I’m confused. There used to be a handy “Updates” tab in the App Store program on my iPhone, but since I updated to iOS13 it appears to be replaced by the “Arcade”? How do I update my apps??
The latest update to the Apple iPhone operating system, iOS13, has a lot of changes both subtle and overt. Some are easy to get used to, like Dark Mode, while others are causing a lot of consternation in the user community, like the changes to insert point cursor location that makes it harder to edit what you’ve typed. One that hasn’t been discussed much is that “Updates” has indeed vanished from the App Store on your iPhone.
The reason for this is because you should have already turned on “automatic app updates” within iOS, probably back with iOS12 actually. What’s confusing is that it’s still an optional setting in iOS13, which leaves a lot of people in a rather confusing state if it’s NOT enabled and there’s no Update Apps feature. Except… there still is a way to force an app update. It’s just hidden.
Here’s the scoop…
Launch the App Store application on your iPhone running iOS13. Here’s what you’ll see:
As you point out, there are a variety of App Store areas and features along the bottom, but there’s no more “Update” button. No bueno. But do you see the little circle image on the top right? Mine is a green leaf, yours will be different because that’s the icon associated with your Apple ID. Tap on it.
A new window opens with various settings:
Your eye has already zipped down to the bottom, hasn’t it? The section “UPCOMING AUTOMATIC UPDATES“. Yes, that’s where the app updates have gone. Now tap and drag downward on this info and you’ll see that it’ll check to see if there are even newer updates than last time the app checked in with the mothership, err, Apple app version ID server.
At this point you can go through and “UPDATE” individual apps as you’d like or, to keep your phone maximally updated, tap on “Update All” to get everything updated in a single tap.
That’s it. Not too bad.
If you are completely up to date then it’ll look like this:
Worth keeping an eye on this if you have any apps that aren’t doing well with the iOS13 update too; you’ll know when they finally are updated and hopefully can be used again. I had that with at least one of my favorite apps when I jumped from iOS12 to iOS13!
Now, all of this redesign is clearly built around you having the automatic updates enabled, so let’s jump into Settings and have a look at that too. Go back to the main iPhone apps screen then launch “Settings“. Now swipe down and type in “updates” to get a list of matching areas in the utility. Turns out there’s only one:
“App Updates” is indeed what you want, so tap on that to jump straight to the correct area in the Settings app. A handy trick, eh?
Here’s what you’ll find:
Basically just make sure that you have “App Updates” enabled – as I do – and you can then ignore the manual update process, knowing that every so often your Apple iPhone will automatically check and update all the apps you have installed. Much easier, frankly!
Pro Tip: I’ve been writing about the Apple iPhone and iOS since the iPhone 1 hit the market. Really! Please check out my extensive Apple iPhone Help Library for tons of tutorials and tips.
Automatic updates is all very well if you live in a country that has Wi-fi “ everywhere” and data is cheap. In South Africa Wi-fi is not everywhere, and in most public places i.e, restaurants, shopping malls , you are stuck with 100 mg limit. Data is certainly not cheap in Rand terms so forget about using google maps on an iPhone ( and rolling over your unused data..unheard of). Anyway I don’t have that problem now since Apple in there wisdom decided to stop supporting the iPhone 6 (which is still there biggest seller in the Far East and SA). When my bank manager decides to see me he may ,or probably will not grant my request for a R25000 bank loan to get a new iPhone which I will make last me until. Apple decides to cut iteration off.