While this seems like a lot, in some ways this is what user's expect. Push notifications should be coming all the time, assuming the system is on. Most users expect various maintenance services to run when the system idle so it doesn't interfere with their active use of the system. When users open apps like Weather (or view a widget), they expect it to already be up to date without having to manually refresh or wait for data to load when the app launches.

I'm sure some fat can be trimmed, and it may not all be user-centric, but a lot of this had to do with the expectations users have these days with the data being always up to date, instantly available, and proactive about alerting them to things they may want to know about, like rain coming to your area in 30 minutes.

One of my big pet peeves is when I pick up my phone in the morning, go to open an app, and it starts updating, so I need to wait for the download/install. It just had 8 hours on a charger to do that, and instead it seems to wait until it's taken off the charger and unlocked. With auto-updates on, I'd much rather this happen when placed on the charger and inactive, than actively in use and off the charger. The same can be said for a lot of things on the desktop.

This ends up mostly being a question of transparency and user control. Which then becomes a question of how much time/money to they invest in features for 1% of users? Now how much time do they invest in those same features when the 99% will stumble in there, turn a bunch of stuff off, then call support and ask why their weather widget isn't updating?