Yeah, this is a pain with Apple - instead of trying to understand the business and consumer culture of the particular country, Apple tries to impose US business model everywhere.
Some of the things I have observed in India:
- Apple tried to entice and sell iPhones through the carrier, where as Indians largely have a cultural apathy to buying expensive phones on loan / credit and locked to a network.
- Apple still doesn't allow you to update your phone on cellular data even if the indian user wants to - most of the cellular data plans in India offer anywhere from 1GB / day to 5GB / day on 4G. So even if we have the speed and bandwidth, Apple insists you can only update on Wifi. (Obviously nobody wants forced, silent updates through cellular data - but Apple should atleast allow update on cellular data if the user initiates it. It's irritating that you can watch large HD videos, but not update your phone.)
- Apple still doesn't seem to have any data centre in India, and sends an expensive international SMS to the US everytime iMessage or Facetime has to be activated. (And when anybody complains about this online every "helpful" suggestion blames the carrier for this rather than Apple - because apparently some carriers in the US don't charge for this "activation SMS". Obviously since US carriers are sending a local SMS, they can afford to absorb the cost of an iPhone they have sold and profited from. Why would indian carriers absorb the cost of an international SMS for Apple for no obvious profit!? If it was local, it would be free too in India as many indian carriers offer free SMS in their plan. See https://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/390275/how-to-avoi... for more details on this SMS activation.)
- My iMessage was blocked many times because the amount of messages I sent because Apple didn't recognize that social networking in India had moved from Orkut and FB to mobile messaging (that's why FB bought WhatsApp, and it is the number one messaging App in India even on iPhone.)
- Apple still insists on a credit / debit card for use on App store in India, despite India having better online payment solutions that protect our privacy better. Also, cards of India's payment processor (RuPay) is not accepted, and you have to invariably use a Mastercard or Visa card.