Q: iTunes App update not happening.

Both apps are pre-installed by iOS and cannot be deleted. Thay are still somewhere on your device.

You can search for them on all your screens and inside your folders; you can perform a Spotlight search for them; and you can check Settings > Genereal > Restrictions > to see if someone put restrictions on them, which would hide them from view.

The previous reply is maybe missing the point, maybe not explained well sorry. I also have the problem, so I'll try to explain a bit better.. Well, what I'm going through with it anyway..

Yes, I know that the app (Podcasts) is still on my device, and I can still see and use it just fine!

The specific way the problem is affecting me (that the OP doesn't explain/well), is:

That iTunes (on a Mac here) says there's a handful of Apps that have updates, so I click on 'Update All Apps'.... And all of the rest of the Apps update/download, as per normal..

..BUT, the App 'Podcasts' won't update like the rest, and iTunes comes up with the notification:
"Podcasts is only available on iOS - To get Podcasts, search for it on the App Store on your iOS device."

...even though the 'Podcasts' App icon still stays in the main area of 'Updates' in the Apps tab, and still says that it is waiting to be updated/there's an update available.

Also, if you go to 'App Store' and 'Updates' on your iOS device, refresh it, 'Podcasts' does not appear there as an available update (like the other Apps), ... so what the **** is going on here..??

Massive thanks in advance for useful solutions!

There's something wrong with iTunes right now. That message makes no sense since Podcasts can only be updated as part of an iOS update.

If you don't see a similar message in iTunes on your iOS device (which you won't), ignore it and let Apple resolves it.

The problem is likely related to the fact that iOS 10 will allow users to download, update and delete many of these apps at will. The fact that you're getting these notifications in iOS 9 is a bug. Ignore it.

I agree it's a bug, but the problem is that the button for "Check for Updates" turns into "Update all Apps" once these appear, and because they won't actually update the button never turns back into "Check for updates", so now there's no way to check for updates to other apps and such until these go away...

That's actually an easy one..

if you're on a Mac, just use the shortcut "Cmd + R" to 'Reload' the current page, and you'll see the thin blue line in the dialog box go across the box as it checks for updates. Done!

(Possibly "Ctrl + R" on Windows machines).

Cheers.

No use, once you have that problem tou can't reload that page.

u sure that reload command works in iTunes? as far as i know, that only works in Safari. Guess I will try that. Getting same message with "Find My Friends", which is ONLY an IOS app, as far as I know. very odd. will try rebooting iTunes, to see if that fixes it.

As I said above, you can't relad that page once it's stuck with one of the Apple apps.

First it was just "Find Friends". Now it is also "Podcast". These apps will not update. I get the same error on both about these being IOS only. Thought maybe this was because I needed to update to latest version of iTunes. But, after update, same issue.

Also, if I go to "Find Friends" in the app store, I see a grayed out "update" button, even though the word "update" appears on the icon. So definitely seems like Apple has messed up, once again! Seems like Apple has been going downhill, since Steve Jobs passed!

Since all my iOS devices are v9 or below, and both of these apps are built-in to iOS, I decided to try something: on each of the two apps (Find My Friends and Podcasts) I right clicked and selected Delete (this is in iTunes Mac 12.4.1.6), opted to delete the items from my library but keep the disc files - this process made them both disappear from my Apps::Updates screen and restored the button to "Check for Updates" - they have not reappeared and there seems to be no effect on the iOS devices that have synced with iTunes since.  Might be worth a try if you're stuck, but I offer no warranty that this is the "right" workaround...

Got this as well but only for Podcast app.

I had the iBooks one as well but that updated ???

Funny thing is in iTunes says its upgrading to version 2.3 (Podcast app) but on the iPad its version 2.4 !!

It'll go away at some stage.....hopefully, or just delete it like another post said.

I guess you could call it a glitch... I took the plunge for us all .  I simply deleted both apps from iTunes on my Mac and both apps remained on my iPhone after a backup and sync. I backed up and synced again, No problems... When checking for app updates, Find my Friends & the Podcast app did not show up. No problems... Both apps remain on my iPhone with Podcast and and Friends in place.

Are you sure? It works totally fine for me every time!

It just 'Reloaded' the page, and loaded a handful of new Apps that are now all updating/downloading (except the same error message on 'Podcasts' of course).

To the question 'am I sure this works and not getting confused with Safari'... Why not just try it first rather than post a question and assume I'm confused with another completely different program? This is definitely a normal function of iTunes, you can see it at the bottom of the 'Controls' drop down list in iTunes (even if it is greyed out), and it 100% works on on all Macs I've used before this issue (and still working on mine during this issue).

I'm sorry if this shortcut isn't working for some people, but please don't tell others it doesn't work at all, maybe not for you, as it works for me, and can hopefully work for others!

For the people where the 'Cmd+R'/'Ctrl+R' Reload shortcut isn't working, maybe we're on different setups? To help out, this is my setup that it IS working on, maybe you can post yours to let people know what setup it's NOT working on?

My 'Reload working' setup:

Device: Mid 2010 Macbook Pro,

OS: OS X Yosemite, 10.10.5 (latest update),

iTunes: 12.4.1.6 (latest update),

Hope that helps.

This glitch is possibly affecting people's machines in slightly different ways, and I can only comment on what's happening with the 'Podcasts' App, and on my setup, I don't have 'Find My Friends' or at least that's not appearing as an issue for me (yet).