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Apple Quietly Tweaked the iOS App Store App – Here's What's Changed

No, you aren't going crazy – Apple has quietly made a backend change to the App Store app in iOS that switches the location of the Updates tab and renames it to make it more prominent.

iOS App Store General Feature Dock
In the App Store app, you can see the change by tapping your profile picture in the top-right corner. The "Apps & Purchase History" tab used to be at the top the list, but it has switched places with "Updates," which is now called "App Updates."

The change was made by Apple without issuing a software update and is evident on both iOS 26.4.1 and the iOS 26.5 beta.

app store
There's actually a faster way to access the App Updates page in iOS 26.4 that was recently highlighted by Daring Fireball's John Gruber: Simply long-press on the App Store app on your Home Screen and you can jump straight to it from the contextual menu.

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Top Rated Comments

kotaKat Avatar
7 weeks ago
And yet they had to make it an extra menu-tap away anyways to check for updates, which is really kinda annoying in the first place...

... as an aside, I really wish there was a goddamn setting to just give me app updates as they come in. I'm tired of checking for updates and finding out Apple was holding my phone back from updates 3-4 days ago from some apps.
Score: 25 Votes (Like | Disagree)
bondr006 Avatar
7 weeks ago

Oh, I have a shortcut on my phone and iPad which I tap every morning to access the app updates page. 😛
I just long press the App Store icon to get a dropdown context menu…



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Score: 15 Votes (Like | Disagree)
7 weeks ago

No, you aren't going crazy
Who thought they were going crazy?
Score: 14 Votes (Like | Disagree)
jayducharme Avatar
7 weeks ago
I never knew about the long-press option. That’s quite handy.
Score: 11 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Devnul0 Avatar
7 weeks ago
Making updates an extra tap away was annoying enough. How about making it so I don’t have to manually refresh (with a pull down) every single time in order to see all of the available updates, instead of just some of them?
Score: 9 Votes (Like | Disagree)
oxfordrunner Avatar
7 weeks ago
Also, when will App auto updates ever work? I feel like no matter what time of day, charging or not, I can always manually refresh and discover a lot of updates need to be downloaded.
Score: 9 Votes (Like | Disagree)