Why do software updates (such as notable examples iTunes and iOS) now download the entire software every time, rather than just a small patch for the portion updated?

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I miss the days of software patches. The program might be 5 gb, but the update patch might be just a fraction of that, and it would apply itself to the installed files. Nowadays it seems more common (or at least increasingly) that the provider just makes you download the entire program in the latest version. So why is this done? It seems like a massive waste of bandwidth.

In: Technology

4 Answers

Anonymous 0 Comments

I don’t really understand too much technical stuff, so this is what I thought when I first read your question.

Rather than just one or two things being updated in the software, many different things are tweaked. I reckon that only updating these portions of the software could cause some errors (such as the software overwriting itself?) and therefore it is easier to just download a whole new software and replace it. I’m really not sure though, this is just me having a guess.

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