So it seems like apps are now limited per region. For instance I can’t buy the Amazon Kindle app, which I would be very interested in. And, it looks like the US people can’t get the excellent MobileNavigator (by Navigon) which has proper offline maps, like in any GPS device.
And it seems like (I’m not sure, since this is not told anywhere), my app store Top 25 and reviews are from Finland only. To me, this is nuts, since there aren’t that many iPhone users here. This means, that there rarely are any reviews of any apps, and I can’t really have a look at what apps are all the craze in US.
Anyone know if stuff like this will be fixed in the future, or is this something that has-always-worked-this-way?
I seem to recall the App Store having the ability to lock apps to specific regions from day one, but can’t find confirmation currently.
It makes sense that this would be a feature built into iTunes, which already would have to deal with licensing issues requiring region locking for music and movies. This is particularly important for items like the Kindle app (different publishers in different regions may limit access) or GPS units which use maps licensed from third parties only being enforcible in certain countries.
They’ve always had region limiting, and worldwide releases often hit the country of origin first and then slowly “arrive” in the other countries.
I wish Apple would get its shit together and integrate the App store into iTunes and not treat it like an ugly stepchild…being unable to buy apps without 1-click on or being able to see purchased apps in the motherfucking “Purchased” menu item is mindboggling.
I wish I could click AppStore as a separate entity in iTunes, completely ignoring the music section. Because I never use that as long as eMusic is good to me.
I’d love to be able to choose country above the reviews. Even fewer iPhone/iPod touch users here than in Finland, but about the same saturation of Nokia phones.
I can fortunately post these as enhancement requests to Apple. Developers should do that with everything they’re missing (Click here and log in).
