ITunes for windows now ships without Apple Application Support making it impossible to run on ios from windows

[JessicaBunyan]

Environment Nativescript globally installed: 6.5.0

Describe the bug Setting up nativescript cloud builds on a new machine is impossible as Itunes for windows download no longer includes Apple Application Support. Apple Application Support is required to use commands tns run ios or tns device. If it is not installed it gives the error "ITunes is not installed, please install itunes and try again"

To Reproduce Download ITunes fresh from apple website tns device

Expected behavior connected device is listed, or message saying no connected devices

Additional context I have tried older downloads of itunes from the apple website. No 64 bit ones are available (some of the ones listed at 64 bit are not 64 bit). The most recent version does not include Apple Application Support - this has been verified by using 7zip to extract files from the installer - no msi installer is provided for Apple Application Support. In essence, it is impossible to developer for ios on windows unless itunes was already installed back when it included Apple Application Support, or find a link to an old installer

Files for Apple Application Support would typically be found in C\Program Files\Common Files\Apple. This is where the ITunesValidator looks for it.

[eugv86]

@JessicaBunyan quick workaround while we wait for nativescript-cli/lib/common/validators/iTunes-validator.ts to get updated is to copy Mobile Device Support folder under C:\Program Files\Common Files\Apple and rename the copied folder to Apple Application Support.

[NathanaelA]

@eugv86 - So just to verify if we rename the Mobile Device Support to Apple Application support everything works?

[mrh1997]

Here is a link to the last version (10.10.8) that supported "Apple Application Support". This could be used as workaround until the problem is solved...

[rigor789]

#5439 removes iTunesValidator - so the CLI should no longer fail on the checks, however since apple removed application support, it's not possible to run on ios devices currently. If you have an older version of iTunes, it may work though not sure if ios 14 will even be supported (this is handled in ios-device-lib).