12 days of christmas - 2011

Thanks, that did it!

Re Piranjah: you do not need to reinstall the 12 Days App. Just change the Region Format to the area where you live. When you relaunch the 12 Days App you are directed to the correct/local store automatically and the appropriate free App is shown. (I guess a lot of folks will be presented this Top Gear episode and are unable to install it (UK store only)).

Thanks, it works. So how come I could download the first gift - Coldplay just fine? Different Store I guess, right...is there's a way to recognise what Store is the App for? And...ehm...why are those gifts for specific Stores anyway? Thought it would make sense to make them universal...

I guess the Coldplay gift was generic: available in all stores. The second gift is is not available everywhere and depending on your Region Format different gifts are offered. Will see what's there for us tomorrow.

Now, who understands anything here? I am registered in the Belgian store (as my credit card is in Belgium). But I am on the road and I use international keyboard and English.

This is disappointing for me, a MACfanatic. Except for Soundhound and the first day gift, nothing worked.

The app never succeeds in connecting to the site to download or view the "gift". I tried excellent Wifi, even VPN. Then tried through my laptop and iTunes. Forget it.
One of the gifts (yesterday Day 2) was available ONLY for UK store members. Why do they send this to me? What is my connection with UK? I am registered on iTunes and the Store - while surfing there, so they know who I am.

The "gifts" are nearly impossible to locate in the iTunes Store. I tried to locate the "free" Lady Gaga "Marry the Night - Single" (Day 3). Not to be found except paying.
I am getting tired spending all the time trying to figure it out. There is no link in the Store to connect directly to the "gifts" within iTunes.. The e-mail for "service" rejects any email (even with my official MAC email).

Really poor. Next time do better or don't come up with rubbish like that.
Sorry Apple but you're losing it.

Well Piranjah, you are right. I changed in my iPhone the region from China (where I am right now) to Belgium and another song came up - Selah Sue - On the Run. Then, still good luck to find the song in the iTunes store with my laptop. But is downloading now. Why can Apple not give instructions?

had the same problem. go to settings, international and check for region format. that one and country of your store account needs to be the same. enjoy!

Thanks, Piranjah!

I for one do not like my local regional settings and use UK. Also there was no way of knowing this trick in advance. Shame that there are implications like that on Apple's part. Had the app connected to the correct store using Apple ID (with local credit card) it would be much easier to use.

Not sure if I should be annoyed by that, it's freebies after all.

There IS a link in the store for it.

On the store [Home] page, right under the {Music} section, there are 2 rows of little rectangles, with things like "The Beatles Studio Album", "iTunes Match", "iTunes Gift Cards", as well as the "Single Of The Week".

Look for the Blue one with a BIG "12" on it. I checked the UK one & it worked there too. I'm currently in America at school, but I can still download mine, because my billing address is still in Canada, I don't know if maybe it's the specific place you're in has restrictions, like I can't watch the streaming TV shows from ShowCase in the US because they block it specifically & I don't think any of the Giveaways would be stuff that they'd restrict like that.

I know the downloads are different in differnt countries, but one thing I noticed was that Half of Canada's are things that are ALREADY FREE. For example, On the 27th they had 5 "Homegrown TV Pilots" which I downloaded weeks ago, & Yes, it's not even a different wrapper, when I clicked it it said "You have already purchased this". Then today we have 4 "Unforgetable TV Dramas", again, 1 episode of 4 different shows, that has also been free for at least a month.

When I was looking for other people noticing the same thing, I saw that the UK got "Sonic & SEGA All-Star Racing" today, which, in the Canada store at least, is ALREADY FREE, I'm willing to bet it was always free in UK too.

Anyone else notice any "Giveaways" of things that were already FREE?

Congrats for finding the link. I had not seen it. Surprisingly, if even works. I had simply to click and the download started right away. As most comment, pity Apple failed to guide the users. What could we do without these discussion groups?

Yeah, not really helping me much.

I got iTunes gift card for Christmas, but they're US (Since everybody here shops at US stores) & my account is Canadian so it won't accept them. I want to trade a US one for a Canadian one, but don't know how to do that. Discussions are no help.

Then there's what I posted above, but nobody seems to care that the "Gifts" are things that are ALREADY free.

I had a question about the ringtones for my iPhone, but I had to go to another site to get the answers.

I also saw somewhere that {Soundhound Infinity} was one of the "Gifts" but it wasn't on that page, so I missed it. I'm starting to understand why my roommate won't even touch my computer because it's "A Poisoned Apple".

Where's the love Apple?

It is nice that you give away things like these, but the big problem in Belgium is that we have 3 official languages, Dutch, French and German, based on where we live in Belgium.

There is a small bilingual part where they speak French and Dutch 1,089,538.

There are 3,456,775 who live in the Wallonia part of Belgium, who speak French (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wallonia)

and 6,161,600 (!!!!) Flemish/Dutch speaking people who live in Flanders (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flanders), only a small part speaks German (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eupen-Malmedy).

And what do we get? We get stupid french books and french songs none of us from Flanders want.

Do a better research before you give away things.

It might be better to use three apps for Belgium, and for Flanders you can follow the giveaway in The Netherlands or United Kingdom (most Flemish/Dutch people don't mind getting English stuff, like music or apps, except for books/reading material), For Wallonia follow the same giveaway in France and for the German part, follow Germany.

And if it's not possible because Belgian people would get 3 items because of the way this store works, then stick to English!!! Or look at the population and deduct from this that you should choose DUTCH items instead of French load of crap!

Hi all, I've got the same problem!

I leave in Holland, both my husband and I got the app installed. We travelled to Italy during Xmas, my husband could download everything via the Dutch store he was logged into (when in Italy), whilst I had issues (and yes I was also logged in the Dutch store). To start with we got different items to download (which was the problem), I was offered the top gear show, which was not available for download, my husband got a different item. We are now back in Holland and the problem persists and it's random i.e. yesterday I could download the app, today I got again something different from my husband which I cannot download.

Because of my experience I don't think the problem is that "you can only purchase stuff in the country you are physically located". I'll try to follow Piranjah's tip!

Happy New Year!

I normally don't get into linguistic fights, being Flemish but abroad since enough time to ignore that stuff. But Belgie is right, can't deny. I also got French stuff, I don't care as I read and listen in French too but I understand some people get upset. Apple failed to see this indeed. Wonder if we will get anything in Dutch (song, book or...). Indeed best would have been to have everything in.... English (the official language abroad for Belgians is normally..... English).

Yes, follow Piranjah. Most probably the is the settings in your mobile. I even added a Dutch keyboard (that I never use), but the key setting is the region. I actually never understood the meaning of that but it seems to manage all forms of dates. It got me now rid of dates in Chinese popping up in SMS lists. Then, use the link as explained by TheLionInsideOfEddy. Works for me, even if I get French stuff....