Meanwhile, on the iOS device (an iPhone shown in example screen shot), that very same Splashy Fish game is downloading as well.

The screenshot example below uses the currently trendy Splashy Fish game to demonstrate this: Once authenticated, the iTunes play bar will note that an app is downloading and show a progress bar, indicating that the remote app install has started as well. You’ll (usually) need to confirm the iTunes / Apple ID login to initiate the first download. Select any app (free or paid, doesn’t matter) and choose to either Buy or Download by selecting the appropriate button under the app icon.Open iTunes and head to the “iTunes Store”, then choose the “App Store” tab to browse iOS apps.Triggering the remote download/install from a Mac OS X or Windows PC running iTunes is now possible, just be sure to log into the same Apple ID that is used on the iOS device: In iTunes on the Desktop: Start a Download / Remote App Installation That’s it for the iOS side of things, now you can remotely install apps from iTunes on a desktop computer, which we’ll cover next.

If you have unlimited data, keeping it on is not a big deal, but for those with bandwidth caps (which is most iPhone users) you’ll probably want to keep cellular usage off. Whether or not to use cellular data really depends on your individual cellular plan. Because Automatic Updates can significantly drain battery by running and updating your apps on it’s own, it’s often a good idea to keep that turned off and selectively manage your own app updating, particularly for users with many apps installed. You do not need to enable the Automatic Updates feature for this to work.

Optional and data plan dependent: decide whether to “Use Cellular Data” or not.

Look under “Automatic Downloads” and toggle “Apps” to be ON.

Open the “Settings” app and choose “iTunes & App Store”.

Grab the iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch and enable Automatic App Downloads: Now all you need to do is enable the feature and learn to use it for remote app installations. The requirements are generic enough that just about every iPhone/iPad owner will be able to use this.

Same Apple ID / iCloud account logged into iTunes as the iOS device.

iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch with an iOS version that supports Automatic Downloads (7.0+ is recommended).

iTunes installed in Mac OS X or for Windows PC (11+ is recommended).

What you’ll need to remote install iOS apps

Computer app store download