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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?

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    I know your question is about what Xcode bits are needed, but I would use iMazing and avoid all the bother.
    – Gilby
    Jun 22 at 6:52
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    Thank you, thank you. This worked. It did require a reboot, however.
    – Sherwood Botsford
    Jun 24 at 18:12
  • @Gilby can you explain further? what would iMazing do, how would it be used? First time I've heard of that software.
    – Josh
    Jul 4 at 23:33
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    @SherwoodBotsford, you are very welcome, glad it worked for you. Took me hours to figure out a possible solution. Interesting that your system required a restart. Can you share some of your OS/computer details here?
    – Josh
    Jul 4 at 23:34
  • iMazing is here imazing.com
    – Gilby
    Jul 5 at 0:00

2 Answers 2

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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.

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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.

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