Those annoying ‘out of date’ messages on Google’s iOS apps are a bug

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If you’re tired of Google apps on your iOS device nagging you to update, when Google hasn’t updated its apps since December, your annoyance will be short-lived. Google says that a bug was responsible for the messages, and told The Verge that it has now been fixed.

Google’s apps haven’t been updated since Apple mandated its new App Store privacy labels, leading many to wonder if that’s the reason Google has seemingly stopped updates for the platform. The apps seemed to be wondering as well, as on Wednesday they started giving notifications that they were out of date.

Google did update the Android Gmail app on the 9th, so perhaps the “out of date” messaging was checking against the Android version number, instead of realizing that the iOS app is already the latest version. Whatever the reason, the company has fixed the bug, so your iOS apps shouldn’t show the warning anymore.

In a blog post on Jan 12, the company promised that they would start including the privacy labels that Apple requires. Some of the apps in the App Store have been updated, notably Google Authenticator and Stadia. Will the rest of Google’s iOS apps follow in the upcoming weeks? We can only hope so, as a clash between Apple and Google over not following App Store policies will end badly for everyone.

Have any thoughts on this? Did you get this notice from Google? Let us know down below in the comments or carry the discussion over to our Twitter or Facebook.

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Joe Rice-Jones

Maker, meme-r, and unabashed geek with nearly half a decade of blogging experience at KnowTechie, SlashGear and XDA Developers. If it runs on electricity (or even if it doesn't), Joe probably has one around his office somewhere, with particular focus in gadgetry and handheld gaming. Shoot him an email at joe@knowtechie.com.