Briš„°OK, so it would appear that iTunes has taken away the ability to connect to mobile devices such as an iPhone in the latest versions. That being said, anyone have any tips for successfully sideloading an IPA file onto iOS in 2026? No, I am not in the EU. :D
@Bri If it's an app you have on your account already, you can still find the last version of iTunes which supported this, 12.6.something but I'm not sure how well that works for installing on newer phones. iMazing also lets you do this, though here if you want to avoid headaches the mac version was way easier to use last time I used it. The Windows iMazing is one of those winforms apps where most things that read as a bunch of class names and you need a lot of object nav to find anything. If it's an ipa you that wasn't on your account, you can use sideloadly on either Mac or Windows which will install and sign it with your apple account.
@pitermach Yeah, it's SideLoadly that I'm trying to use.
@pitermach for context, NVGT just added the ability to compile for iOS.
@Bri Oh shit I had no idea but did wonder if that would ever be a thing. OK so the one slight issue with sideloadly is the button to browse for an app is cryptically labelled as change app icon, but once you press it you should just get a normal file open dialog and can browse for an ipa from there.
@pitermach OK but the problem I'm having is even getting it to see the device.
@Bri Hmm I wonder if it's driver related, like maybe it still needs the apple mobile device support stuff installed which maybe isn't included with the store version of iTunes or the devices app? I know someone who was doing app development this way on Windows 11, IE having github actions give them IPAs which he then tested through sideloadly.
@pitermach I'm not sure. I just know that both sideloadly and AltStore tell you to install iTunes and iCloud and, I couldn't find mobile devices anywhere in iTunes
@Bri Yeah the iTunes installer also installs a bunch of other things in the background, I suspect one of those is what's missing.
@pitermach let's start over and try this again from scratch
@pitermach that's just it, it does not.
@pitermach got it
@pitermach nope, darn
@pitermach now let's see if it still sees it over wi-fi
@Bri @pitermach You just have to install Itunes, not do anything more with it. Then maybe reconnect the device again ut it should show up in the list then.