Just got new iPhone after backing up the previous iPhone I had. Set up the new phone as a "new phone" and then restored from iTunes backup. I found that many apps that I had on the old iPhone were not present on the new one now. (After a bunch of them sat there and said "waiting" right after I did the restore.) So there are a bunch of apps that are missing.
Then I went to iTunes and found some of the missing apps and clicked on "install" logical right? Then I try to "apply" this and get the message "The app "Southwest" was not installed on the iPhone because the app could not be found". (And a bunch of other apps.)
Oddly this is the same exact problem I had when I upgraded my wife's phone too a couple weeks ago. Does anyone know how to fix this and also keep the apps on the same page and folder as they were before? I know already I can go to the App store and re-download the apps yes but major time suck and a lot of time to re-arrange the apps again like I had them organized before.
Is this a common problem? It seems to keep happening to me. We just backup to the computer (not iCloud) since we would easily blow out the iCloud storage with the amount of data on the iPhones.
I would have a hard time believing that this is something I did wrong. I simply run the backup and expect the backup should work.
Best Answer
In order for itunes to restore your apps, the app must be in your iTunes library. It sounds like they are not. Which means iTunes can't restore them.