Just when I was beginning to think Apple had run out of buggy behavior it could shoehorn into the iPhone/iTunes dynamic duo, they have managed to come through yet again.

First, beginning with last week’s iTunes 7.7.1 update, if I select “Applications”, then hit “Check for updates”, I am given a list of ALL my apps that have ever had an update, even the ones which were currently up to date. If I hit “download all updates”, it will download all 60 every time (over 240 MB with Apple’s Texas Hold ‘Em), and a good 70% of the time it appears iTunes is actually re-installing them on my iPhone during syncs, adding to the already ridiculous sync/backup times. I would think just to save bandwidth, Apple would have wanted to fix this glitch by now.

The work around, I suppose, is to check for app updates via the iPhone, which will correctly tell me I have 3 updates, not 60, and then transfer those to iTunes during a sync. While the updates thus far have all been free, I still get an e-mail receipt for all 60 each time it does this, so I am hoping this is fixed by the time an app I own puts out a paid update, so I do not get charged every day for any paid updates.

Attack of the clones

While I half-expected the update problem above to be fixed by the new iPhone 2.0.1 update (and it did get rid of about half the updates) I certainly didn’t expect it to create a new update problem, yet take a look at this.

Ever since upgrading the iPhone to 2.0.1, iTunes also thinks I have 2 to 6 copies of each app that need updates.

I must admit, this one made me laugh out loud when I saw it, and since I like a good laugh, I am not as angry at this glitch as others (like the way my iPhone keeps syncing 10 playlists that I do not have set to sync), but it still looks sloppy and unprofessional on Apple’s end.

Of course, I have long since given myself over to the “Cult of Mac”, so it will take more than this (and the recent MobileMe fiasco) to turn me off to Apple, but I can only imagine the reaction of folks who are perhaps being introduced to Apple products for the first time via the iPhone.