Crossing borders with the iTunes Store
While Apple’s iTunes Store, App Store and Mac App Store are international and available in most countries around the world, the stores aren’t as global as they ought to be. Though the Internet has no borders, Apple’s stores certainly do. A lapsed New Yorker, I’ve lived in France for nearly 30 years, and I’m planning to move to England in a couple of months. I contacted Apple to find out what I could do to transfer my French iTunes Store, App Store and Mac App Store accounts to the UK, and was very surprised at the answer I received.
In short, I can transfer the accounts—the actual Apple ID I use—but any content I bought would be subject to national borders. In other words, leaving France means leaving behind all the apps and other DRM-laden content that I’ve purchased from Apple over the years.
I’m not the only Mac or iOS user to move from one country to another. It seems that Apple, with everything involving its store accounts, is as inflexible as possible.
Two things came to mind. First, why the heck would Apple do this? And second, does this policy mean that I’ve tossed a lot of money out the window? This doesn’t apply to music without DRM (sold by the iTunes Store since 2009), which you can play anywhere, but it does apply to all other content Apple's digital stores sell: apps, movies, TV shows, books, and audiobooks.
If I compare with another major retailer of digital content—Amazon—the difference is striking. Amazon will move an account, along with any Kindle books purchased by that account, to another country. And if I had a Kindle Fire and had bought apps, I could also access them in the new country. (Amazon will even let me transfer my French Kindle account to their U.S. site.) But with Apple, this is not possible. The company says: “Content purchased from the iTunes Store is country-specific.”
To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
http://www.macworld.com/article/2029991/crossing-borders-with-the-itunes-store.html#tk.rss_all
