HT204380: Use FaceTime with your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch
Learn about Use FaceTime with your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch
Q: I do not live in Dubai but on one of my trips I bought my iPad from there. Now I am reading I can't use facetime because it is not ... more
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Jan 1, 2013 4:34 PMby Demo,As stedman1 told you, there is nothing that you can do to get FaceTime on the iPad. The app cannot be downloaded in any country. It is part of the iOS and not a separate app that you can download - or delete for that matter.
Your only recourse now is to try to sell the iPad and buy another one in a country where FaceTime is not restricted.
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Jan 1, 2013 10:36 PMby Tronics,Thank you all for your responses so far. My concern is that it is not easy to sell these devices just like that and also is there any effort to caution people like me upfront that there will be disadvantages in buying devices from dubai. I travel quite a bit and could have bought these from a lot of alternate locations if I knew at the point of purchase that these disadvantages existed.
If I am to sell this device how do I begin especially as I know deep down me that anybody buying it would probably not be a dubai resident and will have the same challenges as I had. It is a bit of a challenge selling this to anyone with the knowledge that it does not have full capabilities.
There should be some provisions for this type of situations. I would have not bought this from Dubai if I knew at the point of purchase that it will not have full capabilities especially as I do not live there.
Kind regards
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Jan 2, 2013 6:02 AMby AntonLargiader,There should be some provisions for this type of situations.
By who? You went to Dubai and bought a Dubai iPad. It is what it is. No one represented it as anything else. You buy a car in one country it won't be the same as a car in another. Different exhaust, engine, bumpers, etc.
If Dubai is that convenient to you, go back and sell it there. Otherwise just sell it locally as a non-Facetime iPad and move on. Or just use it without Facetime; get Skype instead (if it's not blocked, too).
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Jan 2, 2013 6:31 AMby Tronics,Thanks all, I do appreciate these feedbacks, but I am struggling to understand the analogy between a car and iPad. When buying a car in a different location, you are adviced of all the features and then you take a decision if you are okay with it or not. But this was not the case with the iPad. I only found that out after a while being that it is my first iPad. Of course I will not make this same mistake again but I find it challenging that there are no provisions for correct this facetime issues for none residents.
I assume as you have all continiously stated that I may not make a difference on this as a lone voice but if Apple can consider making it possible for none residents or insisting that this is explicitly mentioned at the point of sales in Duabi for Apple products then it begins to be fair. In the car example, you are at least sure that certain feutures are unavailable and do not realize this after the purchase is done and you are back to your home country.
I also think saying "Dubai iPad" might not be correct as I always believed I was dealing with Apple product which out to give same level of satisfaction accross the globe....
I am a frequent traveller and really it would not have been inconveniencing not to buy this iPad when I did as I could have bought it from the UK, US or SA.....but just thought iPad was iPad everywhere.
Again why do I really have to buy another one? These cost money. And I do not have a shop to sell it as a non-facetime ipad. I would have expected apple center to receive these ipads and replace them or correct them.....
I am just listing this out incase the Apple team can see some sence in what I am saying. There are a number of ways this current situation would have been avoided for people like me.
Regards
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Jan 2, 2013 6:47 AMby AntonLargiader,If you buy a car in Europe, I doubt anyone will even mention that it does not have US-compliant door beams. It's a Europe-market car. Same with a blender; they probably won't say that it specifically doesn't operate on 120V 60Hz power; it simply operates on what is provided in that market.
Electronics are regionally specific items. Cameras have different language menus, keyboards have different character mappings, phones are (or at least were) GSM or CDMA depending on where you were, different chargers are included for different wall power, and sometimes features are different. If you aren't willing to do the research this is just a risk you take in buying a foreign-market item. Sorry you got blindsided by this but it's not anyone else's problem to fix. If an IOS update won't fix the issue, it's probably not going to get fixed.
Maybe instead of 'Dubai iPad' I should have said 'AE iPad' which it certainly is. Look in the other Dubai iPad thread for more details.
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Jan 2, 2013 7:40 AMby Skydiver119,It clearly says that facetime is not available in all countries. Just like the contents of the US iTunes store is different from the UK iTunes store, and is different from the Mexican iTunes store.
if Apple wants to be allowed to sell their devices in UAE countries, they must conform to that country's restrictions, which in this case is for them to not have facetime on them. THe alternative would be to have Apple products banned from the country. (And, as I understand it, even if you have a device with facetime on it you can't use it in UAE countries as the protocol is blocked from internet providers there)
The burden is upon the consumer to familiarize him/herself with the device they want to buy and know the questions to ask. For better or worse, it's not on the sales person to figure out what a buyer wants to know and tell them. Facetime being banned in the UAE isnt' exactly a secret.
Unless you bought that device recently and are still within the return period of your seller, your only recourse is to sell it and buy another one from outside of the country.
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Jan 3, 2013 2:11 AMby Tronics,Okay guys I assume there is really nothing I can do in this case. I thouhg Apple would have had a way to adress this for none UAE residents. The fact is that things like electrical settings and car characteristics are usually more generic and known. I would probably think twice before I buy from SA as I know it will come with SA plugs. But these are relatively / fairly obvious. I actually used my iPad for months before I first heard of facetime...sorry all if I am not as sharp as you guys on this, but being my first iPAD, withouth being told at the point of purchase there is no way I would have known that facetime was not there and its implications.
I still strongly believe that there are better ways of doing this. If I had been informed at the sales point that this is a Dubai or AE version of ipad and does not have certain feutures, I could have stopped to investigate a bit more. But no one mentioned it till I first hear of facetime. I also see all the suggestions on selling but I really do not have a shop and not very experienced in selling ipads!!!
I still find it strange that apple cannot do something at their local shops to address this if it is obvious I do not live in Dubai!!!
But again thanks guys.....your feedback is much appreciated.
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Jul 5, 2013 6:04 AMby kamran47,I got to support Tronics here outright, you are spot on. I live in Pakistan and bought my iPad from Dubai. Comparing cars to iPads is very irrational and unfair, how many countries around the world can you take your car with you compared to a portable device like an iPad ? All a user like me or Tronics would want is,
- Somebody informing us at the store that this iPad does not have facetime on it.
- Replacement from a local Apple store.
If you talk about selling it, I do not think anybody in my country would want to purchase it unless I did the same to them, i.e. not telling them about the absence of Facetime. I wonder how much this would affect the sales of iPads in Dubai if the consumers were informed of this.
I would request Apple to take some relevant action.
Thank you.
