iPhone Software Taking Over My MBP

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bowjest

Registered
I've just plugged in my iPhone and tried copying over a PDF that I wanted to read on the go.

It said I couldn't read this without installing iBook. Ok, I searched in iTunes on my MBP, found it, and chose to install it.

Problem is, I couldn't then find it on my iPhone. I turned the iPhone off then on and started iTunes again and there was the iBook app in iTunes on my MBP, but not on my iPhone.

I then tried a drag and drop and it said it would install it, but first I had to authorise it to do so or it would delete all the apps on my iPhone (no joke), so I said ok.

This then started installing all my apps from iPhone onto my MBP (and eating up disk space as it went).

I'm very careful about the disk space on my MBP and I don't need or want any of my iPhone apps on my computer (what's the point?).

Can I now go and delete these from my MBP without them being deleted from my iPhone the next time I sync?

Thanks
 
bowjest said:
Can I now go and delete these from my MBP without them being deleted from my iPhone the next time I sync?
Click to expand...

I believe the answer is, "No."

Your phone holds a subset of the information on your computer -- if you delete it on the computer, it will be deleted from the phone. At least this holds true for automatically synced music/movies/videos/pictures.
 
Hi Diablo,

So why has this only started now? I've been adding music to my iPhone from the MBP since I bought the iPhone a couple of months ago.

I don't want or need these apps on my computer - they're just using up disk space.

There's got to be some way to stop this from happening as I was merrily using it without having all this apps installed on my MBP before.

Any suggestions at all?
 
What would happen if I deauthorised the MBP? I was never asked to authorise it before (and didn't like the idea that it told me I had to authorise it or it would delete all the content on my iPhone).

This really is unacceptable. Extremely frustrated and can't see how anyone would think this was a good idea of how to manage things.
 
Called Apple and they gave me some info and said not to worry, nothing would be deleted.

Wrong. Followed the steps as outlined exactly as described and iTunes has now wiped all my apps off my iPhone.

Great product.
 
Ok, I really need some help now. Please.

After iTunes deleted all my apps, I went back and took a tick out of "Sync Apps" on my iPhone, took the tick out of "Automatically Sync New Apps", and then saved these changes.

I ejected my iPhone, installed a couple of apps again, plugged my iPhone back in again and you guessed it: it has synced these apps back to my MBP even though there are still no ticks in the "Sync Apps" option for my iPhone.

Please, can someone tell me why this is happening? I can't afford to have close to a gig of space taken up on my MBP when this was never an issue before.

I really need some help getting this sorted out. Apple, unfortunately, have not been any help.
 
The only solution I've found is to install all my apps again, let this useless software copy it all across to my computer again and then delete the directory that holds all the copied over apps.

This really is fantastically crap. Why, after 3 months of iPhone ownership, this should suddenly decide that it wants to copy apps over onto my MBP that it can never use if beyond me.

My admiration for Apple is beginning to pale somewhat.
 
UPDATE: Because iTunes re-creates the Mobile Applications directory under the iTunes directory every time you plug in your iPhone (if you have installed further apps), I've created a folder action to wait 5 seconds and then delete all the content from this directory.

It seems to work so far, but hardly the result I would like. If anyone can advise on whether it is possible to completely and cleanly uninstall iTunes and then cleanly re-install it so I can get back to where I was before (without this syncing app tomfoolery) I would greatly appreciate it.
 
I guess you haven't discovered that your iTunes is used as the source for (most) everything that you have on your iPhone.
As EDCC pointed out, your iPhone holds a subset of the files that you keep on your Mac. So, music and videos and (yes) the apps that you have on your iPhone are all ultimately stored on your hard drive. In a sense, Your Mac (and the iTunes library) is your first level backup for your iPhone, making your iPhone easy to restore should you need to do that.
With that in mind, does it make sense to delete those folders/files in your iTunes folder?
 
DeltaMac,

Thanks for your reply.

If I can download apps directly from the App Store on my iPhone and do not want these taking up space on my MBP, I don't see why I should have to.

I don't download apps that I have to pay for (I've got all I need with free apps) and as such, should I need to uninstall and reinstall one, I can always do that from the phone.

Having them lying around on my MBP is just eating up space (that I don't want to lose) and wasn't a problem until I unfortunately was scared into authorising iTunes when it flashed the message that if I didn't, it would wipe my phone.

As stated previously, for 3+ months I have merrily downloaded the apps I wanted on my phone, plugged my phone into my MBP, transferred over play lists or whatever and been very happy with that as it was.

Now, even if I take the ticks out of all the "Sync Apps" options, it still continues to sync apps.

Can't see the point in having an option that (appears) to let you control whether you sync apps and then it just does it anyway whether you want to or not.

If there is no way out (which would be unfortunate and poor software design), then I'll just stick with my folder action deleting the apps that I don't want sucking up disk space.

But I'm hoping that there is a way to end this sync relationship so I can get back to using the system as I choose to use it.

Sorry if that sounds huffy, but as the consumer who has paid for these products and these products purporting to give me the option to *not* sync/copy apps back to my laptop, I'd prefer not to have to do this.

I don't think it's asking too much.
 
And, of course, your Mac belongs to you, and no one can tell you that you should not be using your Mac as you choose to use it. Downloading apps through the app store provides you with those apps on your iPhone, and stores a backup in iTunes on your Mac, and keeps it synced (so the backup is also current.) It doesn't make a difference if those apps are free or not. Why are you now having a problem with that?
Are you really running out of space on your hard drive? It's unlikely that iPhone apps are taking more than a small percentage of space, but those are apps that you chose. Maybe you should consider replacing your hard drive with a larger capacity, eh?
 
Hi DeltaMac,

I don't think I've explained the problem clearly: I have never downloaded any apps via the App Store on my MBP until yesterday. I have only ever installed apps directly on the iPhone itself. It was just by chance that yesterday I happened to have my iPhone plugged into my MBP and wanted to transfer a PDF file to my iPhone. When I did this, I got a message stating I wouldn't be able to read the file without installing iBooks.

Since I had my phone plugged into my MBP, I naively thought I would (for the first time) download an app via iTunes on my MBP and then install it on my phone.

As soon as I downloaded it to my MBP via iTunes and then dropped it onto my iPhone (which I could see on the left hand side of my iTunes), I got the message that I must enter my Apple ID login and authorise everything or iTunes would wipe all the apps off my iPhone.

Not wanting that to happen, I entered the requested info and iTunes then started copying all my iPhone apps onto my MBP. To repeat: until I stupidly downloaded iBooks via iTunes on my MBP, I never had a problem: no apps were ever transfered onto my MBP when I plugged in my phone/synced with my MBP, I was never prompted to enter my Apple ID info, zilch.

Now, even after taking out the ticks to sync apps, etc., if I install an app on my iPhone and then plug my iPhone into my MBP it is automatically copied onto my laptop.

I would like this to stop.

I am self-employed and my MBP is my business machine. As such, I do not want to have anything non-business related on it if I can help it. It's my personal preference and how I like to work. I have an iPhone for all my little "for fun" apps while at the same time I can take business calls and pick up my mails.

I would gladly prefer to go back to my "pre-authorised" status when iTunes just ignored the apps on my iPhone and I didn't have to jump through hoops to keep things the way I want them.

Thanks again for your input. If there's nothing that can be done to get back where I was, I guess I'll just have to stick with deleting any apps that get copied across.
 
Your iPhone apps won't run on your MBPro - they're just stored there.

If you don't want syncing to happen, then uncheck (in iTunes prefs, then Devices tab) - prevent iPods, iPhones and iPads from syncing automatically - and make sure that when your iPhone is plugged in to your Mac, that automatic sync is turned off.
Is there also a setting related to syncing somewhere in the iPhone's settings? I don't have an iPhone, so I can't tell you about that...
 
Hi DeltaMac,

Thanks again for your reply.

I know my iPhone apps won't run on my MBP and is one of several reasons why I don't want them on my laptop taking up space.

Thanks for the tip about where to stop the auto-sync in Prefs. I couldn't remember where to find that and was hoping that just disabling syncing apps would fix the problem.

I'll give that a try and see if that fixes things. If it does, I'll have another go at deleting all those app entries in iTunes, let them uninstall the apps on my phone (which I'm assuming I can't avoid), re-install my apps on the phone only and then see if that fixes things.

I appreciate your help. Have a good one.
 
There are two important points, which I hope you'll think about, even if your brain's programmed to ignore them...

1.) If you want your apps to be on your iPhone only and not on your MBP, you're *_not_* using the iPhone and your MBP as intended. The intended use - whatever it is _you_ want to do - is that the iPhone's kind of a "slave" to your main computer.

2.) You _can_ get the state back you had before, but it'll include wiping your iPhone completely, restoring it to factory conditions and then never ever again synching the iPhone's apps to your computer. This goes like this:

- Restore iPhone.
- Don't restore from backup, but select "as new iPhone".
- Synch everything you want except applications.
- Download all the apps you want from the AppStore on the iPhone. Whether those are pay-apps or free apps doesn't matter one iota. If you've paid for an app before, the second download is free, although it first looks as if you were buying it again all over.

Done. Yes, your iPhone will _not_ retain SMS messages etc., it'll start anew.

Now for the _intended_ use: There's a good reason Apple wants you to fully synchronize your iPhone to your Mac or PC... Backup. It's very easy to replace a stolen or broken phone and to be where you last were (more or less), if you keep everything synched. While you won't _plan_ to lose your iPhone or to break it, these things can happen...
 
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