Ever since iOS 7 was released, I’ve noticed a strange behaviour in the App Store app on iOS 6.1.3. I guess it might have something to do with that new App Store policy that should allow older app versions to be downloaded. Anyway, here’s what happens on my iPhone 3GS with iOS 6.1.3:

The app’s red badge informs me that there are 2 updates available, so I enter the App Store, and this appears:

The red badge disappears and the App Store app tells me that “All Apps are up to date.” I’m also thinking: maybe there are updates available, but only compatible with iOS 7, yet for some reason I’m getting notified of the updates even under iOS 6. However, things get even weirder when I tap ‘Purchased’:

This is the first time I’ve ever seen such message: “All of your available apps have been downloaded to this computer.” And it’s utter nonsense, too: in my library of apps I’ve purchased or downloaded for free from the App Store over the years, there are more than 150 apps. On this iPhone 3GS I’m keeping just the essentials, just 16 third-party apps or so. I wanted to download from the Purchased section another few apps I own which don’t have very strict minimum requirements (i.e., they don’t require iOS 7), but apparently I can’t. What’s more, I can’t access any of the apps in my Purchased library. If, however, I look for such apps in the App Store, they are correctly displayed with the ‘cloud’ button to be downloaded from iCloud. If you have any insight on this, feel free to drop me a line on Twitter or App.Net (I’m @morrick on both networks).