Whats the point of iOS apps being in the Mac iTunes library anymore?

[wackymacky]

I was wondering what the point was in iTunes downloading my iOS apps now into the iTunes library on your mac, when they are now automatically updated on a iOS device, and pushed to my other iOS devices?

Seems like a waste of time, or am I missing something?

 

[talkingfuture]

Never thought of that before but it does seem that there is little point to having them on your Mac. Perhaps this will happen when iOS 5 goes public.

 

[paulsalter]

Backup purposes for if your device crashes ? and to easily set up a new device with your apps

I know in theory setting up a new device can be done straight from it, but then you would have to manually select from all your apps which to re download onto the device and order them how you like them, this could be very time consuming

not sure how clever this iCloud is going to be in the future, but if i buy a new iPod, plug it into iTunes, it is set up identical to my current one, is this possible with iCLoud ?

personally for me, i prefer looking at apps through iTunes, I find the iOS app store very annoying for browsing

 

[ftaok]

I was wondering what the point was in iTunes downloading my iOS apps now into the iTunes library on your mac, when they are now automatically updated on a iOS device, and pushed to my other iOS devices?

Seems like a waste of time, or am I missing something?

Whoa! If Apple did that, the Macrumors servers would explode with all of the comments coming from the complainers. Just imagine ...

Crapple sux! What happens now if I need to restore my iPhone and I'm not in range of 3G or wifi. It'll take days to redownload all of my 10,000 fart apps using EDGE. It's so stupid since I always travel with my 27" iMac (and portable gasoline generator) ... I could just restore using my iPhone cable.

 

[rcp27]

I was wondering what the point was in iTunes downloading my iOS apps now into the iTunes library on your mac, when they are now automatically updated on a iOS device, and pushed to my other iOS devices?

Seems like a waste of time, or am I missing something?

I can think of three reasons:

1) some people don't trust the clould, or for some other reason do not wish to use it. They will be able to continue using the old system
2) some people may not be able to reliably access the cloud, and for them the ability to sync the old way may be of benefit (eg student residence that only has wired internet, not WiFi, in which case syncing with the cloud costs on your iPhone data plan, but syncing on a computer can be done freely over the wires)
3) there is always the risk that something could happen to the cloud, either unintentionally (accident, natural disaster, financial problems) or otherwise (apple changes its policy in some way), and there is always some value keeping a local copy of stuff.