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The App Store Nightmare

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Re: The App Store Nightmare

#91

Post by lwhi »

There are so many reasons to stop using Apple, and the number of reasons to jump ship is literally increasing every day.

I'm confident that I will never willingly give Apple any of my money for any of their products or services, simply because I believe they're steering society in a painfully dangerous direction.

I hope people eventually see sense and choose the alternatives that are available; because if the world ends up as an image of Steve Jobs' ideal, it's going to be very depressing place to live.

Re: The App Store Nightmare

#92

Post by aggarwalachal »

I moved from an Indian iTunes account to a US Account a few months ago, and I faced similar problems.

As soon as I migrated my account, I was happy too see that it was working fine. Little did I know that Apple does not transfer "Purchases" into the new account. When I called AppleCare, they told me that I will have to manually go through the history of apps I have bought from my account and download them in the US Store. I won't be charged for the apps but this is still going to be a manual process.

In their words, they do this primarily because some of the apps might not be available in the new location store. I mean, WTF?

The least that Apple has done is that I would still receive update notifications on my iOS devices.

Now, note this scenario that I use the same iTunes Account for my purchases in iTunes and also as my primary Apple Developer account.

The account originally being from India, I did not have access to the option of renewing my Dev account online. I moved on and never thought about this issue again.

Last week, it was time to renew my developer account, and I was happy that at least this time I won't have to fax my details to Apple and it will all be a smooth online payment.

NO. Not the case. My Developer account is still an Indian account as per Apple's records and I had to make the payment using fax.

I hope Apple comes up a solution soon, as the current thing just sucks

Re: The App Store Nightmare

#93

Post by yojimbo311 »

jlgreco wrote: post #51
drumdance wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Huh? How is it "doing it wrong" to live on two continents? Apple may not be the optimum choice for the poster, but perhaps they should tell you that when you're browsing stuff in the Apple store.

I don't think he was signalling his actual approval, but merely conveying what he interpreted to be Apple's assessment of his lifestyle. Apple thinks he is doing it "wrong" because he isn't fitting into one of the common cases they bothered to plan for. This comment serves to both emphasise that Apple ignores the long tail and that Apple has the tendency to get people to think that they are "wrong" for wanting someth…

My apologies for singling you out with this, but many people seem to be jumping on this bandwagon all too much and I've about lost my patience with it. This isn't something that Apple, or Amazon, or Netflix, or Hulu etc. can take the blame for in my opinion.

Dealing with multi-national accounts is terribly complicated, especially when it comes to selling the content that Apple does. I imagine it would be extraordinarily difficult to convince music labels, TV producers, Movie studios etc. to provide the earliest possible access to their content at reasonable market prices if Apple were to say "we have millions of customers with credit cards, but that regional release restriction thing you like so much, yeah you're going to have to let that go because we allow a single account to pay using credit cards from multiple countries and they might actually, you know, be in another country at the time they buy something." All content companies face this issue, just try watching Netflix or Hulu outside of the US and compare what you can and can't get access to.

It's a backwards way of doing things in the internet age, but I haven't seen anyone who's found the key to get passed the gatekeepers yet and until someone does, we'll continue to be stuck with this problem.

> See: people talking several years ago about why anyone who wanted copy/paste in iOS didn't understand why that was unnecessary.

When did this happen? I don't recall anyone saying any such thing. I do recall many being very frustrated, but nevertheless reiterating Apple's position of "well release it when it's ready" despite the genuine need that any solution would have been better than no solution.

Apple doesn't ignore the long tail nor do they actively try to convince people that they don't want what they want. They do seem to take their sweet time in putting a solution out there if they don't happen to think the solutions available work very well.

Re: The App Store Nightmare

#94

Post by batista »

eyko wrote: post #90
batista wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But Apple simply doesn't allow for people who reside in multiple countries, and have credit cards in multiple countries. I guess that lifestyle doesn't fit the "Apple way" -- it's thinking too different. Yes, the irony is very fitting, because as we all know some evil masterminds at Apple HQ are all about making it difficult for non-conformists to have credit cards at multiple countries. Or you could arrive at the…

You mean buying an app for personal use in the US and then taking your laptop to Sweden means you have to pay Swedish tax on that app? Or, please explain how any of the reasons you mentioned affect it. The way I (or everyone) sees it is: it's like a USA shop selling software in USA to someone in USA, and a Swedish shop selling software in Sweden to someone in Sweden. Where is the problem? Anyway, to add to the discus…

>You mean buying an app for personal use in the US and then taking your laptop to Sweden means you have to pay Swedish tax on that app?

No, but that is not what the guy did. He bought the app in the US and then went and changed to a brazilian iTunes store account, with a brazilian credit card and brazilian address.

>The way I (or everyone) sees it is: it's like a USA shop selling software in USA to someone in USA, and a Swedish shop selling software in Sweden to someone in Sweden. Where is the problem?

There could be several. For one, the developer of the app might only opted to make it available in some iTunes stores, not all of them, e.g only in the US store. Should a US customer with a brazilian bank account, address and credit card be able to use it? They could add some multi-account management and tracking into iTunes for such cases but it can get messy, plus: "opportunity cost".

Second, several apps cannot be sold in some countries for reasons of copyright, export/import restrictions (e.g crypto code), trademark disputes, etc.

For example, if I had a penny for every time I see a youtube video or iTunes movie, app or song, that is "not available in my country" I would be rich.

It's not like Apple or the media company doesn't want my money. It's that they have agreements to honor, they have to work with regional monopolies and players, they might want to milk other options first that are more lucrative to them (e.g sell DVDs), they want to adhere to the local schedules (e.g we get new episodes of us series several months after the original airing).

So, part of it is problems with global logistics, trade and accounting and part of it is business interests.

Re: The App Store Nightmare

#95

Post by gst »

batista wrote: post #88
crazygringo wrote: post #13

Oh tell me about it. I used to split my time between the US and Brazil, and had credit cards and bank accounts in both. Sometimes apps I'd want would only be on one store, and sometimes only on the other. But Apple simply doesn't allow for people who reside in multiple countries, and have credit cards in multiple countries. I guess that lifestyle doesn't fit the "Apple way" -- it's thinking too different. It's absolu…

> But Apple simply doesn't allow for people who reside in multiple countries, and have credit cards in multiple countries. I guess that lifestyle doesn't fit the "Apple way" -- it's thinking too different. Yes, the irony is very fitting, because as we all know some evil masterminds at Apple HQ are all about making it difficult for non-conformists to have credit cards at multiple countries. Or you could arrive at the…

Paypal didn't sort this out. It's the same as for the App Store. Your account is bound to one given country and when you move to another country you are supposed to close the account and re-open another one. In addition, you can only link bank accounts to Paypal if they're in the same country as the Paypal account. Also, you can set your address in Paypal to a foreign country.

Re: The App Store Nightmare

#96

Post by sigkill »

MarkMc wrote: post #48
pash wrote: post #5

Lest anyone think the problem is solely with juggling accounts across different geographies, here are some examples of how broken the whole Apple ID user experience is, even for people whose digital life never leaves the US: - It's impossible to merge accounts or move purchases from one account to another, even if they are associated with the the same credit card information - If you have ever at any point used an em…

One other problem: You cannot change the credit card details on your account if you are currently mid-way though a TV season you have purchased

Wait a minute. I see all sorts of problems with this. So what do they do if your card expires this month?

Re: The App Store Nightmare

#97

Post by sigkill »

tomflack wrote: post #40
nirvana wrote: post #27

I travel full time, and have been living all over the world for the past four years and never had this problem. From Romania to Chile, Venice to England wherever I am, my iTunes works the way I'd expect. Compared to HULU and Netflix, Apple is one of the best in this regard. I have to get on a VPN to the USA to use my HULU or Netflix accounts, but iTunes just works, globally. I have a US itunes account, and use it in…

> But it isn't Apple that is making them tied to regions, this is a requirement of the record and movie industries who seem to think that price and release discrimination by region makes sense. It is also a problem for Apps. There are loads of apps available in some countries but not others. It's up to the app developer to make them available globally. I understand not wanting to offer your app in countries where it…

Pardon my ignorance, but I am unable to think of a use-case where it's beneficial for an app developer to not allow his app be available globally.

Re: The App Store Nightmare

#98

Post by throwaway64 »

gst wrote: post #95
batista wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But Apple simply doesn't allow for people who reside in multiple countries, and have credit cards in multiple countries. I guess that lifestyle doesn't fit the "Apple way" -- it's thinking too different. Yes, the irony is very fitting, because as we all know some evil masterminds at Apple HQ are all about making it difficult for non-conformists to have credit cards at multiple countries. Or you could arrive at the…

Paypal didn't sort this out. It's the same as for the App Store. Your account is bound to one given country and when you move to another country you are supposed to close the account and re-open another one. In addition, you can only link bank accounts to Paypal if they're in the same country as the Paypal account. Also, you can set your address in Paypal to a foreign country.

so you are supposed to rebuy everything you bought on itunes?

and this is reasonable?

Re: The App Store Nightmare

#99

Post by happywolf »

cageface wrote: post #35
nirvana wrote: post #27

I travel full time, and have been living all over the world for the past four years and never had this problem. From Romania to Chile, Venice to England wherever I am, my iTunes works the way I'd expect. Compared to HULU and Netflix, Apple is one of the best in this regard. I have to get on a VPN to the USA to use my HULU or Netflix accounts, but iTunes just works, globally. I have a US itunes account, and use it in…

I've had no end of problems with them while traveling in SE Asia, including having my account locked several times. If I didn't have a few friends inside Apple put in a word for me I think it's very likely my account would still be locked, with absolutely no explanation as to why. I've learned the hard way not to go anywhere near the iTunes store without a VPN back to the U.S.

I have been using my Singapore account in China for more than a year. So far everything is OK.

Re: The App Store Nightmare

#100

Post by revscat »

throwaway64 wrote: post #98
gst wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Paypal didn't sort this out. It's the same as for the App Store. Your account is bound to one given country and when you move to another country you are supposed to close the account and re-open another one. In addition, you can only link bank accounts to Paypal if they're in the same country as the Paypal account. Also, you can set your address in Paypal to a foreign country.

so you are supposed to rebuy everything you bought on itunes? and this is reasonable?

No, it's not reasonable from an end-user perspective. Certainly not. But attributing this restriction to malice aforethought is just ridiculous.
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