A long time ago I got an iPod Touch for my birthday and I’ve been using it ever since. I was thinking about getting an iPhone recently, but one of the concerns I have about doing so is the issue regarding the apps that I currently own.
If I get an iPhone, will I be able to move / transfer the apps (The paid ones at least) from my iPod Touch onto the phone, or are the apps bound to a specific device and I’ll have to repurchase them or something?
I just switched over to an iPhone from a touch and found that the apps downloaded via the touch were linked to my apple itunes account, not the device. Basically, when I plugged my iPhone in to my computer to sync it for the first time, it automatically downloaded all the previous apps. Also, as long as you use the same account on your iPhone that you used on your touch, you can delete and then redownload apps at no additional cost. (i.e. if you download scrabble at $2.99, delete it and then redownload it, it will say it costs 2.99 in the app store but when you click on it to download it will ask for your password and then give a note about how you’ve already purchased it and would you like to download it for free).
Hope this helps or I’m making sense…sorry I’m at work trying to type quickly!
That helped a bunch, many thanks! That sure is a relief to know that I don’t have to redownload anything again.
While I’m at it, I got a few more questions. When you sync the iPhone for the first time and transfer your old apps over, are app-specific data transferred onto the phone as well?
What I mean by app-specific data is, say hypothetically that there’s a better Address Book App that you downloaded and have added tons of phone numbers, e-mails, addresses, pics, etc. into the app when you had it on your iPod Touch. When you sync your stuff with your iPhone, do they just transfer ONLY the Address Book App into the iPhone, or will all the information that you inputted into the app when you stlll had your iPod Touch remain intact? I wouldn’t want to sync the new device only to find out that all the information was gone and I’d have to re-enter everything from the ground-up.
Also, let’s say that my entire family owns iPhones. If I can simply re-download my bought apps at no cost and sync my previous ones from my iPod Touch onto the phone, what’s to stop me from just buying all my apps on just one computer / iTunes account and then syncing all my stuff onto all of my family’s iPhones? Seems a little too convenient.
I’m not really sure about this one…I hadn’t downloaded that many apps that had inputed data (contact lists etc.). I mainly had apps like slacker radio and espn scorecenter…in those cases, the data didn’t transfer, so I would imagine that a simple sync wouldn’t transfer the data. However, I believe if you do a full backup of your data via iTunes you can then restore that backup on your new iPhone. After that, you can re-sync any apps and that should work for you. I’m not 100% sure that would work as I have never done it, but I know that you can use restores to change from one iPhone to another iPhone without losing data, so I’d hope you could do the same via a touch and iPhone.
As long as you tie all of your devices to the same iTunes account you can put apps, videos, and songs on multiple devices with no issues. That is one of the good advantages of the iTunes setup in my opinion. Here’s a link to a forum that discusses it (check the last post):
Hope that helps!
That’s exactly what I needed. Thanks a lot! This answers all the questions I needed to know!