As mentioned in yesterday’s post, I’ve been experimenting with downloading apps on my iPhone. Mostly it’s a good experience, although I’m looking forward to the apps maturing a bit.
I got burned today by iTunes’ handling of downloaded apps and I thought I should share it with those of you who use multiple machines.
I have two computers: a laptop (MacBook Pro) and a desktop (G5 tower). When I first got the 3G, I downloaded a few apps and installed them via the laptop before I even got home.
Yesterday, I hooked the phone up to my desktop machine and synced again. I was watching closely for any odd behavior and didn’t see any, so I didn’t think much of it.
Today I synced again with the desktop machine. Having synced successfully yesterday, I wasn’t watching as closely. Clicked the Sync button and let it go.
And then, out of the corner of my eye, I saw the status message read: “Uninstalling application Bylines”.
No-oooooooooooo!
I tried to cancel the sync, but the damage was already done. All 12 of my downloaded apps were gone from the phone.
I was eventually able to get them back (by manually copying the .ipa files from the laptop to the desktop), but this was definitely unexpected and undesired behavior. Oh … and all the preferences/settings for each of these applications was wiped out too, so I got to reconfigure each one of them. Feh.
Also bad: synching multiple accounts on one computer, even if you’re just synching from a yahoo address book. Can really mess up your address book. BTW, I need your cell phone number again. :-}