Tell me more ×
Android Enthusiasts Stack Exchange is a question and answer site for enthusiasts and power users of the Android operating system. It's 100% free, no registration required.
up vote 11 down vote favorite
1

Since Android 2.2 (Froyo), you can select "Allow automatic updating" for applications. For some reason, I haven't started using this yet. The benefit would be to save time, but are there any good reasons not to use this feature?

alt text

share|improve this question
6  
This isn't an answer really, but it may help you to know that if an app's permissions change, it will not auto-update - you'll have to manually update. So don't worry about not noticing an app make a power grab or something. – Konklone Oct 7 '10 at 4:17
@Klondike: I was about to make the same point. – Al Everett Oct 7 '10 at 14:15

6 Answers

up vote 16 down vote accepted

I leave it off so that I can review the list of pending updates and see what changed. Of course, that only helps for the apps that list changes in the market description.

Every once in a while, developers do release updates that are a step backwards- either because of introducing bugs or major redesigns that lose features (Astrid, I'm looking at you). If you wait long enough before updating, then you may be alerted to that situation via comments.

share|improve this answer
1  
Ditto here. I like to know what has changed. – Al Everett Oct 7 '10 at 19:01
up vote 10 down vote

The main reason why i won't use the feature is traffic. In germany, we have mostly traffic limitated flatrates. So after 250 or 300 MB of traffic or something like that, you'll be forced to only use 2G connections for the rest of the month. Because of that limitations, i only update my apps when i have wifi access somewhere around me.

share|improve this answer
Interesting, I didn't consider traffic limited situations. You'd think the network could discern app updates from other data and perhaps not include it in the total usage. – gary Oct 8 '10 at 2:37
I noticed in the latest GMail update, there is not obvious UI to stop or suspend the download. This is problematic for the scenarios mru described. – benc Mar 5 '11 at 8:45
2  
Doesn't market also have an option to auto-update over WiFi only? – Chance Feb 20 '12 at 20:29
1  
Yes, but only with a recent version. You can now enable auto-update only over WiFi in the Play Store app. – Flow♦ Sep 5 '12 at 12:27
up vote 6 down vote

Sometimes a developer might release a controversial update: interface changed, ads added, or a lot of bugs were introduced and therefore you may want to hold off before upgrading (or at least give yourself a chance to back up the apk). A good example of this recently was psx4droid.

share|improve this answer
Backing up the apk is a good call... thanks for the answer. – gary Oct 8 '10 at 2:38
up vote 5 down vote

Also, you might want not to update apps automatically if you have a old/cheap device. On my HTC Hero, installing apps kind of takes a lot of resources and I don't want the device to slow down randomly.

share|improve this answer
up vote 5 down vote

Everyone offers plenty of good reasons not to auto update so I'll offer a solution -- Use a good backup app such as Titanium Backup, and you can safely leave autoupdates on and manually revert to an older version if an app changes in ways you aren't happy with.

share|improve this answer
Good advice. I went with the first answer by shmuelp but you make a great point. – gary Oct 8 '10 at 2:33
Doesn't Titanium backup require root? – Al Everett Dec 3 '10 at 16:00
Yes, it does. I know others differ, but I'm of the opinion that root should be pretty standard for Android power users. – Saiboogu Dec 5 '10 at 18:52
up vote 3 down vote

A lot of things:

  • Traffic: if your data plan is pay-per-byte (or has a data cap/limit)
  • Battery life: Updating apps uses the processor (which consumes battery).
  • The new version of the program may have problems, bugs, etc.
share|improve this answer

Your Answer

 
discard

By posting your answer, you agree to the privacy policy and terms of service.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged or ask your own question.