iTunes Leaks 'Automatic Download' Over-the-Air Updates in iOS 5

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It wont be that good. I am sure it will download updates on your home network to the new time capsule and then sync them to all your devices when you reconnect to the network later. This would make more sense than downloading large updates over limited bandwidth cell plans or having to download to one device and then sync to the rest. The cell providers are holding back progress at this point

Two-stage updates?

What about a "two-stage" update system? New versions appear first in the manual updates list, and after one week (or a couple of days or whatever) they appear in auto update? This gives devs some room to fix bugs before each and every user has the broken version.

Otoh, that would degrade the manual update system to a glorified beta testing programme. They'd better include a feedback & rollback system then...

I don't think they dare even do automatic updates.

There have been some apps where the update has ruined the app.
The most recent being the jerky scrolling in 3rd party browsers due to Apples insistence devs stop using a feature that allowed smooth scrolling.

It would cause all sorts of problems if an update was forced upon you and it broke the app for you.

Good news.

I'm not sure if it's going to totally fix the issue of the handful of people who never check for updates. They probably won't take the time to turn on "auto-update"

There's worse than being on support e-mail #3 with a customer when you discover they're running a version of your App that's 5 months old...

(okay, working through a customer's issue for a good hour then discovering they didn't actually pay for your app, so they can't upgrade to the latest version is worse...)

I'd be happy if they just auto-updated in iTunes on my computer to be synced to my devices when I connect them or by wifi if they have wifi sync. Don't really see a reason to have each of my devices download the same app update.

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_3_3 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.0.2 Mobile/8J2 Safari/6533.18.5)

Never thought I'd want a weekend to pass by quicker.

I'm one of those control freaks and I like to be the one to determine if I want to update my apps. I'm hoping there be an option to disable this.

I've had my share of app updates that made the app worse, and unstable. I'd rather wait to see how others respond to a given update before taking the plunge

Piggie said:

I don't think they dare even do automatic updates.

There have been some apps where the update has ruined the app.
The most recent being the jerky scrolling in 3rd party browsers due to Apples insistence devs stop using a feature that allowed smooth scrolling.

It would cause all sorts of problems if an update was forced upon you and it broke the app for you.

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That's a good point Piggie. Sometimes updates can cause problems.

On the browser issue - it's disappointing that UIWebView doesn't expose more of the WebKit functionality yet. The OS X version of WebView is pretty nice by comparison. Maybe iOS 5 will improve the situation.

Too bad iOS doesn't have a way to "Roll Back" to a previous App version easily. That would make updates less risky.

Don Kosak said:

To bad iOS doesn't have a way to "Roll Back" to a previous App version easily. That would make updates less risky.

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Oh yes, I 100% agree.

There really should be a way to roll back just 1 revision of an app.
I've read a number of times about Apps that ruin something or break something with an update, and then people are just screwed whilst they home the dev fixes it, and was working perfect before.

Roll Back on an update would be an excellent feature.

Piggie said:

Well, even I hardly ever "check for updates" specifically, but I do often have a look at the App Store just to see if there are any changes to the generally boring top 10 list.
When you do that it automatically pops up a red circle with a number to let you know about updates.

To be honest, there are a million other things I'd like improved on the iPad rather than automatic updates.
This is like having a car with poor tyres meaning you are sliding all over the road, but worrying about the type of fabric used in the roof lining!

Let's fix the BIG stuff 1st please Apple, and then we can deal with little tweaks at a later date.

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Me too and you would think it's a common thing to do, but my friends never ever go to the app store unless someone tells them to geht a specific app like Whatsapp. I don't understand it either.

skellener said:

The last thing I want is "automatic" updating with iOS. I lost some great apps to so called "updates". I was luckily able to downgrade back to older versions of the apps because I had a Time Machine back up. If Apple offered a way to go back to previous versions of apps, I wouldn't mind auto updating. But now I am always wary of ANY updates to my iOS apps. Sometimes the developers change things and they really suck. Sometimes, so does Apple >cough<...QuicktimeX...>cough<

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Seriously. I've only had it happen once but Facebook has made their app useless for me.

I have set up customized friends lists including one that is the people's update that I want to read (I don't mind letting others see my FB page but I'm not interested in their updates). FB in the last few iterations decided I should be forced to read who they thought I should read. Luckily it still works to read custom lists on the webpage but it's nicer reading FB from the app.

This sounds promising.

I hope whatever they announce makes my freakin iMac that I ordered on May 3rd that still hasn't shipped yet, actually SHIP. I highly doubt that theres anything that special/top secret about the SSD+HDD versions of the iMac (especially seeing as how they offered that option in the previous model)... but something is off about it taking over a month to ship out... here's to hoping it was worth it all :/

PBF said:

I ain't no switching this feature on, no way. I'd go through 25GB in no time. No, thanks.

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Not with the 25mb limit on carrier downloads, right? I would think most apps would need wifi.

zorinlynx said:

App devs have been known to remove features in new versions (*cough* TWITTER) or introduce bugs of death. I like to carefully review apps before I update them, and keep a backup of the previous version just in case.

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I get probably about 30 app updates per week, reviewing all those carefully is just out of the question.

Piggie said:

Well, having notifications which suck and kill the battery which I think most people have on all the time.

I always set all notifications to off, which is a shame as it means I physically have to check for email. But I go to bed with 100% battery and the following evening I still have 100% battery

If I leave notifications on, then without me even touching the iPad the battery get drained quite a bit.

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New e-mails don't create notifications for me (it is set to check hourly). And overnight, my phone is in airplane mode anyway.

It is bad english isn't it...

After you've finished downloading, either
1) sync your device to this computer, or
2) if your device has automatic download enabled for apps, your updates will download to your device without having to sync

Then you can begin using your updated apps.


So my iPhone wouldn't be automatically updating or syncing to the cloud in this case - instead it's syncing to my computer automatically when something changes in my iTunes?

Consecutive posting.

manu chao said:

I
New e-mails don't create notifications for me (it is set to check hourly). And over night my phone is in airplane mode anyway.

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I may be wrong on that actually.

I wanted to extend my battery life to the fullest so turned off Notifications, which use a lot of battery for doing nothing, and also turned off the email checking as to be honest, I don't desperately need to be aware of emails.

So yes, I was probably wrong to link those together.

sounds good to me. looking forward to it

Just maybe this has something to do with the constraining supplies of Time Capsules and Airport Extremes. Just wondering.

twoodcc said:

sounds good to me. looking forward to it

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Yup. Sounds great.

I update most of the maps by clicking update all. This is going to be useful.

I welcome this. Now, wireless sync or wireless iOS updates OTA....

Xenc said:

This is a useful feature in Android. Will be nice to have in iOS.

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Yes, although it sounds like iOS is an all-or-nothing setting.

When you look at your apps in Android Market, you can set each one individually to update automatically (or not).

I have disabled some automatic updates because I know they're going to add advertisements or something else I'm not interested in.

Sidenote: a nice thing about Android is that it doesn't make you enter your password all the time. iOS is so annoying when it makes me enter it for free apps or updates, especially when they divert you to some new Apple App Store agreement or credit card verification.

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_3_3 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.0.2 Mobile/8J2 Safari/6533.18.5)

This will aid in having faster back ups, as the apps might be already updated in your devices and in your Macs.
I normally update my Apps in my iPhone wirelessly and then making the transfer purchases and back ups makes the back up kind of long.

I agree that this is just one thing, what they should include in iOS is an easy way to turn bluetooth on and off, able to custokiza the function of the mute/vibrate button and landscape screen lock.
The functionality of the Apple TV and air play might get some extra stuff, as the Netflix CEO indicated recently the AppleTv 2 is the way to go? Or somthib like it, all the new prokisin features of Apple wireless stuff might be delivering something else not yet rumored (I wish).

How this Is related to over the air updates?
Is just a shortcut to something that we did previously... Not sustem updates or over the air media syncing

swingerofbirch said:

"Or" is fine with me. It's a coordinating conjunction, so it's fine to start a sentence with it. Even if it weren't kosher, I think grammar should mostly serve to make communication clear.

But one thing that always gets my goat is that Apple never uses direct address commas! Drives me crazy! For example on the first iTunes Store page, it says "Welcome (name)," with no comma after "Welcome." Argggg, drives me crazy! Other sites like Amazon.com get it right. I've written to Apple about this, but writing to Apple is like trying to talk to the Wizard of Oz.

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Sometimes with Apple you have to Think Different ...