11 ms·

The App Store Nightmare

217 points by enqk 14y ago

olgeni 14y ago
Trivia corner: I got the same dialog box without changing account or IP address. It turned out that the App Store wants to use the Spotlight index (!) for some reason, and that "Fix permissions" somehow botched it. "sudo mdutil -i on -E /" fixed the issue. Let's just hope that nobody thinks about copying this insanely awesome design.
emcl 14y ago
I am forced to browse the Indian app store through my account( I live in India), and i'm sick of the suggestions and the popular list since the people have a pathetic taste for apps here. I have to log out in iTunes and browse the US store to find quality apps.
PythonDeveloper 14y ago
Yet another example of Apple idiocy (I'm a former customer, having spent easily $100K on Apple hardware). It became clear to me a year or so ago that Apple is moving in a direction that is anti-developer. At that time I stopped buying their hardware, installed Linux on the Apples I still had, and stopped writing apps for the iPhone. My life has been MUCH easier since then. We really don't need to be spending any more time dealing with companies like this. We should be collectively writing our own apps for our own open platforms, and forcing them to use the mechanisms that give US control.
- indiecore 14y ago
  The problem with this is that iPhone users still make the majority of app purchases. It's all well and good to make proclamations about using our own open platforms but I'd like people to USE the stuff I make...
  - Joeri 14y ago
    Google are really the ones causing that, because they've allowed piracy to grow rampant on android. Android has a much larger user base, but google's practices have caused android users to get used to getting everything for free, which together with the ongoing piracy means the market for paid apps is an order of magnitude smaller than it could have been.
    - Create 14y ago
      Android should be free (GPL) anyway, and there is f-droid.org for free (FLOSS) apps.
    - notimetorelax 14y ago
      I think that's a trade off you will have with an open system, still since I got my android phone I bought many more applications than I ever did on my PC. Having credit card tied to your store account makes it much easier.
- nirvana 14y ago
  I find your last line about forcing people to give you control hilarious since it comes after your (false) claims that another entity was taking control from you. Sounds like you got bit by an ideological bug more than anything else. I'm sure the quality of the AppStore has improved. Frankly, after its success we had far to many people "Switch" because they wanted to get rich quick and pump out really crappy apps polluting the store. And of course they bitched about it at the time, every difference was proof that apple was evil. I'm tired of the past four years of Apple haters thinking their uninformed ideological nonsense is relevant simply because they are a "developer" and have Apple hardware. Apple is pro-developer, and unlike google actually practices "don't be evil." But there are people who hate good and will rail against is day in and day out and call it evil.
  - timc3 14y ago
    What I am seeing is a large number of developers that have been using platform from before iOS was released growing more and more tired of what is happening from Apple. I also know the a large percentage of business and developers that have relied on Apple consider Apple a risk, or have been bitten in the past and are actively moving away. Would give examples. but my business can't afford to upset Apple either.
  - PythonDeveloper 14y ago
    I won't go into trying to get you to see my side, it's clear you can't see anything but the bright shiny world of Steve. When a company demands 30% of your revenue, even for portions not related to the app, and moves on to a track where developers will be forced to have a cert embedded into their app to be on the platform or be blocked, they ARE practicing evil. It wasn't Apple that built their customer base, it was the developers who wrote the apps that brought the customers. Without the applications on the platform, Apple would be just like Blackberry, dead. Now that Apple starts putting all these hurdles in place, like kicking apps because they release their own app in a segment (and disallow ANY competition), despite the fact that an app in that segment has been there for years, it's clear that they are more interested in earnings than building a foundation for developers to earn real incomes. Just back in May, Apple killed a bunch of apps that used the Dropbox API because they considered it an undocumented or third party API. WTF?? The truth is, Apple didn't want competition with their shitty iCloud service, so they limited what developers could do for their own benefit. One example of THOUSANDS out there. That doesn't even take into consideration Apple's insistence on NOT allowing any sort of metrics on unique installs. If you made T-Shirts and a chain said, "just give us the shirts, and we'll tell you how many we sell", YOU would probably do it, but I sure wouldn't. Apple could be skimming revenues from developers as we speak, and there's really no way to know, since we're not allowed to use any static identifier on the phone to lock the app to a subscriber.
- timc3 14y ago
  Adobe apps are the only reason that I stay on the platform right now.
aroberge 14y ago
Unfortunately, very little is going to change as this does not affect a large proportion of users. The majority of users will not realize what they lose because of drm and region segregation.
- deleted 14y ago
  [deleted]
pash 14y ago
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 email address as the alternate contact on an account, it becomes impossible to make that address the primary contact and ID on that account - If your Apple ID was created with an Apple email address (e.g., ...@me.com, ...@mac.com), it's impossible to change that email address Millions of people have content scattered across multiple accounts in part because Apple merged several formerly separate accounts (iTunes, Developer, .Mac, etc.) into the Apple ID system. Yet Apple has made it impossible to unify your user experience. To add to the absurdity, several Apple services still demand that you create a new Apple ID in some situations (particularly when your account was created for a service that pre-dated the Apple ID system). And then there are the cross-border problems. ...
- X-Istence 14y ago
  For point number 2, simply delete the "rescue address" and then change the primary ID to that email address you just removed. Primary contact on the account has now been changed.
  - pash 14y ago
    I've done this—I've even added a different rescue address to try to override whatever's in the database—and still get the message, "Your Apple ID cannot be the same as your rescue email address." ... Totally inexplicable.
    - X-Istence 14y ago
      I just went through the steps and was able to switch my email address without issues... Do you have your backup email address in use on another Apple account?
      - 14y ago
swombat 14y ago
> AFAIK there are no DRM or geolocation limitations on farming equipment yet. There are limitations on where you can use seeds, though. And countless regulations on what fertilisers you're allowed to use. Modern farming possibly has as much if not more controls and restrictions in place!...
onosendai 14y ago
The writing's been on the wall for a very long time now. This is just another symptom of the continuing clamp down of OS X. The App Store was the first manacle, and Gatekeeper is the second. It's no longer the default that you can install apps from outside the Apple walled garden. I'll go out on a limb and guess that a couple of OS X versions from now they'll move the override to an obscure command line. The next one after that it will be removed completely. The sort of Kafkaesque nightmare this poor guy just went through will become the norm, with no way to escape it. Personally I moved away from the Apple ecosystem a long time ago to Linux. At first I felt bad for the people left behind, but with each new story about non-upgradeable and repairable hardware, needless (and dangerous) patent litigation and the continuing iOSification of OS X, I feel less and less sympathetic towards them.
- nirvana 14y ago
  > I'll go out on a limb and guess It isn't on a limb to repeat the nonsensical accusations that your ideology has been spewing all over hacker news for the past four years (and everywhere else too.) Of course its also something that would never happen, if you are honest about how Apple operates. You can even install unregulated software on a stock iPhone..... just downloaded from the net. Javascript Apps were there a year before the AppStore-- full apps, that run without a net connection and have access to the full iOS UI. Of course this fact is inconvenient to the "Apple monopoly" story and so you guys never mention it and probably many of you who have never used iOS or developed for it don't even know about it. We don't need your sympathy-- we're living much better lives with more freedom here on Apple's platform. I'll take Steve Jobs and his compatriots looking out for my ass over Richard Stallman dictating my life, down to my very thoughts, any day.
  - Dylan16807 14y ago
    Oh that's wonderful, the entire UI. Not the hardware, can't go very fast, but you have the UI! Something that's as sandboxed as a web page is not a proper program. If that's the only thing you can install without explicit apple approval then it's not good enough.
- 14y ago
w1ntermute 14y ago
> So this leaves me with the following options: > 1. Completely nuke my machine, create a new US Apple account and repurchase everything (yeah, right) > 2. Pay $49 to have Apple Support look into the issue > 3. Give up and use Linux (I hear Windows 8 will have a locked-down App store too) As a Linux user, the fact that Apple developers are seriously considering moving to Linux makes me very excited. If even 1% of the disgruntled devs decide to go with #3, there will be significant effects in the Linux community. The Linux community is overwhelmingly biased towards the neckbeard crowd, which doesn't care about things like UI/UX. If some of the Apple devs come in and start contributing, things could change quite rapidly.
- bornhuetter 14y ago
  It probably depends on how much longer the iOS gold rush lasts. I think a lot of developers are on OSX (and very defensive of it) because it represents their gravy train. If the market stabilises or dies down, a lot of people will probably switch over to Linux.
  - cageface 14y ago
    The iOS gold rush is long since over. Very few devs are making real money on apps now. The consulting market is pretty hot though.
  - jyap 14y ago
    What's left after the gold rush is a stabilized market. The market for iOS is still huge and growing. There are differences because gold is a finite substance. There will always be an iOS market for apps where once there was none before the App Store existed. After the gold is depleted, there no longer remains a market for gold and the gold rush is over in that instance.
  - geoka9 14y ago
    I'd think Windows would be more up their alley due to the similar lack of customization options. Oh, right. I forgot the hip factor. Windows is too uncool now, after all those Mac/PC commercials.
chmars 14y ago
Is the issue limited to Apple? What's about other ecosystems and app stores?
- pederb72 14y ago
  Microsoft won't even let you move your X-Box Live account to a different country/region. My wife has this problem now since her Live account is stuck in Europe and there's just no way to move it to the US. This is extra troublesome on the X-Box since some games are region locked so she has to order some games from Europe. I think there may have been some misunderstanding here regarding his App store account though; I also see a comment on his blog indicating this. I moved from Europe to the US and can't remember having any problems moving my account to the US. I can imagine that it's problematic to have two accounts on the same device though.
  - jasomill 14y ago
    It's basically a UI problem: while you can authorize content from multiple regions, updates and subscriptions require actually being logged in to the iTunes Store, and you can't log in to multiple regional iTunes Stores at the same time. I suspect one of the reasons Apple hasn't "fixed" this is because doing so would require renegotiation with content providers, who'd most likely push for even more customer-hostile restrictions.
- px1999 14y ago
  Living in multiple countries always has, and always will be a huge hassle when it comes to DRM-ed wares / online shopping (there's usually a tangible benefit from saying that you live somewhere that you're not currently, because of regional pricing etc so providers tend to lock it down). They also have a legal obligation to verify your location to ensure that you're paying the right taxes etc. If you're in a complex situation where you live in a second country, there's almost always a problem with buying stuff online if you need to bill in one country / ship to the other - and workarounds like needing to create two accounts are pretty common IMO (though usually it's just a case of needing to use a CC from the right country or having the billing address be your address in country A, but having the country field set to country B). So no, apple's not too unique in this situation, but I've never experienced being unable to access stuff that I bought in one country (though I stay away from buying digital copies of movies etc for this reason), and I've definitely never heard of another company charging for this type of legitimate support, so they're likely unique there.
josephlord 14y ago
I would have thought that he may have rights under Swedish law. I think EU consumer law should allow it to be raised with Apple in Sweden. Practically a proxy in Sweden might be the easiest temporary workaround.
- deleted 14y ago
  [deleted]
- timc3 14y ago
  Consumer rights in Sweden are a joke.
  - mortenjorck 14y ago
    They can't be worse than in the US, right?
benologist 14y ago
You also can't use a CC address outside of the country you opened the iTunes account in, and they periodically re-validate that information so when you do give your bank your new address, as of course you will, you're in for even more fun.
- jasomill 14y ago
  So use a poste restante billing address, then, and never change it. Last I checked, picking up one's mail on a regular basis is not required by iTunes Ts and Cs, nor must a credit card remain on file to keep an iTunes account active.
  - bzbarsky 14y ago
    > nor must a credit card remain on file to keep an iTunes > account active. There is no way to delete credit card information from an Apple Store account, that I see. If you know of one, please do let me know!
    - bwooce 14y ago
      There is, although via iTunes and it is a little subtle. It may also depend on your country (but Australia and Peru work). 1. In iTunes, go to your account (iTune Stores, then click on top right login name assuming you're logged in). 2. Edit your Payment information 3. Choose CC type of "None" 4. Save It is a desirable thing to do if you expect children will be using your iDevices -- the password doesn't stop them buying more $$ stuff after you've just authorised them buying something for free. And I'm assuming you didn't type your password in front of them...
      - bzbarsky 14y ago
        Ah, perfect. Thank you! I guess didn't think of going through iTunes to remove the credit card I had to add to get the free XCode app via the Mac App Store.... yes, the whole setup is completely insane. ;)
crazygringo 14y ago
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.
- cageface 14y ago
  You never really own anything you buy from iTunes, Amazon Digital, Google Play etc. You're really just renting.
  - gurkendoktor 14y ago
    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.)
- ddlatham 14y ago
  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.
  - alexsb92 14y ago
    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.
    - 14y ago
jansen 14y ago
Oh yes, such a nightmare. I moved from Germany to the UK, 2 app store accounts. Then I moved from the UK to the US, 3 app store accounts. I am consistently switching accounts and accidentally repurchasing apps ever since. Luckily, it seems, that with iOS 6 at least you can update all apps, no matter which region they're from (how ridiculous that already sounds), without typing in passwords/switching accounts over and over again.
gurkendoktor 14y ago
Is everyone sure that it is not this bug here in disguise? http://www.ngpixel.com/2011/06/25/mac-app-store-you-have-updates-available-for-the-other-accounts-bug/ http://www.ngpixel.com/2011/06/25/mac-app-store-you-have-upd... I got the same error message and I have made all my purchases from one account, in one region. Spotlight looks okay and I just gave up on the MAS. Didn't seem like a draconic regulation to me though, more like Apple's typical ineptitude on the cloud.
jrl 14y ago
Another reason why allowing side-loading is essential. Giving too much power to a company over your digital life is a mistake. All those problems could be avoided by directly contacting the developer of the app and asking for a file to upgrade. In this context, Android is superior to iOS.
jonny_eh 14y ago
I have a Canadian iTunes account and live in the US. It works just fine for me. I can still buy apps and update them, on iOS and Mac. I haven't encountered any IP issues. The only downside is that I need to keep using my Canadian credit card, and there are some apps I can't download but could use, like Spotify.
- nirvana 14y ago
  Yes, tying the region of the account to the region of the credit card is a pretty damn flexible way to do it, given the movie and music companies are forcing them to tie their sales to regions. Much better than the IP address BS you see from other companies.
phil 14y ago
Actually, if you plant hybridized seeds, you have to buy seeds each year since you can't grow your own seed crop. That's farmer DRM. If you go organic and plant all heirloom/non-hybrid seeds then you won't have that problem. That's kind of like switching to Linux.
nirvana 14y ago
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 whatever country I am in with no problem. Apple has never checked my IP address (so I think that's speculation on his part, or a mistake on the part of the support person he talked to.) It doesn't make sense to have multiple iTunes accounts, and it would be good if Apple would let your merge them. 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. In fact the only time I've had any problems as in Mexico where iTunes Match wasn't working (though Apple has rolled it out there now) but that was likely due to low quality internet, because here in Chile, with no iTunes match, my US iTunes Match is working fine (but a great internet connection.)
- cageface 14y ago
  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.
  - evoxed 14y ago
    Do you think it might have to do with the specific countries you're in? I've never had an issue with Apple on this but that's from living in Japan and bouncing back and forth between the US/Japan stores. On the other hand, Google usually takes three days or so of warnings before gmail settles down.
    - cageface 14y ago
      Quite possibly. They may have a much lower threshold for fraud detection for countries like Vietnam or Thailand than they do for Europe or Japan.
edvinbesic 14y ago
Apple and the Cloud have never got along well, so I don't think this is a move from Apple to make your life miserable, rather I think it's just that their account system is well... shit, but there are ways to work around it. I was in exactly the same boat a little over a year ago, so I will simply write this with the assumption that not much has changed. When I was moving to the states from Sweden I did some research into what to do with my iTunes account, and found a large number of discussions going on about the subject. The common suggestion was that once you change region, you should do a clean install on your iOS device or OSX and install it in the new region from scratch. If you change region and try to update things will get messy pretty fast, or so I was told. He's right that you lose all records of installed apps, but if you try to buy them again in the new region, Apple does recognize that you already own the app and does not charge for it again. It's a shame that things on the internet are region-bound, it's one thing I hope will disappear in the not too distant future, but for now such is life (applies to music/movies as well). Apart from the above annoyance though it has worked great so far, my account is the same as if I had created a US one from scratch. Also, i'm pretty sure I could update my US bought apps and rent movies on iTunes when I was in sweden 2 months ago, so not sure what the whole IP thing is.
Claudus 14y ago
Every time I read another news article about Apple's crippling DRM systems, I am reminded of the words from their 1984 commercial... "Today, we celebrate the first glorious anniversary of the Information Purification Directives. We have created, for the first time in all history, a garden of pure ideology – where each worker may bloom, secure from the pests purveying contradictory truths. Our Unification of Thoughts is more powerful a weapon than any fleet or army on earth. We are one people, with one will, one resolve, one cause. Our enemies shall talk themselves to death, and we will bury them with their own confusion. We shall prevail!"
- misterbee 14y ago
  You can't say they ran a bait-and-switch or anything; they laid out their plans right at the start. Viewers were confused about which character in the commercial represented Apple...
hwatson 14y ago
> If you’re in the US, you can’t download updates for your non-US apps due to IP address constraints. That's odd. I live in the Dominican Republic and I've been using a US iTunes Store account since 2008. Even when the Dominican iTunes Store opened earlier this year I wasn't affected, I'm still able to purchase/update apps like normal. I don't have a DO iTunes Store account so I guess that has something to do with it.
wisty 14y ago
I'm just going to say - walled gardens suck when they have bugs.
- luriel 14y ago
  We all know well enough that bugs are an universal constant. But even assuming software without bugs was possible. Walled gardens still would suck, by design.
joering2 14y ago
hmm.. there is really a limit of possible combination for the App Store system: user (multiple), credit card (multiple), location (multiple), devices (multiple), authorized computer (multiple) -- times X amount of actions (add/remove/edit/assign/etc) Time to time a rather rare combination of the above makes the system clusterf*ck and the the post like this one pops up. This makes me believe that Apple engineers are too lazy to... use the UML ??
tceduard 14y ago
- there SHALL NOT BE differences of content on the Internet set by physical regions on the Earth! - there SHALL NOT BE on the Internet any laws that are in place for each physical region on the Earth! - the Internet SHALL NOT BE changed ! - the Internet SHALL NOT BE ruled by any Government !
Create 14y ago
I have almost the same problem. I bought my AAPL with 10.6 in one country, moved to another. I wanted to update to 10.8. So I got a gift card at an authorised AAPL vendor store. I had to register a new AAPL ID, because my other ID didn't accept the code. So I registered a new account for my new card. It happily accepted the money. I went through all the hoops, pressed "Buy App". I only got the modal boxes: "Please contact iTunes Support to complete this transaction. We could not complete your request. There was an error in the App Store Please try again later. (100)" It ate my money, I cannot use it, and I am left without an OS soon. I am done with AAPL, and am putting Linux not only on half, but on all of the disk. It reminds me of the DVD region codes, and the problem of which one to pick, when sending films to the Space Station...
LiveTheDream 14y ago
> If this is any indication of the future of software distribution in general, I think I’m going to just give up and go into farming. AFAIK there are no DRM or geolocation limitations on farming equipment yet. It seems the author is not familiar with global biotech company Monsanto and its genetically restricted seeds.
akurilin 14y ago
I want to make sure I got this right. Can I take a trip to a foreign country with a US-purchased and US-registered MacBook and still expect to be able to purchase apps and update existing applications (e.g. XCode) while abroad?
hcarvalhoalves 14y ago
It's not just the AppStore. Everything involving DRM is the same bullshit: they have to tie content available to countries, and come up with all sort of insane restrictions to cover their legal asses and keep you from consuming... bits. In the end their software is such a hairy ball that it doesn't even make sense anymore. Why is the AppStore even checking which IP you are on? Now you can't update your apps because you're traveling? WTF??!?! I'm from Brazil and I face the same crap everyday, everywhere: YouTube videos not available in my country, Rdio albums not available in my country, AppStore apps not available in my country, et cetera Then they ask why nobody respects copyright? It's not only free, but actually more convenient to just crack software and download music on PirateBay than trying to buy it in the first place.
sasidharm 14y ago
First world problems.
lwhi 14y ago
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.
aggarwalachal 14y ago
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
droithomme 14y ago
It's disappointing to see the personas that are trying to argue various justifications of Apple's policy on this. Apple's policy is clearly wrong. Arguing in favor of it is foolish.

217 points by enqk 14y ago

Trivia corner: I got the same dialog box without changing account or IP address. It turned out that the App Store wants to use the Spotlight index (!) for some reason, and that "Fix permissions" somehow botched it. "sudo mdutil -i on -E /" fixed the issue. Let's just hope that nobody thinks about copying this insanely awesome design.

emcl 14y ago

I am forced to browse the Indian app store through my account( I live in India), and i'm sick of the suggestions and the popular list since the people have a pathetic taste for apps here. I have to log out in iTunes and browse the US store to find quality apps.

PythonDeveloper 14y ago

Yet another example of Apple idiocy (I'm a former customer, having spent easily $100K on Apple hardware). It became clear to me a year or so ago that Apple is moving in a direction that is anti-developer. At that time I stopped buying their hardware, installed Linux on the Apples I still had, and stopped writing apps for the iPhone. My life has been MUCH easier since then. We really don't need to be spending any more time dealing with companies like this. We should be collectively writing our own apps for our own open platforms, and forcing them to use the mechanisms that give US control.

indiecore 14y ago
The problem with this is that iPhone users still make the majority of app purchases. It's all well and good to make proclamations about using our own open platforms but I'd like people to USE the stuff I make...
- Joeri 14y ago
  Google are really the ones causing that, because they've allowed piracy to grow rampant on android. Android has a much larger user base, but google's practices have caused android users to get used to getting everything for free, which together with the ongoing piracy means the market for paid apps is an order of magnitude smaller than it could have been.
  - Create 14y ago
    Android should be free (GPL) anyway, and there is f-droid.org for free (FLOSS) apps.
  - notimetorelax 14y ago
    I think that's a trade off you will have with an open system, still since I got my android phone I bought many more applications than I ever did on my PC. Having credit card tied to your store account makes it much easier.
nirvana 14y ago
I find your last line about forcing people to give you control hilarious since it comes after your (false) claims that another entity was taking control from you. Sounds like you got bit by an ideological bug more than anything else. I'm sure the quality of the AppStore has improved. Frankly, after its success we had far to many people "Switch" because they wanted to get rich quick and pump out really crappy apps polluting the store. And of course they bitched about it at the time, every difference was proof that apple was evil. I'm tired of the past four years of Apple haters thinking their uninformed ideological nonsense is relevant simply because they are a "developer" and have Apple hardware. Apple is pro-developer, and unlike google actually practices "don't be evil." But there are people who hate good and will rail against is day in and day out and call it evil.
- timc3 14y ago
  What I am seeing is a large number of developers that have been using platform from before iOS was released growing more and more tired of what is happening from Apple. I also know the a large percentage of business and developers that have relied on Apple consider Apple a risk, or have been bitten in the past and are actively moving away. Would give examples. but my business can't afford to upset Apple either.
- PythonDeveloper 14y ago
  I won't go into trying to get you to see my side, it's clear you can't see anything but the bright shiny world of Steve. When a company demands 30% of your revenue, even for portions not related to the app, and moves on to a track where developers will be forced to have a cert embedded into their app to be on the platform or be blocked, they ARE practicing evil. It wasn't Apple that built their customer base, it was the developers who wrote the apps that brought the customers. Without the applications on the platform, Apple would be just like Blackberry, dead. Now that Apple starts putting all these hurdles in place, like kicking apps because they release their own app in a segment (and disallow ANY competition), despite the fact that an app in that segment has been there for years, it's clear that they are more interested in earnings than building a foundation for developers to earn real incomes. Just back in May, Apple killed a bunch of apps that used the Dropbox API because they considered it an undocumented or third party API. WTF?? The truth is, Apple didn't want competition with their shitty iCloud service, so they limited what developers could do for their own benefit. One example of THOUSANDS out there. That doesn't even take into consideration Apple's insistence on NOT allowing any sort of metrics on unique installs. If you made T-Shirts and a chain said, "just give us the shirts, and we'll tell you how many we sell", YOU would probably do it, but I sure wouldn't. Apple could be skimming revenues from developers as we speak, and there's really no way to know, since we're not allowed to use any static identifier on the phone to lock the app to a subscriber.
timc3 14y ago
Adobe apps are the only reason that I stay on the platform right now.

aroberge 14y ago

Unfortunately, very little is going to change as this does not affect a large proportion of users. The majority of users will not realize what they lose because of drm and region segregation.

deleted 14y ago
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pash 14y ago

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 email address as the alternate contact on an account, it becomes impossible to make that address the primary contact and ID on that account - If your Apple ID was created with an Apple email address (e.g., ...@me.com, ...@mac.com), it's impossible to change that email address Millions of people have content scattered across multiple accounts in part because Apple merged several formerly separate accounts (iTunes, Developer, .Mac, etc.) into the Apple ID system. Yet Apple has made it impossible to unify your user experience. To add to the absurdity, several Apple services still demand that you create a new Apple ID in some situations (particularly when your account was created for a service that pre-dated the Apple ID system). And then there are the cross-border problems. ...

X-Istence 14y ago
For point number 2, simply delete the "rescue address" and then change the primary ID to that email address you just removed. Primary contact on the account has now been changed.
- pash 14y ago
  I've done this—I've even added a different rescue address to try to override whatever's in the database—and still get the message, "Your Apple ID cannot be the same as your rescue email address." ... Totally inexplicable.
  - X-Istence 14y ago
    I just went through the steps and was able to switch my email address without issues... Do you have your backup email address in use on another Apple account?
    - 14y ago

swombat 14y ago

> AFAIK there are no DRM or geolocation limitations on farming equipment yet. There are limitations on where you can use seeds, though. And countless regulations on what fertilisers you're allowed to use. Modern farming possibly has as much if not more controls and restrictions in place!...

onosendai 14y ago

The writing's been on the wall for a very long time now. This is just another symptom of the continuing clamp down of OS X. The App Store was the first manacle, and Gatekeeper is the second. It's no longer the default that you can install apps from outside the Apple walled garden. I'll go out on a limb and guess that a couple of OS X versions from now they'll move the override to an obscure command line. The next one after that it will be removed completely. The sort of Kafkaesque nightmare this poor guy just went through will become the norm, with no way to escape it. Personally I moved away from the Apple ecosystem a long time ago to Linux. At first I felt bad for the people left behind, but with each new story about non-upgradeable and repairable hardware, needless (and dangerous) patent litigation and the continuing iOSification of OS X, I feel less and less sympathetic towards them.

nirvana 14y ago
> I'll go out on a limb and guess It isn't on a limb to repeat the nonsensical accusations that your ideology has been spewing all over hacker news for the past four years (and everywhere else too.) Of course its also something that would never happen, if you are honest about how Apple operates. You can even install unregulated software on a stock iPhone..... just downloaded from the net. Javascript Apps were there a year before the AppStore-- full apps, that run without a net connection and have access to the full iOS UI. Of course this fact is inconvenient to the "Apple monopoly" story and so you guys never mention it and probably many of you who have never used iOS or developed for it don't even know about it. We don't need your sympathy-- we're living much better lives with more freedom here on Apple's platform. I'll take Steve Jobs and his compatriots looking out for my ass over Richard Stallman dictating my life, down to my very thoughts, any day.
- Dylan16807 14y ago
  Oh that's wonderful, the entire UI. Not the hardware, can't go very fast, but you have the UI! Something that's as sandboxed as a web page is not a proper program. If that's the only thing you can install without explicit apple approval then it's not good enough.
14y ago

w1ntermute 14y ago

> So this leaves me with the following options: > 1. Completely nuke my machine, create a new US Apple account and repurchase everything (yeah, right) > 2. Pay $49 to have Apple Support look into the issue > 3. Give up and use Linux (I hear Windows 8 will have a locked-down App store too) As a Linux user, the fact that Apple developers are seriously considering moving to Linux makes me very excited. If even 1% of the disgruntled devs decide to go with #3, there will be significant effects in the Linux community. The Linux community is overwhelmingly biased towards the neckbeard crowd, which doesn't care about things like UI/UX. If some of the Apple devs come in and start contributing, things could change quite rapidly.

bornhuetter 14y ago
It probably depends on how much longer the iOS gold rush lasts. I think a lot of developers are on OSX (and very defensive of it) because it represents their gravy train. If the market stabilises or dies down, a lot of people will probably switch over to Linux.
- cageface 14y ago
  The iOS gold rush is long since over. Very few devs are making real money on apps now. The consulting market is pretty hot though.
- jyap 14y ago
  What's left after the gold rush is a stabilized market. The market for iOS is still huge and growing. There are differences because gold is a finite substance. There will always be an iOS market for apps where once there was none before the App Store existed. After the gold is depleted, there no longer remains a market for gold and the gold rush is over in that instance.
- geoka9 14y ago
  I'd think Windows would be more up their alley due to the similar lack of customization options. Oh, right. I forgot the hip factor. Windows is too uncool now, after all those Mac/PC commercials.

chmars 14y ago

Is the issue limited to Apple? What's about other ecosystems and app stores?

pederb72 14y ago
Microsoft won't even let you move your X-Box Live account to a different country/region. My wife has this problem now since her Live account is stuck in Europe and there's just no way to move it to the US. This is extra troublesome on the X-Box since some games are region locked so she has to order some games from Europe. I think there may have been some misunderstanding here regarding his App store account though; I also see a comment on his blog indicating this. I moved from Europe to the US and can't remember having any problems moving my account to the US. I can imagine that it's problematic to have two accounts on the same device though.
- jasomill 14y ago
  It's basically a UI problem: while you can authorize content from multiple regions, updates and subscriptions require actually being logged in to the iTunes Store, and you can't log in to multiple regional iTunes Stores at the same time. I suspect one of the reasons Apple hasn't "fixed" this is because doing so would require renegotiation with content providers, who'd most likely push for even more customer-hostile restrictions.
px1999 14y ago
Living in multiple countries always has, and always will be a huge hassle when it comes to DRM-ed wares / online shopping (there's usually a tangible benefit from saying that you live somewhere that you're not currently, because of regional pricing etc so providers tend to lock it down). They also have a legal obligation to verify your location to ensure that you're paying the right taxes etc. If you're in a complex situation where you live in a second country, there's almost always a problem with buying stuff online if you need to bill in one country / ship to the other - and workarounds like needing to create two accounts are pretty common IMO (though usually it's just a case of needing to use a CC from the right country or having the billing address be your address in country A, but having the country field set to country B). So no, apple's not too unique in this situation, but I've never experienced being unable to access stuff that I bought in one country (though I stay away from buying digital copies of movies etc for this reason), and I've definitely never heard of another company charging for this type of legitimate support, so they're likely unique there.

josephlord 14y ago

I would have thought that he may have rights under Swedish law. I think EU consumer law should allow it to be raised with Apple in Sweden. Practically a proxy in Sweden might be the easiest temporary workaround.

deleted 14y ago
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timc3 14y ago
Consumer rights in Sweden are a joke.
- mortenjorck 14y ago
  They can't be worse than in the US, right?

benologist 14y ago

You also can't use a CC address outside of the country you opened the iTunes account in, and they periodically re-validate that information so when you do give your bank your new address, as of course you will, you're in for even more fun.

jasomill 14y ago
So use a poste restante billing address, then, and never change it. Last I checked, picking up one's mail on a regular basis is not required by iTunes Ts and Cs, nor must a credit card remain on file to keep an iTunes account active.
- bzbarsky 14y ago
  > nor must a credit card remain on file to keep an iTunes > account active. There is no way to delete credit card information from an Apple Store account, that I see. If you know of one, please do let me know!
  - bwooce 14y ago
    There is, although via iTunes and it is a little subtle. It may also depend on your country (but Australia and Peru work). 1. In iTunes, go to your account (iTune Stores, then click on top right login name assuming you're logged in). 2. Edit your Payment information 3. Choose CC type of "None" 4. Save It is a desirable thing to do if you expect children will be using your iDevices -- the password doesn't stop them buying more $$ stuff after you've just authorised them buying something for free. And I'm assuming you didn't type your password in front of them...
    - bzbarsky 14y ago
      Ah, perfect. Thank you! I guess didn't think of going through iTunes to remove the credit card I had to add to get the free XCode app via the Mac App Store.... yes, the whole setup is completely insane. ;)

crazygringo 14y ago

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.

cageface 14y ago
You never really own anything you buy from iTunes, Amazon Digital, Google Play etc. You're really just renting.
- gurkendoktor 14y ago
  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.)
ddlatham 14y ago
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.
- alexsb92 14y ago
  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.
  - 14y ago

jansen 14y ago

Oh yes, such a nightmare. I moved from Germany to the UK, 2 app store accounts. Then I moved from the UK to the US, 3 app store accounts. I am consistently switching accounts and accidentally repurchasing apps ever since. Luckily, it seems, that with iOS 6 at least you can update all apps, no matter which region they're from (how ridiculous that already sounds), without typing in passwords/switching accounts over and over again.

gurkendoktor 14y ago

Is everyone sure that it is not this bug here in disguise? http://www.ngpixel.com/2011/06/25/mac-app-store-you-have-updates-available-for-the-other-accounts-bug/ http://www.ngpixel.com/2011/06/25/mac-app-store-you-have-upd... I got the same error message and I have made all my purchases from one account, in one region. Spotlight looks okay and I just gave up on the MAS. Didn't seem like a draconic regulation to me though, more like Apple's typical ineptitude on the cloud.

jrl 14y ago

Another reason why allowing side-loading is essential. Giving too much power to a company over your digital life is a mistake. All those problems could be avoided by directly contacting the developer of the app and asking for a file to upgrade. In this context, Android is superior to iOS.

jonny_eh 14y ago

I have a Canadian iTunes account and live in the US. It works just fine for me. I can still buy apps and update them, on iOS and Mac. I haven't encountered any IP issues. The only downside is that I need to keep using my Canadian credit card, and there are some apps I can't download but could use, like Spotify.

nirvana 14y ago
Yes, tying the region of the account to the region of the credit card is a pretty damn flexible way to do it, given the movie and music companies are forcing them to tie their sales to regions. Much better than the IP address BS you see from other companies.

phil 14y ago

Actually, if you plant hybridized seeds, you have to buy seeds each year since you can't grow your own seed crop. That's farmer DRM. If you go organic and plant all heirloom/non-hybrid seeds then you won't have that problem. That's kind of like switching to Linux.

nirvana 14y ago

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 whatever country I am in with no problem. Apple has never checked my IP address (so I think that's speculation on his part, or a mistake on the part of the support person he talked to.) It doesn't make sense to have multiple iTunes accounts, and it would be good if Apple would let your merge them. 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. In fact the only time I've had any problems as in Mexico where iTunes Match wasn't working (though Apple has rolled it out there now) but that was likely due to low quality internet, because here in Chile, with no iTunes match, my US iTunes Match is working fine (but a great internet connection.)

cageface 14y ago
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.
- evoxed 14y ago
  Do you think it might have to do with the specific countries you're in? I've never had an issue with Apple on this but that's from living in Japan and bouncing back and forth between the US/Japan stores. On the other hand, Google usually takes three days or so of warnings before gmail settles down.
  - cageface 14y ago
    Quite possibly. They may have a much lower threshold for fraud detection for countries like Vietnam or Thailand than they do for Europe or Japan.

edvinbesic 14y ago

Apple and the Cloud have never got along well, so I don't think this is a move from Apple to make your life miserable, rather I think it's just that their account system is well... shit, but there are ways to work around it. I was in exactly the same boat a little over a year ago, so I will simply write this with the assumption that not much has changed. When I was moving to the states from Sweden I did some research into what to do with my iTunes account, and found a large number of discussions going on about the subject. The common suggestion was that once you change region, you should do a clean install on your iOS device or OSX and install it in the new region from scratch. If you change region and try to update things will get messy pretty fast, or so I was told. He's right that you lose all records of installed apps, but if you try to buy them again in the new region, Apple does recognize that you already own the app and does not charge for it again. It's a shame that things on the internet are region-bound, it's one thing I hope will disappear in the not too distant future, but for now such is life (applies to music/movies as well). Apart from the above annoyance though it has worked great so far, my account is the same as if I had created a US one from scratch. Also, i'm pretty sure I could update my US bought apps and rent movies on iTunes when I was in sweden 2 months ago, so not sure what the whole IP thing is.

Claudus 14y ago

Every time I read another news article about Apple's crippling DRM systems, I am reminded of the words from their 1984 commercial... "Today, we celebrate the first glorious anniversary of the Information Purification Directives. We have created, for the first time in all history, a garden of pure ideology – where each worker may bloom, secure from the pests purveying contradictory truths. Our Unification of Thoughts is more powerful a weapon than any fleet or army on earth. We are one people, with one will, one resolve, one cause. Our enemies shall talk themselves to death, and we will bury them with their own confusion. We shall prevail!"

misterbee 14y ago
You can't say they ran a bait-and-switch or anything; they laid out their plans right at the start. Viewers were confused about which character in the commercial represented Apple...

hwatson 14y ago

> If you’re in the US, you can’t download updates for your non-US apps due to IP address constraints. That's odd. I live in the Dominican Republic and I've been using a US iTunes Store account since 2008. Even when the Dominican iTunes Store opened earlier this year I wasn't affected, I'm still able to purchase/update apps like normal. I don't have a DO iTunes Store account so I guess that has something to do with it.

wisty 14y ago

I'm just going to say - walled gardens suck when they have bugs.

luriel 14y ago
We all know well enough that bugs are an universal constant. But even assuming software without bugs was possible. Walled gardens still would suck, by design.

joering2 14y ago

hmm.. there is really a limit of possible combination for the App Store system: user (multiple), credit card (multiple), location (multiple), devices (multiple), authorized computer (multiple) -- times X amount of actions (add/remove/edit/assign/etc) Time to time a rather rare combination of the above makes the system clusterf*ck and the the post like this one pops up. This makes me believe that Apple engineers are too lazy to... use the UML ??

tceduard 14y ago

- there SHALL NOT BE differences of content on the Internet set by physical regions on the Earth! - there SHALL NOT BE on the Internet any laws that are in place for each physical region on the Earth! - the Internet SHALL NOT BE changed ! - the Internet SHALL NOT BE ruled by any Government !

Create 14y ago

I have almost the same problem. I bought my AAPL with 10.6 in one country, moved to another. I wanted to update to 10.8. So I got a gift card at an authorised AAPL vendor store. I had to register a new AAPL ID, because my other ID didn't accept the code. So I registered a new account for my new card. It happily accepted the money. I went through all the hoops, pressed "Buy App". I only got the modal boxes: "Please contact iTunes Support to complete this transaction. We could not complete your request. There was an error in the App Store Please try again later. (100)" It ate my money, I cannot use it, and I am left without an OS soon. I am done with AAPL, and am putting Linux not only on half, but on all of the disk. It reminds me of the DVD region codes, and the problem of which one to pick, when sending films to the Space Station...

LiveTheDream 14y ago

> If this is any indication of the future of software distribution in general, I think I’m going to just give up and go into farming. AFAIK there are no DRM or geolocation limitations on farming equipment yet. It seems the author is not familiar with global biotech company Monsanto and its genetically restricted seeds.

akurilin 14y ago

I want to make sure I got this right. Can I take a trip to a foreign country with a US-purchased and US-registered MacBook and still expect to be able to purchase apps and update existing applications (e.g. XCode) while abroad?

hcarvalhoalves 14y ago

It's not just the AppStore. Everything involving DRM is the same bullshit: they have to tie content available to countries, and come up with all sort of insane restrictions to cover their legal asses and keep you from consuming... bits. In the end their software is such a hairy ball that it doesn't even make sense anymore. Why is the AppStore even checking which IP you are on? Now you can't update your apps because you're traveling? WTF??!?! I'm from Brazil and I face the same crap everyday, everywhere: YouTube videos not available in my country, Rdio albums not available in my country, AppStore apps not available in my country, et cetera Then they ask why nobody respects copyright? It's not only free, but actually more convenient to just crack software and download music on PirateBay than trying to buy it in the first place.

sasidharm 14y ago

First world problems.

lwhi 14y ago

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.

aggarwalachal 14y ago

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

droithomme 14y ago

It's disappointing to see the personas that are trying to argue various justifications of Apple's policy on this. Apple's policy is clearly wrong. Arguing in favor of it is foolish.