Q: Apple blocked Face Time in Middle East

That's because the phone you bought was imported and sold illegally. It did not originate in the Middle East at all.

CrebbyYeAH wrote:

 

i recently bought an iphpone 5 in ksa in riyadh from jarir bookstore and i have facetime, but my dad doesnt and he bought the iphone 4s with no facetime option available to him in settings.

Because you have a grey market import (not intended to be sold in KSA) and your father does not.

Not True. Saudi Arabia does not have any law restricting the use of Facetime, and the reason for Facetime being absent is not due to any religious or cultural belief.

Within some Middle Eastern countries, (Qatar/UAE/Bahrain) the telecommunications industry gave separate licences for VOIP, and did not bundle it with normal telecommunications. As a result, purchasing a device with VOIP would require paying royalty to the licence holder, separate from your network provider. Apple would therefore be breaking the law if they sold devices without paying the licence holder. This is very difficult, so the simple solution was to remove VOIP (Facetime). While you can add later (skype and so on) it insured that Apple was not at fault.

The block is NOT done on the provider’s side, but by apple. They have a set of Serial Numbers, which are all intended for the Middle East, and the OS has it blocked by default. Unfortunately, although Saudi does not have a law against Facetime, they purchase their devices through the same channels as the rest of the Middle East, and therefor "inherit" the restrictions imposed by those countries.

What this means to you as the end user?

1. 1. In Saudi, it is not illegal to buy or sell a device which has Facetime (though the importing costs may be slightly higher due to supplier location). Note that Jarir is a large chain of bookstores (think Barnes and Noble for Saudi) and they openly sell the devices, even advertising them as “Facetime”
2. 2. Regardless of what sim you have in your device or your location, if you purchased a facetime enabled device, it will work. This also means that if it is not facetime enabled, it will not work, regardless of where you take it.

Note that your device is not considered “Grey Market”, because it has facetime. Just means the supply chain is through Europe and not UAE. There are of course ways people enable facetime on a device which does not have it enabled, though that renders the warranty void, and goes against Apple’s T&C’s

deanfromburry st edmunds wrote:

 

Note that your device is not considered “Grey Market”, because it has facetime.

Correct.

Just means the supply chain is through Europe and not UAE.

And since the supply chain is through Europe and not UAE, that it what makes it a grey market import in UAE.

Grey market does not mean illegal. It simply means something is sold in a specifc area/market it is not intended to be sold in.

I bought my iphone 5 in UAE. But now im in the philippines. Of course there's no facetime in the settings but, is there any way to have facetime on my phone. Please help.

Mackoy2195 wrote:

 

I bought my iphone 5 in UAE. But now im in the philippines. Of course there's no facetime in the settings but, is there any way to have facetime on my phone. Please help.

As has been said 10,000 times in this forum alone, no, there is no way to get FT on your iPhone.

I am not sure what happened but suddenly I got the Facetime app, middle east version iPhone 4s ios 7

Can someone confirm this

"Can someone confirm this"

Send me your iPhone and I will try to confirm it.

Hello, I'm in Saudi Arabia for business for some time and I'm going to buy an iPhone 5s and an iPad in a few days. Today I visited some retailers -private cellphone sellers and Apple Authorized dealers- and they were talking about Face Time "working" or "not working" based on where they are bought from: Middle East or US.

So my question is: Is it identifiable from the serial number or the model number of the device (iPhone or iPad) whether it is Middle East originated or else?

Thank you.

its not the serial number that is blocked, check the model, mine is MC603ZP/A which is from HK region bought in middle east, if you found some AE in there, its 100% that there is no facetime

Thank you.

I (living in EU) got a friend in UAE who was visiting me here to bring a 128 gb cellular model along (Cost advantage 190 euros). I had gone through this thread and even though I barely expect to use facetime too much..it had troubled me. I took the plunge and to my pleasant surprise Facetime is working! So I went to the Settings > General and found the model no. to be ME987X/A. That's the one Apple sells in Australia. Obviously retailers in middle east source from all over. 

<Link Edited By Host>

There is no such thing as a 128GB iPhone. Your "friend" bought a gray market phone. It was imported and re-sold illegally in UAE. Yes. Criminals source from all over.

Actually he bought a gray market iPad.

what about pakistan