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change language in mac app store

Is there any way to select the language in the Mac App store without changing your billing country?

Specifically, I am an expat living in Netherlands with a Dutch address but would like to use the App Store in English.

The only option seems to be to change the country to the UK, but if I do that I cannot purchase anything because I have no billing address there.

Posted on Mar 11, 2012 3:39 AM

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Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Posted on Mar 11, 2012 6:11 AM

Hi ...


You can change the country by clicking the round flag icon bottom right corner of the App Store window.


For purchasing your credit or debit card credentials must be associated with the same country where you reside.


"Although you can browse the iTunes Store in any country without being signed in, you can only purchase content from the iTunes Store for your own country. This is enforced via the billing address associated with your credit card or other payment method that you use with the iTunes Store, rather than your actual geographic location."

From here > The Complete Guide to Using the iTunes Store | iLounge Article



FYI: iTunes and Mac App Stores bililing policies are the same.

32 replies

Sep 16, 2014 12:31 AM in response to Dah•veed

Hi everyone,


I'm just one of those poor expats that relocate every now and then to different locations in the world and can not use Apple's product to its best.


Just to recap:


  • Device country = Itunes default store language
  • Itunes default store language does NOT = Apple ID language
  • Apple ID language = Billing address
  • Billing address HAS to match Credit Card issuance country


I have an address in NYC, Garden City - but no credit card. This just does not make any sense.


To answer DAV.EED: Hi David, thousands of online shops allow you to get content in your language (if you consider that product label/description are in your language) and deliver them to an address that does not match your credit card's country... starting with Amazon.

I also believe, that Apple is financially big enough to support this kind of enhancements on top of the commercial opportunity that they are missing - I use Netflix instead.

I own every possible Apple devices (Apple TV, iPad, iPhone, Extreme, iMac...) bought in US/France/Hungary, Hong Kong and Thailand with French, Thai and Hungarian credit cards.


The situation is that i have my movies in Hungarian and the ads are played in Thai, this means i can't watch any movies, read eBooks and my default music selection is the top 50 Hungarian songs - Yes that's absolutely insane when you are English speaker and when you defaulted every configuration settings to English.


It is very disappointing to see how Apple in general just ignores this problem and English speaking expats and also how Itunes (desktop Software) is so ridiculously bad at performing the most random function, e.g.: importing music from older device, how it takes hours to classify and provide meta data to your music collection and still not even being able to play a full album in the right order...


I love Apple products and philosophy but please, make an effort on iTunes and its content management.


Kind Regards,

Charles

change language in mac app store

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