copying apps between iPhone and PC

By JPikula, 21 January, 2013

Forum
iOS and iPadOS
Hello, all. I am a brand new iPhone 5 owner, having received one for Christmas. I would like to purchase a few paid apps, but I want to copy any that I purchase from the app store on the phone to my PC, in case something happens to the app. I tried connecting my iPhone 5 to my PC with the USB cable, selected the app radio button in the iPhone dialog box in iTunes, tabbed to the sync button and pressed enter. A minute later I heard a chime sound, and assumed that the apps already on my phone were copied to the folder in iTunes. But when I put focus back to the folder where I expected to see the apps, nothing was there. I only have five apps on my phone right now, all of them free, because I don't want to risk losing a paid app. Within ten days after purchasing the phone, my speech stopped working, although VoiceOver was still running. I brought it back too Radio Shack (where I purchased the phone) and they had to reset it back to factory defaults. I had a couple of free apps on the phone, but no harm done, because I could download the free apps again with no pain. Thank you for your help in advance. Pikulaj

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Comments

By Lisa on Wednesday, January 23, 2013 - 00:44

If you heard the sound indicating that the iphone finished syncing, they probably copied over. I'm not sure if you can actually access the apps on the pc, I believe it just copies the files over. Either way, even if the app is paid, you can download it again, even if you reset your phone or get a new one. Mine download automatically from ICloud, and as long as you keep your same apple id, the app is considered purchased, so you can download it again to the phone.

By Shersey on Wednesday, January 23, 2013 - 00:44

Connect your phone to your computer, and find it in the sources list. I'm not quite sure how to do this with iTunes 11 at it's default settings, but FSCast did an excellent podcast on iTunes 11 which you may wish to check out. Once you've located your iPhone in the list, right-click on it, either by pressing the applications key on your keyboard or by pressing shift+F10 together. This should bring up a menu of choices, one of which is "Transfer purchases." Press enter on that, and you should be good to go. It's also a good idea to make regular backups of your phone. I usually use iTunes for major backups, such as when backing up before updating iOS, but use iCloud the rest of the time. To back up your phone, just follow the steps above, except that you need to press enter on "Backup," rather than on "Transfer purchases." Backing up saves your pictures, text messages, app data, and lots of other things, so it's good to perform regular backups. As for your voice not working but VoiceOver still being on, try pressing your volume up button several times. The volume has a habit of dropping down so low that the phone goes into silent mode. There should be no need to reset your phone what-so-ever. Try the volume before anything else. This has happened a lot to me, and now it's the first thing I try. Hope this helps, Shersey

By MarkSarch on Wednesday, January 23, 2013 - 00:44

In reply to by Lisa

Hi Don't worry you will not miss any thing all your purchase are saved on your apple ID I don't know how knowledge have using the iPhone by itself, but consider hard transfer apps and media syncing iTunes from a PC I will give to you a guide how download previous purchases directly on the iPhone Follow the steps below: #1 Open App Store on your iPhone. #2 On the App Store screen go to the bottom you will reach 5 taps starting from left to right Featured Top Charts Genius Search Updates Select updates #3 On this update screen you will have two headings as a list of Apps that needs update. Well we pay atention at the headings Updates heading Purchased heading number two Select purchased heading #4 On this new screen After listen few sounds you will find two options All button Not on this iPhone button You can hit wherever button that you want to Then you will find listed App named then on the line below Install button Just hit the install button of the app that you want to install again on your iPhone... Note on the top left corner of the screen you will find the back button hit on it to the previous screen Hope this helps...

By Unregistered User (not verified) on Wednesday, January 23, 2013 - 00:44

Just so you know, using iTunes, connect your phone with the usb cable, go to your devices tab and select your iphone. Tab down to the apps radio button and press space bar to select it, keep tabbing until you hear something like sync apps (its a checkbox), make sure you press space bar to check the box and then tab and press sync. Once this is done, ituens will save all of your apps to the computer automatically when you plug in. Likewise, using iTunes, you have no need of anyone resetting your phone for you. You can either go to the devices tab and tab to info and select it, then tab down to resotre. If voiceover turns off when you restart the phone, please plug in, go to device and select your iphone, then tab to info radio button and select it, then go to univiveral controls or universal accessibility. Select voiceover, and hit apply and voiceover will turn back on. There is a glitch that seems to shut voice over off when restarting the phone sometimes, its been reported and hopefully will be fixed, but it sometimes means using itues to turn it back on and the glitch seems to delete all voice over settings so you have to change the speech and speed setting all over again.