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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
by webmobdev 6y ago
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-avoid-imessages-services-carrier-charges-after-every-restart/390578#390578 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.
- eythian 6y ago> So even if we have the speed and bandwidth, Apple insists you can only update on Wifi. I hit that with Android once too. Had unlimited mobile data, and was in a pub with broken wifi, so it wouldn't let me do the update at all.
- webmobdev 6y agoYes, even Android has this issue. It's definitely a legacy carried over from the US - data is still expensive there and carriers probably discourage phone makers from sending large data over their network.
- vorticalbox 6y agoI have a p30 Pro and have problems updating ota on mobile data.
- bluGill 6y agoYou should ask your carrier why they are charging for SMS. There is no reason to do that in 2020. Though you are right Apple needs to deal with the reality of their customers.
- ilikeerp 6y agoWow - what a genious. Plenty of places in the world charge for SMS. Ask all you want, doesn't mean things will change. MY wife just applied for a mortgage in her home country, they won't approve it until they have a picture of her on file.. some places just do things differently hence the whole 'please test outside of the US' point of this post which appears to have gone over your head.
- webmobdev 6y agoMany carrier plans do offer local SMS free. Why in the world would a carrier pay for Apple's INTERNATIONAL iMessage / Facetime activation SMS?
- bluGill 6y agoBecause SMS is essentially free. Companies exist to make money, but international phone fees ought to be a relic of the past. That they are not is a problem that we would all be better off getting to the bottom of and solving.
- webmobdev 6y ago> Because SMS is essentially free. What a ridiculous argument trying to blame another corporate to hide Apple's folly. By that logic, the same argument applies to Apple too - Installing apps used to be free before Apple decided to charge developers for it, and make all apps costliers for all us.
- viraptor 6y ago> Why would indian carriers absorb the cost of an international SMS Because SMS pricing is a scam and in practice is a rounding error to handle all of those activation messages. Both countries should just exclude that number from billing. This is similar to how European carriers suddenly started competing on free international calls/data once EU enforced better rules. We've been told for decades it's really expensive, but now? Nah.
- webmobdev 6y ago> Because SMS pricing is a scam Everything corporates do can be called a "scam". To me, it is a "scam" that a trillion dollar company like Apple avoids putting up activation servers in India because it is more profitable to not do so and just make the indian user pay an international SMS everytime. It is also a "scam" to me that Apple insists that I can only install everything from the App Store, where as apps would actually be cheaper for all of us if Apple didn't take a cut from the developer. (And I can go on ... but we have to live with the reality of the world don't we - Apple isn't going to give up control over their App Store just as carriers will keep trying to monetise on SMS or RCS.)
- gcatalfamo 6y agoTrue, but I would argue this is not a problem only Apple seems to have.