using namespace kyle; - it's been a long ... time.

It's been a long ... time.

Kyle Kirby

August 14, 2014

So, it's been awhile, yes? Lots of new stuff, nothing to go on about right now, but I do have something to go on about. I recently had to have my iPhone replaced by Apple, so I backed up my device using iTunes. When I had the new device, I restored back to the device. To my unfortunate findings however, my previous apps were not back on the device, nor were they queued for download. Now, I know the app information is stored in the backup from previous experience, but I did not want to download all the apps again manually. I decided to give Apple a call and see if they could help me out. This was the gist of the conversation: Make sure you're signed into the app store on the device. Make sure your Mac is on the latest version of OS X. Make sure your iPhone is on the latest version of OS X. Check your previously purchased items, is that what you were looking for? And then the "genius" told me that when you backup your device, the apps and their data is not backed up with them. A total load of bull. Anyways, he was unable to help me and I informed him of the actuality that iOS backups do contain the app data, and it should restore the apps if you have the apps on your computer (but I did not, even though I had transferred purchases with my backup). So what is a programmer/coder to do? Automate this task, of course. Please find my easy steps below: 1. Copy all apps to a folder 2. Open a terminal and cd to the folder. 3. run this command: ls | sed 's/App - //' > output.txt 4. Save a file with this content in the same folder.

<?php
$data = explode("\n",file_get_contents('output.txt'));
foreach($data as $bundle){
	$bundleInfo = json_decode(file_get_contents('http://itunes.apple.com/lookup?bundleId='.$bundle),true);
	exec(
		sprintf(
			'open -a "iTunes" %s',
			escapeshellarg(
				str_replace('https','itunes',$bundleInfo['results'][0]['trackViewUrl'])
			)
		)
	);
	sleep(5);
}
?>

Then run the file. Wait for iTunes to show you the app page, and click on "Download". Wait 5 seconds for the next app to show up in iTunes. Hurrah.