Restoring a previous version of an IOS app

By Daniel, 25 February, 2016

Forum
iOS and iPadOS

Hello everyone

With the release of IOS 9 and OS X El Capitan, I've just discovered that when I backup my device with iTunes, it no longer transfers apps from my IOS devices into the Mobile Applications Folder for backup purposes just in case I wanted to restore to a previous version of an app. Mainly for accessibility reasons because we all know that at times an updated version of an app could be released and it could possibly brake accessibility. Granted, rolling back to a previous version if you have it in the iTunes mobile applications folder doesn't always work but there was no harm in trying to roll back if it worked.

Now though, from what I can gather, it seems that they have pulled this functionality from iTunes the latest version of iTunes and IOS 9.

So the question now is: are there any work arounds to getting the current version of the .ipa file that's currently stored on your device back into the mobile applications folder of one's own iTunes Library.

What do you all think about this change?

Personally, I thought that the whole point of an iTunes backup was to well simply backup everything on the device and not start to leave stuff out of the backup in this case apps.

Be interested to know your thoughts and if any work arounds have been possible yet.

Kind regards

Daniel

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Comments

By Siobhan on Thursday, February 25, 2016 - 19:39

You buy an app, say a paid app, you don't like it. For whatever reason, you want to get a refund. There were people who after being refunded kept the app. So why then was it fair to have a paid app for nothing? It wasn't so they changed it to you can no longer receive updates with apps you've been refunded. I had this experience after I bought go for netflix, disliked it, refunded, and thought I'd deleted it. Then my updates said I had one for that app, I tried, and got the error, the app wasn't available. So after deleting the app, then rebooting, it solved it. I'm guessing this is why the IOs now behaves simularly. I never understood the people who would roll back to a previous version. Even I dislike the new audio boom app, but couldn't care less I can't back up to another old version. If you roll back to an "accessible" app every time there's a break in what you view as accessibility what would be the point of updating at all? btw, I mean you in general, not you personally.

By DPinWI on Thursday, February 25, 2016 - 19:39

I update apps on my device, but do not download new updates to iTunes automatically. Should an app update break something critical, I can delete it from my phone, and then reinstall it from iTunes. Only once I am certain I am happy with the update on my phone do I download the most recent version to my iTunes library.