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iTunes 12.7 and the removal of the iOS App Store

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UtterDisbelief

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Yes, as we've probably all noticed by now, letting iTunes update itself to 12.7 has surprising repercussions.

I was more than a little surprised to discover that the iOS app store had been deprecated, along with Tones. No longer could we browse and buy and maintain on our desktops. All has to be done on the device itself now.

Personally one of the big draws for me, way back, was the ability to do just that, using dedicated software to maintain my apps and backups from the desktop, something Google had not bothered with for Android. Having eyesight problems means I don't enjoy browsing for apps and reading their descriptions on my iPhone. I'm sure it's better on an iPad but I don't have one. With the Big G there is at least a web version of their store so people can still browse there if they want to and then send to their devices.

Looking back, I realise I have only ever browsed for, and bought apps, on the desktop. Okay, that's just my choice given my problems. I don't think Apple will take much notice. It did surprise me though that we had no warning of the changes. I thought, when the update popped-up on the macOS app store, that the new version simply took into account the new iPhone models released in September. I never guessed what was going on.

Anyway, that's the problem. What to do?

I decided to roll-back to iTunes 12.6. It wasn't as hard as I expected. All I had to do was:

1) Sign out of iTunes and de-authorise the computer, temporarily.

2) Stop the iTunes Helper app using the Activity Monitor.

3) Remove the new iTunes app.

4) Download the 12.6 iTunes installer from Apple's web-site.

5) Delete, and in my case copy elsewhere for safety just in case, my iTunes database info - *.itdb & *.itl files in the iTunes directory of my Music folder. Though I didn't need these in the end. NOTE: If you have a lot of personal, unique metadata, you might need to explore a Time Machine backup method instead.

6) Re-install iTunes 12.6

7) Use the Add to Library menu option to re-build a current database of the still present media (as per no.5 without any personal metadata unfortunately)

8) Sigh with relief!

All is back now as it was and functioning as before.

I know if I update to High Sierra in a couple of weeks the problem will return, so maybe I'll hold off a while in case the new release has new workarounds. Not too optimistic yet though.

If not perhaps I can substitute Apple Configurator 2 as an alternative. Has anyone tried this?

:)
 
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Personally one of the big draws for me, way back, was the ability to do just that, maintain my apps and backups from the desktop, something Google had not bothered with for Android
The Play Store does this from any browser, on any device.
 
12.7 Refused to execute for me. It just gave me the spinning beach ball of death...

So I tried for three weeks to get it running and decided to revert to 12.6. I re-installed it and then when I fired up 12.6 it could not open me iTunes library. So apparently The 12.7 installer worked well enough to "upgrade" my library but not well enough to run the app.... grrrr....


So I gave up and reinstalled OS 10.12.6 and got the 12.7 iTunes to run properly.

I also used the iTunes App feature to manage my screens on all my devices. I admit that while I used it that way I didn't really need to, it was just easier not necessary.

Now I have to get audio working again... another post...

/Bob
 
12.7 Refused to execute for me. It just gave me the spinning beach ball of death...

So I tried for three weeks to get it running and decided to revert to 12.6. I re-installed it and then when I fired up 12.6 it could not open me iTunes library. So apparently The 12.7 installer worked well enough to "upgrade" my library but not well enough to run the app.... grrrr....


So I gave up and reinstalled OS 10.12.6 and got the 12.7 iTunes to run properly.

I also used the iTunes App feature to manage my screens on all my devices. I admit that while I used it that way I didn't really need to, it was just easier not necessary.

Now I have to get audio working again... another post...

/Bob

Yes, this iTunes change has been a pain. I think I was fortunate in having a backup library on my Windows partition (separate drive) so I just removed 12.7, deleted the library there, reinstalled 12.6 and then added-back from the Windows version.

I've just downloaded High Sierra but am not touching it until I find out if 12.6 can run on it. If not, as I say I'll have to explore Apple configurator.

:)
 
Thanks to @Sniki over on their Apple News & Rumors thread for the heads-up on the fact Apple have now released a 'special' version of iTunes for Business/Volume users that re-instates the app-store and ringtones:

https://support.apple.com/en-gb/HT208079

Looks like this might be some kind of interim solution until something else is introduced to handle apps better than iOS alone or Apple Configurator 2.

:)
 
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