Audiobus: Use your music apps together.
What is Audiobus? — Audiobus is an award-winning music app for iPhone and iPad which lets you use your other music apps together. Chain effects on your favourite synth, run the output of apps or Audio Units into an app like GarageBand or Loopy, or select a different audio interface output for each app. Route MIDI between apps — drive a synth from a MIDI sequencer, or add an arpeggiator to your MIDI keyboard — or sync with your external MIDI gear. And control your entire setup from a MIDI controller.
Download on the App StoreAudiobus is the app that makes the rest of your setup better.
What is the best way to archive apps for future reinstallation?
With Firo unexpectedly disappearing, it got me wondering (worrying) about how to keep copies of apps for future reinstallation.
Creating a full backup of my iPad seems to secure the data, but as far as I can tell, relies on the apps themselves being retrieved from the App Store, which isn't always possible.
I have created .ipa files of some particular version of most of my cherished music apps, by downloading them through iTunes on my PC. I tried asking two separate Apple support employees whether these .ipa files can be used to reinstall an app for the forseeable future, even if it has subsequently been removed from the App Store. Both support employees were very prompt to reply and polite; neither had the necessary knowledge to offer useful advice, beyond asking the app developers themselves.
So, does anyone know if it is even possible to archive actual apps and reinstall them (on compatible versions of iOS) even if they've ceased to exist on the App Store?
I don't have any immediate need to restore lost apps, but I'd really like to get a reliable backup routine in place, if I can.
Comments
Yes, if you have the .ipa backups on your PC you will always be able to sync/reinstall them. Compatibility with future iOS versions may not always be there, but an .ipa archive is the best method.
What I'm not sure with ipa backing up is: can you keep different versions of an app? Eg when a new version comes out go to the folder on your drive, rename or move the ipa. Download it again. Would be useful if a certain update breaks and you want to revert to the older version to keep different copies.
This is one of the side effects of the all digital world of today. We buy things but since there's no tangible "thing" it is really a purchase to use, a licence for the thing.
It really sucks with liquid digital products like apps & games. With media like songs & movies, as long as the company you bought the "licence" from stay in business you have a fairly good chance of always accessing the item since the code remains the same and is somewhat permanent (barring a remix/reissue, STP's "Tiny Music" album will pretty much be the same forever.)
Apps & games, constantly updated and dependent on a certain OS to operate are much more prone to being worthless if you don't have the latest version/patch or OS to run it on.
PlayStation 3 games are beginning to have this issue as the developers and distributors stop hosting the update filed & version patches for their older games. So you buy some cool open world game from the late 2000's for $5 and rush home to play it only to find out a game corrupting bug was in the shipped version that was patched when the game was first played. Since the patch servers are gone, you gotta new coaster.
I hope Apple is more careful, and since apps are a bit different than console games hopefully we won't have too many horror stories... What's that? All 32 bit apps & devices are getting guillotined next iOS update? Oh...
I really think there is great value in preserving these iOS music creating apps long into the future. I think it's fair enough to expect they won't all continue to run on the latest hardware or iOS version, but hopefully it will be possible to keep them running on legacy hardware for years to come.
Sounds good. I'm not sure why Apple's technical support staff were not able to give me such a simple and definite answer when I asked them about it.
That's a good point. It definitely seems worthwhile to keep the 'best' available version of an app's .ipa. I may need to try this because a few of the .ipa files I have are for versions older than what I'm currently using.
yes you can keep different versions, just copy them to different locations. I have a few apps were the newest verison is broken or not as good as an older version, and I keep copies of older version so that I can reinstall those at any time.
download all your apps via the itunes desktop app. then backup all the .ipa files to dropbox and multiple harddrives.
i personally have multiple versions of modstep. the current one that supports the ipad1 and the... yikes.... realised im not supposed to talk about it. nevermind.
@oat_phipps @nick @gonekrazy3000 - have any of you tried reinstalling an old app from an ipa file, where that app has been obliterated, e.g. Firo, or any other that has been wiped from your App Store Purchased Apps list?
Would be good to know the theory works in practice!
yup. installed firo the moment i found out it vanished. didnt have it on my ipad but had a local backup.
keep in mind it only works if the itunes account the ipa was linked to is signed in on the device.
i think the ipa is encrypted.
Perfect! That's very reassuring to know
@gonekrazy3000 @nick - how do you redownload an app's .ipa to get the different versions? I've downloaded my apps in iTunes, but now I can't seem to download them again, even if their version has changed.
you cant re download the older versions. i manually backup the older files before i download an update. dragging and dropping an older ipa replaces the current version in itunes so that you can send it to your device.
Hmm, I'll have to look into this more. I don't seem to be able to download the updates. Once I've downloaded an app's .ipa, iTunes seems to remove the download option, even when a newer version of the app becomes available.
Oh good, I've found it at last! Was looking in the wrong place before.
So, I've gone to the App Store through iTunes and it gives me the option to update my apps (which downloads the latest ipa versions). I was looking at my Purchased Apps list before and that doesn't deal with the updates.
Thanks for all your help with this @gonekrazy3000 - I think I've finally got my backup routine sorted!
the only problem remaining is that we can't backup in app purchases since iOS 8 ...
Ouch!