Updates are not recognized

Question

Many of my apps have been updated recently, but iTunes isn't recognizing/downloading them. For free apps this is no problem, I just "buy" them again and force the update that way, but for commercial apps I don't know what to do. Crosswords cost $10, and I really want the update, but I don't want to pay a second time. Neither iTunes nor the on=phone store are allowing the update to be recognized.

Answer 1

I have come up with a workaround to make the iTunes see and run updates. This worked in my situation. It takes a long time to do this by the way. It took me at least an hour...
Here We Go:
The Situation I had was: I had an iPhone with lots of Aps installed. They all work. Eight of them were needing to be updated (including purchased Aps). My iPhone was the only devise that recognized the need for these updates. On my Powerbook (in iTunes) it said there was not any updates needed at this time. Here is how I "fixed" it...
1) I opened iTunes on my Mac and went to the "Applications" section.
2) I turned on my iPhone and looked at the Application on my iPhone called "App Store."
3) I then deleted (from iTunes on my computer) all the applications that the "App Store" on my iPhone wanted to update. There were 8 it wanted to update. I even told my computer to "move" these 8 items to the "trash." At this point, these 8 Aps were only on my iPhone...even the purchased ones.
4) I then plugged my iPhone into my computer. VERY IMPORTANT: The computer told me there are "Aps on the iPhone that are NOT in iTunes." and asked if I want to put them in iTunes from the phone. YES!! you want to take them from the iPhone and add them back into iTunes. If you do not then you will erase the last copy of your Aps!
5) Once the Aps were finished getting pulled back onto my computer from the iPhone (20 Mins later)... iTunes told me some of them "need to be updated" Yippee! It worked.
6) Not done yet... At this point (of course) tell iTunes to update them. However, you then have to reconnect the iPhone and do the entire Sync again (20 more mins) to get the now updated Aps back onto the phone. Time wasted... but at least it worked.
Final notes... After I got the Aps back onto iTunes from the iPhone I did restart my computer and also turned off/on my iPhone. To turn your phone off hold the top button about 8 seconds and it will ask if you want to turn it off. Press top button again to turn the iPhone back on. In situations like these it never hurts to restart any/all hardware right?
This workaround worked for me. I hope it helps others also. I should add that it wasn't perfect. 2 of the 8 Aps were still the old version on my iPhone even after this was done. So I decided to update those directly from the iPhone. It takes a long time but that worked also. Why not update ALL 8 from the iPhone? Because it takes so long. I need to use the iPhone again before summer is over! Good luck. Use my advise at your own risk. Obviously. It did work. I am happy to say all my Aps are up to date again.
P.S. I am confident Apple will fix this glitch in short order. They have not let me down so far as a customer.