prove this and as an alternative means of "seeing" the app - maybe!! - is to go into Settings > Mobile Data. This is where you can determine which apps can use cellular to connect when WiFi not available. If you scroll down a fair bit, you come to USE MOBILE DATA FOR: All your apps should be listed there. Is "Find Friends" listed?

Ian

Thanks Ian, yes it is listed. Strangely it is not listed in Notification Center.

For fear of getting you to try what you have already tried/telling you what you already know.

Can you uninstall it in iTunes, then sync.

Disconnect. Sign out of the app store on the phone.

Force a restart (hold sleep/wake and home till you get the Apple symbol).

Sign back into the app store and download the app on the phone.

Thank you for giving this issue so much thought. It's not that I really need this app it's just that it should be there and it's not. So it's an irresistible puzzle.
Unfortunately I cannot uninstall it. It is now a core app like Safari or Mail.
I even tried removing it from iTunes > media > mobile apps and syncing. Still shows it as installed and the fact that it opens from the App Store proves that it is. I just can't see it.
Thanks again, haven't given up just yet.

Apologies, didn't realise it was now a built in app - I'm a bit rusty it seems

I notice you say you've installed using a manually selected IPSW. Any reason for not doing a restore and letting iTunes select the appropriate build?

I have the 6s GSM+CDMA model and Find Friends is there and working. Currently at v9.1

Well, really the reason for using the .ipsw was due to a very unreliable connection to the Apple iPhone Software Updater Database (henceforward to be known as AiPSUD).
Originally I did the upgrade on my phone. As I leave it in a dock o/night, locked and within WiFi range it downloaded (iOS 9.0) by itself, so I thought OK, might as well install. Big mistake, apps greyed out, missing data ect. So I decided to restore from backup on iTunes, then download upgrade in iTunes. Signal kept dropping out and would not resume download. iTunes kept stating that network settings had been changed so after 6 near misses I opted for the .ipsw method using a download manager, just in case.
So your suggestion is a good one but I need access to a faster more stable network than the one I have at home (I am in Indonesia in the hills of Bali).

Do you think it'll be stable enough to get the 9.1 delta it's not that big if memory serves.

If not I have a great connection here if you want to swap exotic Bali for the 'sunny' UK

Sorry I wrote a reply to your post them lost connection when I tried to post it.

I had said I could get a satellite connection for the price of a ticket to UK. I guess I'll have to put up with the fact that paradise has its shortcomings. Not many though.

Anyhow did as you suggested, used a fast broadband site to download the 9.1 restore. I had previously backed up to my laptop and the restore process states it performs a backup as part of the process.
After 15min the iOS had loaded and began the restore. At the end of that process, 20min I find not only is Find Friends missing but 4 other apps and 6 are greyed out. I then restored from backup on my laptop. Now 10 are greyed out. Another 20min. Online restore from the App Store states it is unable to restore some apps and suggests I Sync with iTunes (again). This time only 4 apps greyed out and one completely missing. 30min spent waiting for Artwork to load and at each sync it syncs all my music (12Gb) so they are very slow. At the end of all this I still do not have find friends and I'm missing my iMore Forums app.
When I got home I checked the App Store and found I have 23 updates.
Ah well, it was worth a try. A total of 3hrs spent only to be worse off than before.