How can you keep mobile apps updated and running smoothly?

Actually, many "old but gold" yet abandoned apps are no longer available on the stores or won't install on your device anymore due to changed Store requirements (the app may run perfectly fine, so ensure to make a local copy, by, say, dumping an APK of an app with ADB on Android. Be aware, however, that old apps might also mean "known exploits", so you need to balance or get a separate device just for those old apps and ensure you can transfer no just the executables, but also app data.

Clearing cache+data on Android is an equivalent of uninstalling and re-installing the app, but saves a lot of effort. Actually, clearing the cache of "Google Play Services" might sometimes also fix issues.

Most apps have both "high" and "low" OS version they support, so updating device software (unless fixing OS bugs) won't help much. What does help is putting your device on charger regularly - modern mobile OSes look for 3 factors to initiate app auto-update: on charger, on Wi-Fi, on time (usually at night).

For Enterprise customers the recommended approach is a ringed CI/CD model - when a new version is released it is first deployed to, say, 1% of target, then, say, a week later - to 10%, and another week to everyone else. This balances very well the amount of testing effort by the IT department with the speed of deploying new features and possibility of quick rollback, should a problem be found. Of course, your ring number, percentages and times may vary, and using the power of device targeting you may also build scenarios such as "Do not auto-update mobile POS terminal software during Christmas Season". Otherwise, strict version control (see #1) is the way to go.

From a large global survey we do annually, we know that app instability is one of the top complaints employees make about their mobile device at work. Smart IT leaders are taking a proactive approach to the problem, but installing software that monitors devices and apps 7x24 and proactively alerts them to problems, especially as new apps or updates to apps, operating systems or configurations are installed. Additionally, smart IT leaders are introducing changes to apps by controlling their release - first to a handful of devices and measuring for stability and unintended consequences, before pushing the changes to the broader set of devices. One tool to recommend is from our company - B2M's Elemez.

Keeping your Android app's dependencies updated is crucial because outdated libraries can introduce bugs and security vulnerabilities. By keeping the libraries up to date, you benefit from bug fixes and performance improvements ensuring your app runs at its best.