App Store keeps showing wrong badge count

App Store on my iPhone keeps on showing that there are 3 new updates, but when I click on updates, it shows 0 new updates.

It will update the badge count to 0 new updates as well, but not much later the 3 new updates will appear. See screenshots:

How can I get the correct badge count? It bothers me that the App Store says there are new updates, while there aren't.

^{iOS 6.1.3 / iPhone 4s}

Solution 1:

I see that behavior for apps that require iOS 7. I'm still on iOS 6 and when going to Purchased -> All there is an Update button for apps that have an update available. When I tap the button the App Store suggests to install the last compatible version of the app.

Solution 2:

Thanks, bmike, for the theory. It allowed me to find at least one practical solution.

Go into the App Store. Select Purchased → All. Now carefully scroll down the list. You will find one or more apps with a status of Install instead of Open. Go ahead and install them. If you have not upgraded to iOS 7 you may get a message that says that the latest version requires iOS 7, but you may download the latest compatible version. Touch Download and it will install.

These are the updates appearing in the badge count.

Solution 3:

This is a side effect of how iOS notifications work - or in this case, what happens when they don't work.

I see this sort of error on game center when the notification for a turn arrives well in advance of the actual game data.

It's kind of like when you check email and get a notification (and there you even get some data from the mail envelope - who sent it, date, subject), but the body of the email is still getting processed and send to your mailbox.

On the Mac app store side of things, I've seen this mismatch for hours and even in some cases days when the app gets hung up. The iOS app store is much more mature so I assume the server infrastructure is either coded more robustly or it has more resources and the delay between an update being signaled and actually available for your device to download is less.

As to how to fix it, you can't really send a reset to the app store app and need to wait it out.

Solution 4:

Need to be a little patient. If you have different devices with different IOS like 6 and 7. AND SHARE THE ACCOUNT, the device on IOS 6 will keep updating the badge count for apps that it is trying to download that were purchased somewhere else or on another device. Go to the IOS 7 device first and do the Purchased - All thing like stated above. Then repeat on other IOS devices. This cleared the badge for me. I think its more of a communication thing in Notifications between the different IOS devices.....