Why do phone apps update all the time but nothing seems to change?

Security patches and rare bugs that most people don't run into, mostly

Most apps will be built using libraries to provide functionality.

For example a Lemmy client might use a small database to store cached data on the device so it doesn't have to redownload data as you navigate back and forth. Rather than writing their own code to create and maintain the database that functionality is available as a library they can import into their app and use immediately.

There might be dozens or even hundreds of libraries in any given app, this is great in that the app developer can focus on their app specific features and not worry so much about the low level features but these libraries also have their own release schedule and may only support security fixes on their current version.

This can result in a situation where you could have weekly or monthly updates just to include library updates even if you haven't added any features directly to the app itself.

Gotta have an excuse to issue a new ToS and opt you back into everything you toggled off.

While I can’t speak to specific apps alot of times it’s house cleaning stuff.

Maybe some bug that affects a certain number of users is found and fixed. And the update resolves that bit, since you weren’t affect, you don’t notice it.

Other times it’s to include fixes in libraries they’re using. So, for example, a JSON parsing library may have a security fix and they updated their app to use that newer version.

Another could be some behind the scenes api/library updates. Maybe a service they’re using for content (such as interacting with Lemmy) or maps or advertisements is being updated and they need to point their app to the new service address or change how they interact with it.

And of course there could be feature updates but those, usually, would be things you’d notice. Although, in some cases, it may be packaged with the application but waiting for some criteria (a backend service to be ready) or may even be part of A/B testing where some users get one change while others don’t so the developer can see which features are preferred using real data.

Not every change is going to completely overhaul the app. More than likely, the changes are a fix to some obscure bug not caught in testing that only affects a small percentage of devices. Just because you don't encounter it with your workflow and device doesn't mean it isn't a critical bug preventing someone from using the app. It could also be a new feature targeting a different use case to yours. It could even be as simple as bringing the app into compliance with new platform requirements or government regulations (which can happen a couple times a year, for example Android often bumps the minimum SDK target such that apps are forced to comply with new privacy improvements).

Some good answers here. Also developers regularly add or update translations, support new features your phone doesn't even have, compatibility with a different smartwatch, or regular bugfixes that only trigger in special circumstances and just for some users... All of that is difficult to notice for the regular user. Unless you buy the latest smartwatch an try to operate the app with it, or set your phone to Arabic.

And then there are maintenance tasks that don't add any (visible) features. And apps are generally part of some more infrastructure at the respective company. Internal changes in their workflow or related software might change things. Or they decide to prepare something for the future or make it more efficient.

Sometimes they just update the year in the copyright notice. Or they re-build the app with the latest versions of the libraries that are supplied by different companies or open source projects. Those regularly change, fix bugs and generally you don't want to depend on any old software library versions with known bugs and vulnerabilities. So there are a lot if reasons why software gets updated without visible changes.

I see a lot of the other reasons mentioned, but one I don't: on android you are required to release updates at least every year-ish or they will completely delete your developer account and app.

Source: got that message recently for an app I made and haven't had a reason to update.

The standard answer is "security"...and that may be true in some cases.

But a lot of it is just job justification. Some beleaguered coder somewhere has to do a thing because their manager has to do a thing because their director has to do a thing and so on. Box checking exercises.

Read the patch notes and see what's changing. Usually it's "squashing bugs", but there could be a few new features you'd like in there.

I'm not normally a conspiracy guy but I have an old app that I swear they update (but not really) just so that people think it is active.

Yeah, try using Android 3 Honeycomb. Go on. Give it a try.

It's not that nothing changes. It's that changes are small. Humans react violently to big changes. If you change everything about an app all at once, people will hate the app, and leave.

If you make all those same changes, but spread them out over 2 years? They adjust. It's like giving someone a pill to swallow. You don't give them a pill the size of a watermellon, and expect them to swallow it. Instead you break it up into pieces and slowly feed them the whole pill over time.

Spelling mistake in commented notes.

It's a number of reasons. One I don't see already mentioned is that Apple and Google require apps to target the latest versions of their OSs and libraries. For example Google released a new version of the Google Play Billing Services library. All apps were required to update to the newest version by mid August (you could request a two month extension). So to the end user it seems like nothing has changed. But under the hood the app is now using the latest apis. This could also apply to non-Google/Apple apis. Maybe a change of the developers own api was necessary.

What's better is on an iPhone or iPad you can set the apps to auto update and it will not auto update. It's normal for me to check and have 15 apps that have updates that have been sitting there for a month.

I would set that automatic app update off, apps are to known to sometimes update to newer enshittied versions like Fantastical did.

With games, frequent and regular updates are mainly to keep people returning to the game and to fix bugs. Many apps already implement most of the features people need and dont really need new features for people to keep coming back, so the focus is moreso on maintaining compatibility and fixing bugs like crashes, as well as keeping up with OS updates (which tend not to affect games as severely, though can in some cases). Keep in mind theres a huge number of different phones which are on different OS versions with different system APIs, and msny devs dont test on a large number of devices. Desktop drivers and OSs tend to smooth over a lot of the hurdles there

Pokemon Go

I swear, it seems to have weekly 100 MB updates that change nothing, make something worse, or just change the splash screen.

Those updates are unaffectionately called "streak breakers" because by the time it updates, I've forgotten to launch it again.

Could be security and updates for features you might not use

Gotta harvest even more of your data

Having a regular schedule of updates helps get individual big fixes or features out faster. You may not notice a difference because you may not experience the bugs that are being fixed. There may be slight changes to features that you don't use enough to notice. There could even be features that are disabled until they're remotely enabled. Mobile apps often run A/B tests for changes to see how those changes affect user behavior, so you might be in the "no change" test cohort when you don't see changes, those changes may never activate on your installation if the test doesn't pan out.

I recently convinced my team to adopt this practice so I've been brushing up on it. When done right it can mean a more stable app and quicker response to issues since it relies heavily on monitoring app performance, bug reports, and user reviews. Communication to users is hard since you don't want to have every update be "fixed bugs" but it's also unnecessary to say "fixed an issue where a batch upload job didn't handle individual errors by retrying" for each change that may not actually impact you as a user but which impacts the business that builds the app.

I dunno... I see the same thing with video games too. Half the updates to my games don't even get patch notes, and like a few things recently that are over 2 decades old are getting regular updates.

When they do have notes, 90% of the things being fixed or changed were problems I never noticed or had seen anyone posting about. Even if it was something I might have encountered, a lot of the time I wouldn't have recognized it as a bug. Like if a weapon was supposed to do some extra things and didn't, but it also didn't tell you that it did that extra thing I would never know it was broken until they fix it. Most bugs seem to be that; fixing mistakes most players wouldn't even notice as being a mistake. And in the case of many Fromsoft games: they make changes they don't even put in the notes. Often in the form of removing text from item descriptions to make things even more vague.

I don’t have statistics to back it up, but I’d be willing to bet most updates to software (OSes and apps) are security patches, in one way or another. Generally patching something that could be exploited under the right circumstances.

What a lot of people don’t understand about code is that “if it works, don’t fix it” doesn’t exactly apply to software like it does the real world.

A publicly available app made with known programming languages is going to be exploited at some point in some way, and it’s not a question of if but when. It’s like a lock. Locks never make something completely protected. They just slow down someone or discourage them to something that isn’t (as) secured. But no matter what, that lock will be broken/bypassed at some point.

So the best approach is to always be ahead of the curve and fill holes as you discover them before someone else does and takes advantage of it.

Steam games update less frequently because of a few things:

• some games do update, you just didn’t pay attention
• many games nowadays rely on a constant connection to the internet and the developer’s servers. The servers is where the patching is being done most times. The file you downloaded to play the game doesn’t contain much code but is more so of a key to unlock the door that is the game stored on their servers somewhere else

I disabled updates (though it looks like some Google apps update anyway) and majority continues to work. Few apps occasionally start a protest and tell me that I need to update before they resume their work.

It doesn't answer your question, but indeed points that mostly there is nothing important.