Why doesn't Windows/Mac update your applications?
When you buy a new PC or MAC, it isn't long (2 seconds) before you start installing software.
Then it isn't much longer before there is a newer version of that software that needs to be installed.
Some applications will handle this gracefully (eg Firefox) and download the upgrade in the background and upgrade it the next time you start. Some will not even tell you there is a new version that fixes all your problems and unless you can find the secret URL to the new version, you are out of luck.
Of course after going through all this trouble to upgrade, next week another update is released and the process starts allll over again. :-)
Surely there must be a better way?
Well there is. Some flavours of Linux (eg Ubuntu) actually manage all your Operating system AND application upgrades all within the same robust update manager process.
Windows and Mac both have fairly decent ways to keep their core operating system up to date, so all they need to do is expose this functionality to all the apps on the system. They don't need to host the updates, but just provide a way for the programs to tell the update manager, this is where my updates are located.
Software developers could use it or leave it as they see fit. More importantly, end users will have a lot easier time staying up to date.
Apple are addressing this (partly) with their upcoming blend of IOS into Mac OS X, though this is only for apps that go through the same approval process as the current app store, so plenty of developers (and end users) will be stuck with their own custom made upgrade solution.
I wonder how long it will take to solve this (already solved) problem and allow end users to get back to using and not managing their computers?