How to get apps to finish updating on iOS? My iPad 1 runs iOS 5.0.1 but I believe I have had this problem with previous versions. I'll go into the App Store and find a lot of pending updates. I'll tell it to update all and then leave it on to do its updating.

Later (hours or days even) I come back and all or most of the apps that were updated have the faded icon and an empty update bar with a caption of "Waiting . . ." None of them are updating. I tap them and it doesn't launch and doesn't change the status. I've tried rebooting the iPad but that doesn't seem to help.

Eventually it will return to normal, but I have found no rhyme or reason. I am on 20 Mbit DSL so it shouldn't be that it takes days to download a few updates. I don't think that is what is happening anyway because I don't see any progress on any of them.
Go back to the App Store app, and try hitting the update button again.  Your account login activity time may have expired sometime during the process.  If so, it will ask you to enter your password again before resuming downloading your updates.