I know others have had this issue but I have yet to find the fix.
In Settings / App Store I have “App Updates” turned on to supposedly “Automatically install new app updates.” I would expect any app updates to be installed at night when my phone is plugged in, but it doesn’t happen for me and hasn’t for years.
Anyone been able to resolve this?
A google search using: ios app updates not working automatically
found others who have complaining about the same thing in the past few years. Here’s one result that includes some suggestions from Apple Support.
I think they will update eventually (at least they do for me – but I also check these multiple times per day and update manually – and even read the release notes when bored), but you may be in for a wait of a week or two. I’ve noticed them update automatically.
I believe Apple does slow and staged app updates for two reasons. First of all, they need to balance the load on their servers (whether their actual servers, or hosted with their cloud partners, this still applies). Imagine if Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, WhatsApp, or YouTube pushed an app update and you had several hundred million devices downloading it instantly from Apple’s servers, with some updates being several hundred MBs – times the number of significant app updates. Yes, there’s caching always involved, but this needs to be balanced as well.
With automatic updates turned on, you get in the queue, and I believe that’s all this does. Your device gets served eventually, and an average user, which is 99 per cent of the user base, does not care if that’s in two weeks unless there’s a particular feature they’ve heard about.
The second reason is, I believe, the fact that app developers can actually request a staged rollout for their app update, similar to how automatic OS updates are handled. Only a limited percentage of users who have automatic updates turned on get it immediately, then say twenty per cent get it over a week, and then everyone else gets it (how this works with iOS automatic updates turned on and what the exact numbers are can be googled out).
Hvala for the reply (going off your flag). That’s a logical explanation, but for some like me, not satisfactory. But I’ve lived with this situation for years and just now decided to pursue a solution. I guess I’ll just keep on doing the manual updates!
I’m also unhappy with how that works (when it does). It’s also similar on the Mac, where the App Store is particularly slow even to detect the available updates (I use MacUpdater to discover them quicker).
You can save yourself a couple of taps by using a shortcut to open the App Store app updates page directly:
You still need to pull down to refresh manually, though.
(And, yes, hvala was correct. 
)
