One reason why package updates can be a little tricky is because I might not be sure which application depends on a package that has an update, so after updating, will I need to restart any applications?

Hopefully, there is a way to check dependencies for every package manager. Here is how we do it in Parabola:

$ pactree -r package

https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Pacman#Querying_package_databases