The notifications that you receive on your iPhone are not limited to text messages and missed phone calls. Almost any app that you install on your device will probably try to send you some type of notification, and the App Store, which is included on the iPhone by default, is no different. But the most common type of notification from the App Store is not an alert, but rather a red circle on tap of the App Store icon that displays a number.
The number in the circle is called a Badge App Icon, and will tell you different things about different apps. In the case of the App Store, it is letting you know how many app updates are available for the apps installed on your device. Our guide below will show you how to turn off the Badge App icon for your iPhone if you don’t like it, or if you prefer to keep your app icons free of clutter.
Disabling the Badge App Icon for the App Store on an iPhone
The steps in this guide will turn off the Badge App icon on your iPhone. It will not affect the Badge App icon for any of the other apps that might display one. If you would like to remove the red circle with the number for a different app, such as Mail or Messages, then you can follow these same steps, except choose your desired app instead of choosing the App Store.
Step 1: Open the Settings menu.
Step 2: Select the Notifications option.
Step 3: Select the App Store.
Step 4: Tap the button to the right of Badge App icon to turn it off. The setting is turned off in the picture below, meaning that the red circle with the number inside of it will be gone, and will not display again unless you come back here and turn the App Store Badge Icon back on.
Another way that you can handle app updates on your iPhone is to simply have the device install all of them automatically – This article – https://www.os-tips.com/enable-disable-automatic-app-updates-iphone-5/ – will show you how to enable the option which installs updates as they become available in the app store.
Gary Thompson has been in IT consulting since the mid 2000s, and enjoys writing about mobile devices and computers. His primary topics of interest include iPhones and Windows, but he has written about many other devices and applications.