A few days ago I complained how some applications’ authors did not really get the auto-update concept: it has to be simple and “just work”.

Another crazy example of the auto-update done right is my new HDTV, Samsung LE32R73BD. It’s a wide screen 32 inch LCD TV I bought a month ago. It has a digital tuner (DVB-T) so I can watch over-the-air digital channels of DVD quality.

Since these channels are digital, a portion of bandwidth can be used to push some extra data like subtitles and firmware updates.

Two days ago, my wife called me to check out the question on the TV screen – would you like to update to the latest software? Single click on OK and about a second later the TV was updated and was operational again.

If the TV can update itself, so can your app. It’s a new reality, deal with it.