Why I can’t upgrade to iOS 4

Well, it’s been a couple of days now and the app updates have been coming out fast and furious.  You must know, I have almost a full 11 pages of apps on my iPhone. In fact I have to routinely “clean up” my installed apps to make room for new ones I want to try.  My iTunes shows 290 apps on my PC. So while I am used to choosing between app A and app B, I know I can always change my mind since they’re all sitting on my PC waiting to be reinstalled.  What I didn’t think I would have to choose between is OS upgrade or an app, but that is what is happening.

You see, I downloaded a 2.2GB GPS app, NDrive USA (ndriveweb.com), and while this app is horrific at memory management it’s a good little GPS program that gets the job done at a cost of only $2.99. So what’s the big deal? Well, I downloaded it from my iPhone (I do all my app management on my phone) and iTunes just refuses to accept it. I’ve “Transfer Purchases” 4 times and while each time it puts the app in the “Mobile Applications” folder, iTunes still refuses to load it, saying it’s “not a valid application”. This means if I sync my phone iTunes will rip that app off of it like a day old band-aid on a hairy leg.

Typically this would not be that bad (the app thing not the band-aid thing, that would suck) since iTunes let you re-download purchased apps for free, unlike purchased music. So I’d just download it again and off I would go. Well, here’s the twist. That app has been pulled from the store so I can’t download it again. This means if I lose it from my phone for some reason it’s gone. NDrive says they don’t know why the app was pulled and their working with Apple to get it back on the store. Good luck with that.

So let’s recap:

• I bought a huge (2.2GB) GPS app that has super crappy memory management but does what $50 GPS apps do for $2.99
• I purchased it from my phone and downloaded it via wifi so it only exists on my phone
• “Transfer Purchases” moves over the app file, but iTunes refuses to load it as an “app”
• The app is no longer on the app store so I can’t re-download it meaning if I lose it from my phone it’s gone forever
• A sync would erase it (as it’s not in iTunes) and a sync is required to upgrade to iOS4

Oh yeah, that last one…there’s the rub. If I want to upgrade to iOS and get all the awesome features that should have been on the iPhone months ago I’ll lose my app. So, what do I do? I haven’t talked to Apple yet but I plan to. I doubt they will even care about my problems, I mean, they’re not Google. So I’ll keep plugging away trying to find a solution myself. If you have any bright ideas please leave me a comment.  If I figure this out I’ll update the post.