Using the App Store as a non US citizen not possible?

Hi

I am a die hard apple fan and flew to NYC to buy the iPad. Unfortunately I can not access the Ipad App store with my swiss or belgian apple ID - as the swiss and belgian itunes stores don't support the iPad....yet? Does anybody know when these stores will be upgraded - or what a workaround might be for me so I can at least download the free apps???? at the moment my iPod Touch is more usefull than the ipad as at least I can use apps on that....

mark

mac mini, Mac OS X (10.6.3)

Posted on Apr 4, 2010 8:25 AM

Reply
10 replies

Apr 4, 2010 8:38 AM in response to markfrombelgium

Isn't there a "transfer" option in syncing options? Almost all apps that work for iPhone/Ipod touch should work flawlessly on iPad, so sync em to the iPad instead....the iPad is my first and (so far) only Apple product, so I may be wrong about that, however, I DID see a transfer option (meaning as I interpreted it) which seems to transfer an app you purchased for ipod, to transfer to a different device.....again I reserve the right to be wrong.

Apr 4, 2010 8:41 AM in response to AlphaBetaOne

Kind of - if you have a Swiss account you can download whatever you want and sync it across multiple devices as much as you want as long as you own them and as long as the devices owners are in your family.... and as long as they are iPods and iPhones.

The OP's problem is that they were purchased on a non-US iTunes account/store and plugging in an iPad won't help him as the Swiss store that owns the content in effect, doesn't yet support the iPad.

You can't transfer ownership between accounts and one of the accounts doesn't accept iPads yet.

Apr 5, 2010 1:19 AM in response to markfrombelgium

You can definitely do this. I'm a Canadian and for years I've had a US iTunes account for getting the free apps and some US-only apps. This weekend, I also bought an iPad, and in order to get some paid iPad apps, I simply bought an iTunes gift card.

I used iTunes, logged into my US itunes account, then redeemed the gift card.

Voila! I downloaded and paid for Keynote and am now running it on my iPad.

I can browse the US store from my Mac or from the iPad or iPhone/iTouch.

Back home, you simply use your iTunes program, log into the iTunes US store and shop away. You can then log out, and log back in with your country's iTunes account and continue to use it normally.

When you sync your iPad/iPhone/iPod, all accounts that have been logged into and downloaded apps from on that computer will sync to your device(s).

Here's how you do it:

1. Open a new account in the US iTunes store
2. Supply US address & zip code -- you can find any number of valid addresses in the US. Personally, I used a relative's address but you can use anything.
3. Supply an email address -- did you know you can simply add a "+US" to your existing email from most servers? Check to see if it works. eg. user@gmail.com can also be user+US@gmail.com. This allows you to keep the email addresses separate for logins yet all will come into the same address.
4. Once set up you can download free apps at will. Buy and redeem an iTunes card to purchase apps. iTunes will keep track of your credit.
5. You just need to log into the US iTunes store occasionally to download the updates (you'll still see the update badge showing some number if you've updated all your apps from your home, but there are US apps needing an update).

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Using the App Store as a non US citizen not possible?

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