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The App Store update system is broken, I tell you…

By Steve Litchfield on March 7, 2009

Up until about a month ago, I’d been very impressed by the way the App Store app (if you see what I mean) kept me up to speed with updates to my installed applications. However, I’m now as wary of App Store’s claimed updates as I would be of a cornered lion…

Either I’ve exceeded some internal variable size (I do tend to push the 144 app limit on occasion) or there’s a wider problem in the whole iPhone App Store ecosystem, but… well, here’s the problem. I’m minding my own business when up pops ‘Updates’ proclaiming that I’ve got ’26’ (or some other silly number) of applications all ready to be updated.

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The first time this happened, I reckoned it was a coincidence that so many apps had just been updated and so I sat there for 30 minutes while twenty odd (largish) games updated themselves. A day later, it happened again. Hmmmm…. I let them all update again. Another 30 minutes. A day later and all the suggested updates are back! Grrrr…… I tried the usual power off/power on routine, to no avail. It’s been happening fairly often (but randomly) since. Sometimes I’ll go chasing after the alleged updates and find that they’re all ‘ready and waiting’, other times I delve into App Store and find that ‘All Apps are up to date’. 

It’s clear that something’s broken in the whole App Store mechanism on my device and the chances are that Apple have found this bug themselves in the many months since the last firmware update. Or is it just me? My traditional trawl across Google couldn’t find any obvious incidences of the same issue.

Either way, I’m awaiting Apple’s next (long overdue) firmware update with more than usual anticipation and impatience!

  • Jim Mc Allister

    I have been experiencing exactly the same problem for the last two weeks like yourself I do push the limit on apps quite hard

  • ben dover

    i’m having the same problem. i thought i was the only one

  • andygrunt

    I’m getting the same thing on my iPod Touch with comparatively few apps installed.

    Oddly, I had a legitimate app update this morning and none of the spurious update announcements appeared at the same time.

  • http://www.allaboutiphone.net Matt Radford

    I get the same as well – iTunes on the iPhone and on my Mac report different updates available.

  • Phil

    I thought I was the only one this was happening to, too. I like to keep all my apps up to date and think people who have a red marker by their app store icon are a bit disfunctional. Get really annoyed when it keeps happening.

  • Iain 117

    This happened to me to, I have about 6 pages of apps/games etc.

    Does anyone else think this could have something to do with Apple preparing for some big update to the iPhone platform? I dunno, just seems odd that all of a sudden the Appstore has problems?

    And please Steve, Long overdue firmware update? The iPhone had an update in January. Tell that to all the N93 owners waiting for Nokia to update they’re “Flagship”

  • http://3lib.ukonline.co.uk Steve Litchfield

    @Iain: Ah, the N93 update is long, long, long overdue. Big difference 😎

  • Hung Larje

    I believe it is a server issue on Apple’s side… It happens on both my iPhone and in iTunes.

  • chrsfrwll

    This problem has been discussed on macrumors for a while now. Quite a few people have suffered the problem (myself included).

  • Aurial

    If you look at the versions of the apps that it’s suggesting to update to they’re all older versions than the ones you’ve got installed.

    They are for me anyway.

  • TetrisAttack

    Same thing here with my iPod touch. And if you look at the date of the updates you’ll see that they are sometimes older than the date of installing the app itself. Which Is enough evidence of the bug.

  • andygrunt

    Maybe it’s not just the update system that’s broken. I just tried to add a review on the App Store (both in iTunes and via my Touch) and was told I needed to have bought the app in question to be able to write a review.

    I had both tried the free version and bought and installed the pay version so why doesn’t iTunes know this? Anyone else having this trouble?

  • andygrunt

    I contacted Apple regarding the spurious updates and just got this response:

    “In regards to the continuous update reminder I would remove the apps from your iPod touch. Please make sure you have the latest version of iTunes on your computer. When you have updated iTunes go ahead and sync the Apps back to your iPod touch. Do not download the apps directly onto your iPod touch from the App store, just sync the latest version from your computer and see if that will stop the old updates from appearing.”

    I won’t be trying that if for no other reason than I wouldn’t want to risk losing all the data associated with many of the apps that I can’t backup and am not sure iTunes would replace. Anyone else willing to try it?

  • andygrunt

    After installing the new version of iTunes this morning I tried to add the app review that I’ve not been able to for the past few days… and it worked!

    I wonder if any changes have been made to the App Store that will also mean the dodgy updates no longer appear. Fingers crossed.

  • http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=665734 Mike Crotch

    As of iTunes 8.1 release, update system is broken on iPhone AND iTunes. The iPhone says it “Cannot connect to iTunes Store” and iTunes says “Accessing iTunes Store”, then does nothing.

    I cannot check for updates to any apps I have installed. Everything else seems to work fine so far.

  • Rod Fontana

    I have the same issue, and have had for about a month. Very annoying.

  • Isaac irizarry

    send me something online

  • Phil M

    I would ignore Apple’s advice. What works for me when this pops up is simply letting it update and then syncing the iPhone.

    Those apps don’t bother me then till they ARE updated.

    The Apple method will nuke saved data within an app.

  • stu

    same here dont update them if know u already have it is pointless