What happens if you never update an app

What an update actually contains

From the outside, an update looks like a new icon and a “What’s new” note that says bug fixes and performance improvements. That line annoys people. It annoys me too. But it is usually honest.

When I ship an update, most of the work is invisible:

• Bug fixes. A crash on a particular phone, a button that did nothing in one language.
• Security fixes. A hole someone found, closed before it is described in public.
• Compatibility. Changes so the app keeps working with a new phone system or a change on the server.
• Features. The part that gets the headline, and often the smallest.

So skipping an update is rarely skipping a feature. It is keeping a known problem.

The app is only half of it

Most apps you use are a front end for a service: email, banking, chat, streaming. The app on your phone talks to servers the company runs, and those servers change all the time.

A company can only keep old versions working for so long. At some point the server stops answering the way a three-year-old version expects. Then one of two things happens. The app breaks in strange ways, or, if it was built carefully, it shows a message telling you to update before it will run.

An app you never update does not stay the same. It slowly stops working.

Security is the real reason

The quiet part of most updates is security. When a hole is found, the fix goes out in an update, and the description often comes later, once most people have it. Anyone still on the old version has a hole that is now documented.

For most apps that risk is small. For a browser, email, banking or a messenger, it is not. Those are the apps attackers aim at, because they handle links, files and money.

App	Cost of staying out of date
Browser	High: it opens everything on the internet
Messaging and email	High: they open links and files from strangers
Banking	High, and many simply stop working
A game or a calculator	Low, until it stops launching

Automatic updates are the right default

Both stores can update apps for you, usually overnight on Wi-Fi.

• iPhone: Settings, Apps, App Store, turn on App Updates.
• Android: open the Play Store, tap your profile picture, Settings, Network preferences, Auto-update apps.

I would leave this on for everything. The rare update you dislike is a smaller problem than the steady drift of apps falling behind.

When to hold an update back

There is one good reason to turn automatic updates off for an app: you depend on it for something time-sensitive and cannot afford a surprise. A point-of-sale app on a shop’s tablet on a Saturday. A navigation app the night before a long drive.

In those cases, update by hand at a quiet moment, check it works, and carry on. Holding back for weeks, though, just moves the risk around.

Do not forget the phone itself

App updates fix one app. System updates for Android or iOS fix holes that every app on the phone shares, and they keep the phone eligible for new app versions. A phone that no longer gets system updates will, over time, be unable to install the apps you rely on.

Update the system when it asks, keep automatic app updates on, and accept that the occasional changed menu is the price of things that keep working.