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Good that they got an interim fix out quickly, but they still need to get back to a single version of iTunes WITH the app store as soon as possible and then never do anything this stupid again.
 
so basically Apple is bringing "back" the functionality but then flipping the bird at the people who "made" them bring it back by making the process as broken as they can. Awesome, Apple!
 
Thank goodness. I already ran into that annoyance when I set up my iphone 8 as new and one of my YouTube apps wasn’t in the store any more. I know I can drag it in, but that’s tedious.
 
Apps is important but more important is the ability to sync ring tones. I was told to redo my 6s as fresh and then restore to fix a problem (which it didn't) and then realized there was now no way to get my custom ring tones back without 3rd party programs.

I hope all install this to show Apple they removed something without a replacement which was no good.
 
Apple is making this version of iTunes available because "certain business partners might still need to use iTunes to install apps", but the download is basically available to anyone looking to reinstate the functionality that was removed in iTunes 12.7.

Many companies develop internal iOS Apps for use by employees. They are not available in the App Store. The only way to install them on your iOS device is to open the .ipa file in iTunes, choose Install, and sync to the device.

The only reason Apple released this version is because they left large corporations without an alternative way to install proprietary internal Apps.
 
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Does 12.6.3 allow pictures to be moved from your Mac to your iOS device? I don't want to put my pictures in the cloud because I have pictures of houses I like on my Mac that are of no use on my iPhone
 
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No, in the absence of evidence you can't make a logical "guess." That's kind of an oxymoron.

A bit of rational thinking and deduction would go a long way.

But it's ok. You love the ability to manage iOS apps in iTunes and that definitely means the rest of the world does too, right?

Still haven't answered the question by the way - if you were to poll 100 iPhone users in the general public, how many do you think would even be aware that iOS app management in iTunes is a thing, let alone use that feature?
 
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Why would we ever want 32 bit apps back and an old iPhone design?

Because headphone jack is still universally useful compared to either Bluetooth or Lightning, which are still far from it.

Because some 32 bit apps are not updated, will never be but are still quite useful.

Neither holds Apple back in any way, nor affects anyone who wants to go all-in with Bluetooth, Lightning or only 64 bit apps. Such stuff would simply make Apple products more useful for those that desire such utility.

Take very simple, very common use-cases. For example, ever fly? Ever want to watch the seatback live video instead of whatever you might have on the iDevice? How many mainstream airlines have a Bluetooth connect option for the audio? How many have a Lightning jack for the audio?

Hot girl/guy sits next to you. You strike up a conversation. She/he wants to share a great song on their phone with you. It's not an Apple phone. Did you bring the adapter? If not, tough luck. Or instead of listening together, it turns into a your turn: my turn. How about watching a movie she has on her device together? Tough luck.

Visit a client. They need you to jack into their audio equipment to hear the latest ad/video/conference/broadcast/etc. They're NOT an Apple shop. Offend the client by ridiculing their lack of Apple equipment? Delay the conference so that maybe their IT guy can find some way to jack you into their equipment? Just miss out and look like a disconnected consultant/partner?

This stuff is everywhere. Can't even work wired between iPhone and Macs- must have the adapter or 2 (TWO!) sets of headphone.

It's not "the future" per se, it's still just an ongoing usage hassle. Carry the adapter everywhere and/or be sure this other thing is charged too. Just roll with what you can't do because of the rampant incompatibility outside of a narrow Apple bubble?

"But, but, but the other guys are dropping the headphone jack too." Yes, but they are NOT adopting Lightning. And Bluetooth still has so many limitations in sharing, in quality, etc.

On the app issue, useful apps are useful apps. Sure it would be great if every app was upgraded to be 64bit but neither Apple nor us consumers have any control of that. And if the developer is closed or just doesn't care anymore, that doesn't make their app any less useful to those who use those apps. And there's not always substitutes for every app.

I realize that some of us seem compelled to go with a "whatever Apple thinks/does is the one and only right way for ALL" stance, but I, for one, still subscribe to an earlier Apple decree: "think different" which sometimes applies pretty well when Apple's thinking is working against a consumer's utility. We should be able to think objectively and share our opinions and not necessarily be wrong just because they don't sync with what a corporation has decided... even THAT corporation.

In matters such as the headphone jack and 32-bit app, NOBODY is negatively affected by keeping either- not Apple, not other consumers who only want "the future", etc. However, those who want "the past" can be greatly affected by trying to do what so many do- just roll with it, because we want the whole bad enough to try to roll with the choices that affect us negatively. Some spin that as a unit sale vote in support of Apple's choices but I think that's really a vote to just tolerate the headaches of some Apple choices because we want "the rest" bad enough to do so.

I'm quite the Apple consumer myself. I still HATE the headphone jack decision. It's a terrible fragmentation (driven only by a choice, not being forced there (no "thinner" is not a force)) that puts a burden on us consumers for at least many years to come. There is NO good way to "roll with it" and have any "the future" option work as well. Embrace Bluetooth and reject being able to use the buds with you in many common situations. Embrace lightning and not even be able to use your best headphones with Apple's own Macs. Carrying adapters is a poor substitute to just leaving a tiny hole and tiny channel in for those "old fogeys" who want to keep using the most ubiquitous standard port for audio in the world. Carrying more than one set of headphones to cover all bases is a poor substitute for 30 seconds of "thinner & lighter" spin at the big reveal.

How long until either Lightning or Bluetooth is as available on everything? Never for Lightning and it seems like it will be a very long time for Bluetooth. But hey, let's celebrate our difficulties because a corporation knows best for ALL of us. And let's ridicule our fellow consumers who don't just tow the company line because a concept like "think different" only applies when it aligns with whatever the corporation wants us to buy.
 
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I was one of those people who liked using iTunes to manage apps on multiple devices. I skipped the 12.7 update, stayed with 12.6.2, upgraded to High Sierra, iTunes stayed at 12.6.2. Have just updated to 12.6.3, all running perfectly.

I for one, am very happy. This is not a unique situation - I also run 2 versions of iMovie, 10 and 9.0.9., plus iPhoto, Aperture and Photos. Apple seems to understand that for some, certain functionalities are important, and allow a compromise. That, in my view, puts them way ahead of most other tech companies.
 
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Meh, I think the idea that an iOS device needs a computer for any functionality is going to result in bad decisions. iTunes doesn't need an App Store for a device with the exact same connection to the internet and using the PC as a repository doesn't require an App Store built in for that.

Continuity with autonomy should be the goal. I thought most people wanted a lighter version of iTunes, you gotta let them remove that bloat guys.
...without offering an alternative. iTunes is a bloated mess, so removing it makes sense, but they at least need to provide a viable way to keep backups of Apps so that people with slow internet connections don't have to download everything again and again.
Just like iBooks was removed from iTunes into a separate app, but, you can still sync iBooks to iOS devices via itunes, they should just make a separate app for syncing iOS devices that includes iOS app management. When you have hundreds of apps and more than one or two iOS devices, it just works better. Apple doesn’t realize how may people have slower internet connections (or, in a similar but different subject, do not have unlimited data).

So, why not have a new sync app for managing iOS devices? iTunes can be for all music and video content, (redesigned, please), we already have iBooks app (at least for Macs).
Did you know that iTunes 12.7 can still display App Store pages (by redirecting from particular iTunes.store.apple.com pages)? In other word, most of the App Store related code is still in 12.7, it is just hidden in the UI. Thus the only thing that is less bloated in 12.7 is the preferences window.

But I guess 'bloat' is more of an imagined thing than reality. iTunes mainly feels slowish and old because it is using old code not because it has many features.
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Yes, the catch is that 12.6.2 officially cannot support iOS 11 and the iPhone 8 and X.
Hmmm, this makes sense, because, the system requirements for 12.6.3 are the same as 12.7 not 12.6.2, so, wondering if 12.6.3 is really built off 12.7. (You cannot install 12.6.3 on Mavericks, but, 12.6.2 can.) Which, conversely means, 12.7 is barely an update from 12.6.2. ...Apple really needs to move syncing iOS devices to a separate app and give iTunes a major overhaul. That would be the simplest solution.
If I’m not mistaken ibooks was removed when MacOS Yosemite was introduced. That would be iTunes 10.7
There is a hack to bring back ibooks but it does not work with iTunes 12.7. Only with 12.6.2 or older. Maybe it will work with 12.6.3 but I´m not willing to test it.
There’s no need, just get the free iBooks app from the Mac App Store. But, you can drag and drop books to itunes also, at least, I have done PDF files that way.
Is iTunes 12.6.3 compatible with iOS 11 devices?
iTunes 12.6.2 is compatible with iOS 11 on all iOS devices except iPhone 8/8+, and iPhone X.
iTunes 12.6.3 adds compatibility for iPhone 8/8+, X.
 
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It's sounds by what your saying that it is as if your parents, for some reason, are doing restores on their hardware every other day..... In a normal setup I know my mom never needed to do a restore on her iPhone and even if she did for that one blue moon chance that it happens downloading everything again will not be that difficult, now as for other side of the coin, getting the app store back in iTunes will just blaot the application more for ever not only for that once in a blue moon chance of needing the appstore.
I am a long time Mac and iProduct user and I still manage my iProducts through iTunes. I connect a couple times a week and swap apps, playlists, and podcasts.
Apple needs to rewrite the code not remove functionality.
 
Continuity with autonomy should be the goal. I thought most people wanted a lighter version of iTunes, you gotta let them remove that bloat guys.

As I posted here (https://forums.macrumors.com/thread...lt-in-app-store.2066504/page-40#post-25074686 ):

As many people have written that removing AppStore from iTunes reduced bloat in the latter I was curious about the sizes of the apps. I checked the system requirements for both 12.6 and 12.7--and they both require 400MB of hard disk space. There is no information about RAM requirements or usage. But there is no reduction in bloat in the size of the app.

I used the following to obtain the system requirements.

Download iTunes 12.6.2
https://support.apple.com/kb/DL1934?viewlocale=en_US&locale=en_US

Download iTunes 12.7
https://support.apple.com/kb/DL1814?viewlocale=en_US&locale=en_US
 
Thanks for the info!
Sure...I’m still on iTunes 12.6.2, have had no issues installing iOS 11.0, 11.0.1, 11.0.2 on iPad Pro 9.7, iPhone 7+.

I recommend downloading the full iOS via iTunes when updates come out and installing them via iTunes. I swear I have less issues with iOS devices doing this rather than installing small updates over the air.
 
As many people have written that removing AppStore from iTunes reduced bloat in the latter I was curious about the sizes of the apps. I checked the system requirements for both 12.6 and 12.7--and they both require 400MB of hard disk space. There is no information about RAM requirements or usage. But there is no reduction in bloat in the size of the app.

No, in the absence of evidence you can't make a logical "guess." That's kind of an oxymoron.
Ahh, wise considerations !
The only thing we can deduct from this incident, is that Eddy Cue must be still in charge.
Which implies with indefinite certainty that nobody knows nothing about the strategic development direction iTunes will (not) receive, apart from the fact that there won't be any.
 
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But I need a place to download the apps just once and then push them out to the various iOS devices.

Well, you could enable Automatic Downloads, which has existed for years. Purchase once on any Mac or iOS device, and those purchases are automatically downloaded to the others.
 
What do they mean PC 32 bit version of iTunes? Apple said they don't support 32 bit desktop OS. My Mac Pro1,1 Lion can not run the latest iTunes because they say it's 32 bit. I hope they are not still supporting windows xp.

No. :)

Since Windows 7 (and technically XP, but that story is more complicated), Microsoft has released Windows in both 32- and 64-bit (x86 and x64) varieties. The 32-bit version is more widely compatible since some processors are not 64-bit capable (nowadays it's mostly extremely small form factors, but back when they started, this included a lot of desktops and laptops as well), but it's notably suffers from the a 4 GB RAM limitation (and related phenomena, but this is the one that's quite noticeable now that many computers have 8 GB RAM or more). The 64-bit edition of Windows will run most (all?) 32-bit programs just fine, but it won't work with 32-bit device drivers.

I'm pretty sure the 64-bit version of iTunes on Windows is just 64-bit device drivers (which, again, 64-bit Windows requires) for iOS devices and similar, with the same 32-bit application that they offer for 32-bit versions of Windows. This was definitely the case the last time I used it, and I can't imagine they've changed much.

So, no, this has nothing to do with Windows XP, nor is there a good reason to think it does. Lots of people "still" use 32-bit versions of Windows, though it's likely Microsoft will stop making them soon (I don't think they originally planned to with Windows 10, but I'm guessing they wanted wider compatibility). I don't recall Apple ever saying that they don't support 32-bit OSes--certainly not across the board to include Windows--except that they've pushed macOS releases to 64-bit only because all of their recent computers have been 64-bit capable and macOS plays more nicely with "mixed-bitedness" among applications than Windows does.
 
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Sure...I’m still on iTunes 12.6.2, have had no issues installing iOS 11.0, 11.0.1, 11.0.2 on iPad Pro 9.7, iPhone 7+.

I recommend downloading the full iOS via iTunes when updates come out and installing them via iTunes. I swear I have less issues with iOS devices doing this rather than installing small updates over the air.
This is regarding iPhone 8, 8+ and X in addition to iOS 11
 
ugh, why couldn't they just add on a preference for keeping apps stored locally or not stored locally(for people that want that space freed up)?

But I'm still waiting for them to add a way to drag and drop photos to and from the iphone. I hate adding photos/videos, aka adding them to one folder and syncing it to my phone. and then once there, not one possible way to remove any of said items unless you remove from folder and resync, but I'm sure I'll dead and still waiting. ):
 
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