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I bought an iPhone SE (Gen 2) and installed latest iOS 16 on it.

When connecting to a MacPro 5,1 with 'latest' iTunes 12.8.3.1 running on OS X 10.13.6 I repeatedly get an Update Software popup every time the usb is connected. Secondly the device never showed up in iTunes.

In the update software popup, if proceeding with installation, I have continuously had failure due to 'network error'. That popup by the way comes from an application called MobileDeviceUpdater.app found within a folder within a file called MobileDevice.framework. You can navigate and try opening the app itself by the 'Go to Folder' menu within Finder:

  /System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/MobileDevice.framework/Versions/Current/Resources

I've tried everything, safe boot, network resets, resetting various system caches, running this updater repeatedly, everything I could think of, reinstalling iTunes... even chatting with Apple Customer Support (I know... so helpful), all to no avail.

As others have shown on this question 'A software update is required to connect your iOS device' there is one hopeful answer to this error and that is installation of XCode Beta which has all the mobile device frameworks!

I gave their solution a try and downloaded XCode 15 Beta 2 with a free developer account.

Lo and behold upon trying to open xcode-beta.app it required Mojave MacOS 10.14 minimum and I don't have a Metal graphics card to do that at this time. Then I got to thinking, what if I could find those pesky mobile device frameworks in the package vs. installing all of XCode as others did in the question quoted above? By opening up the xcode-beta.app, right click, 'Show Package Contents' then searching the 'Contents' folder for "mobile" I found this package:

xcode-beta.app/Contents/Resources/Packages/MobileDevice.pkg

This package was not OS restricted and installed just fine on my system by double-clicking.

I also verified through Pacifist where the package contents went.

Of interest:

    /System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/MobileDevice.framework

There were also a number of other frameworks installed to this PrivateFrameworks folder that may also be important.

And this extension file:

    /System/Library/Extensions/AppleMobileDevice.kext

Once the full package was installed (no restart) the iOS 16 device did connect, show up and sync in iTunes and no more update software popup!

So the remaining question is, at a minimum are these two sets of files all that is needed or are all the files needed in that package provided by Xcode beta to get the newer devices functioning with iTunes? What's your experience will this work for you?

Josh
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    Right now this primarily seems to ask for opinions/experiences and not for actual fact-based answers. Can you edit this down to focus on the practical problem you want to solve? Maybe, given that you have already solved it and are just asking for confirmation, you could even edit the question down to a minimum and post your solution as an answer. – nohillside Dec 23 '23 at 09:10
  • This procedure solved my problem, my setup: MacBook Pro Mid-2010 on 10.12.6 Sierra, iTunes 12.6.5.3, iPhone 13 mini on iOS 17.1.2, using xCode beta 15.2. Thanks for all the input to deal with this matter - vintage rules ;) – Portandus Dec 23 '23 at 08:46
  • Yes, Josh, this worked for me. Thanks! The only difference was I used the MobileDevice.pkg from Xcode 14.3.1 instead of from one of the Xcode 15 betas. I don't know if there's any difference between those mobile packages, but iOS 16.5.1 (c) and iTunes 12.8.3.1 on MacOS 10.13.6 are finally playing nice. I didn't need to restart. – Kidjo2 Jul 18 '23 at 09:24
  • it works on my iMac 2007 el captain 10.11.6 + iPhone 8 plus iOS 16.7.4 Unicode: U+1F60E, UTF-8: F0 9F 98 8E – TheGeekSaint Dec 21 '23 at 02:01
  • Worked perfectly for me using the latest version of Xcode, which was 15.2 as of the date of this comment. iPhone 15 Pro (iOS 17.2.1), High Sierra (10.13.6), and iTunes 12.8.3.1. – Sparky Jan 20 '24 at 23:40
  • yep. surprisingly to me, it did work. Had the exact same problem, iPhone 15, otherwise same thing as @Sparky above. – Claus Jan 24 '24 at 19:45
  • Worked for me as well. I downloaded Xcode 15 (September 18, 2023). Used successfully with Mac OS Sierra 10.12.6 (16G2136) on Macbook Pro (13-inch, Late 2011), iTunes 12.8.2.3 and iOS 17.3.1 (iPhone SE 2nd gen, model MHG53LL/A) – Wimateeka Feb 17 '24 at 22:40

1 Answers1

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I just did this for the iPhone 12 mini on iOS 17, and my early 2013 retina MacBook Pro on high sierra, iTunes 12.8.3.1.

I downloaded Xcode 15 from https://developer.apple.com/xcode/

I unzipped it, went to show package contents, and followed to:

xcode.app/Contents/Resources/Packages/MobileDevice.pkg

and ran that package, as the above instructions stated.

I quit iTunes, unplugged the phone, reopened iTunes, plugged the phone in, and now it's there.

Greenonline
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allenkey
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  • Worked perfectly for me using the latest version of Xcode, which was 15.2 as of the date of this comment. iPhone 15 Pro (iOS 17.2.1), High Sierra (10.13.6), and iTunes 12.8.3.1. – Sparky Jan 20 '24 at 23:40