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 absolutely infuriating, above all because you're talking about stuff you paid for.
Apple is all about streamlining and optimizing for the common case. Not providing options for the minority with different preferences. If your lifestyle doesn't match, then you're doing it wrong.
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 something Apple does not currently provide. See: people talking several years ago about why anyone who wanted copy/paste in iOS didn't understand why that was unnecessary.
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.
No need to apologise, I don't know what the current multinational account setup with Apple is like since I have never had to experience it myself, I am going entirely off what people like crazygringo have talked about.
I fully understand that licensing contracts from third parties will always make the entire experience suboptimal. I expect hiccups. I don't know if Apple has some sort of system available where upon calling a CS rep they can link two accounts in their system to iron out their customer experience. Something like that seems like it would be a good system that would provide a better user experience while still keeping their system aware of licensing restrictions. I don't know if that exists already, or what, if anything, Apple does for customers in that sort of a position. All I do know is that I have only heard complaints. At least from their perspective, they feel as though they are being ignored.
> Apple doesn't ignore the long tail
I think we will have to agree to disagree there. I don't want to get into some sort of flamewar. I should probably point out that ignoring the long tail is a complaint I have with most companies out there in the consumer space right now, not just Apple. I think it is a reality of having finite resources and rapid release cycles while trying to target the general public.
> nor do they actively try to convince people that they don't want what they want.
I agree. I don't know what causes it, but I think it is a phenomenal that appears by itself. With the copy/paste example, I never once heard the "You are wrong for wanting that" line from Apple, but I heard it numerous times from friends at the pub or whatever when I would poke fun of them for lacking it. (If you want to see examples of it, you can probably find them buried in the comment sections of slashdot on articles from a few years ago. Not exactly the standard of mature discussion, I know..). I think this phenomenon (specifically, people making up poor excuses for a company who they have no association with. Excuses that do not have anything to do with the reality of the situation.) is not something that Apple has deliberately created.
It seems to be something that happens any time people people are loyal fans of something and are exposed to often times very repetitive criticism. It seems very similar to post-purchase rationalization to me, though obviously with a different root cause.
Examples of the phenomenon outside of Apple fans, off the top of my head, may include: defence of politicians (specifically, giving excuses for politicians being politicians. Things like: "He can't follow through with his election platform because he has to get elected again!" or "Well he would, if not for those meddling [other party people]!"), defence of the nuclear power industry (I am likely guilty of this one), and defence of various segments of the auto industry.
Several examples of this in the auto industry seem apparent to me. Telsa fans claiming that going more than 300 miles is unnecessary is probably one that the HN crowd is most familiar with (and one that I think I am also guilty of). (The response you see to 300 mile complaints is not "Well yes, that is the best we can do with batteries today" but rather "You are weird for needing more than 300 miles".) Actually, this is probably the best comparison to the what we see among some Apple fans, since both items are a luxury good that are held back by some technical realities.
That doesn't mean that people can't complain about it. They could have easily supported multiple locations and credit cards and still streamline the process, and the only users who'd have to deal with it are the ones who need to use the feature.
I think that's a bit misleading because iTunes and Amazon also sell DRM-free music, which I don't know the legal implications of, but at least there are no ridiculous technical problems here.
Also, if the App Store _sold_ software, that still wouldn't mean that the upgrade process would necessarily be flawless. (OTOH, then we could all just use Sparkle again, which has worked without a hitch for me since 10.4.)
>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 rational conclusion that dealing with different countries, tax systems, economic agreements, copyright laws, regulations, accounts, currency exchanges et cetera AND tracking all that is
_so_difficult_
that despite being a very lucrative outcome for those who manage it, VERY VERY few entities have managed to somewhat overcome those problems a worldwide basis. Namely, Paypal (I did say "somewhat"). And this bloody mess has nothing to do with Apple or any specific company.
Just because we got worldwide connectivity via the internet 20 years ago, people expect boundaries between 200 countries with widely varying economic systems, allies, agreements they participate in, level of technological sophistication, willingness to change their laws, etc etc, will suddenly be unified into one harmonious system so that people can have iTunes accounts in both California and the Congo?
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 discussion, the OP left out option 4: get a VPN in Sweden and/or USA and connect and route all traffic. Works for me.
>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.
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.
Nope - it's not. And for me also the Paypal behavior is broken, as I'm resident of multiple countries. Just wanted to point out that the above statement about Paypal was wrong.
For a positive example look at the Google Play Store: The apps that I bought in one country are available in any other country. The only exception are apps that aren't available in a given country. They don't disappear from my phone, but I can't update/reinstall them until I'm in a country where they are available
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 absolutely infuriating, above all because you're talking about stuff you paid for.