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The App Store's buggy update process

The application update procedure for iPhone is a complete and unadulterated nightmare. The App Store tells you you need updates with a nice little red bubble in the upper right of the App Store icon, simple enough, right.
Written by Jason D. O'Grady, Contributor
The App StoreÂ’s buggy update process
The application update procedure for iPhone is a complete and unadulterated nightmare. The App Store tells you you need updates with a nice little red bubble in the upper right of the App Store icon, simple enough, right. Unfortunately that's where the fun ends.

The update process involves clicking into the App Store, then Updates, then Update All. On my iPhone I get an error like:

"Unable to Download Application. xxx will be available for download when you log into the iTunes Store on your computer. Done/Retry."

-or-

"You've already purchased this item, but it hasn't been downloaded. To get it, open iTunes on your computer, select Check for Purchases, then sync your device to your computer."

Huh?

Then when I go into iTunes and select Store > Check for Purchases the status bar says "Purchasing "updateAllSoftwareButton"..." T hen it throws a seemingly random error message like:

"Your credit balance is out of date. Click OK to refresh and try your purchase again."

-or-

"The application xxx was not installed on the iPhone "iPhone 3G" because an unknown error occurred (0xE8000002E)."

Then when seemingly everything is updated on iPhone, iTunes gives a message like:

"Downloads Completed. All downloads have been completed in iTunes on your computer. Dismiss."

But the updates never get installed. I've resorted to deleting applications that won't update and installing them from scratch - which only sometimes works. What's the purpose of downloading App updates on your desktop machine when they should be downloaded directly to the iPhone? I wish that Apple would have taken a page of Installer.app's book when it comes to application updates-they always worked smoothly, directly over the air. Or maybe they should license Sparkle's updater code?

Have you updated any apps yet? What's your trick?

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