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Comment by dssu | Hacker News Reader

It's disappointing they are pulling VPN apps that might help with escaping the GFW. I find it funny how large tech companies such as Google, Facebook, and Apple - try so hard to adopt a public image promoting western liberal values. However they all end up submitting to political censorship demands for a population of over a billion people.

I read earlier in the month even Google has caved in, despite being an example years ago by refusing to participate in censorship

But then I know their primary priority is to increase revenue/profits. Can't do that by being blocked out of such a massive market.

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If a company wants to operate in a certain jurisdiction, it has to respect its laws, whether it agrees with them or not. There is simply no way around it. And you could argue, that Chinese democracy is better off with iOS devices even as they are today, than without them at all.

FYI they pulled proxy apps but made switching app store region very easy.

What do you mean? Switching the app store region was alway trivial (just click on a different region). What is difficult about switching the region is paying for apps. You need a region-specific payment method.

At least in the US you can buy non-US iTunes prepaid cards online to get around this. Maybe that's also a loophole within China?

Actually, I don't think you can, or rather I can't.

I live in Austria, but I want a US iCloud account. I can't, use non-US iTunes gift cards with my US iCloud account. I have to buy US iTunes gift cards, which I have to get on eBay, or buy them when I visit the US.

It's a total PITA, as vendors selling these items are super-paranoid and often won't sell to you without some kind of "verification" that takes days/weeks to clear.

Btw, if anyone has any other workaround, I would be very grateful. Something like a US pre-paid debit card that permits non-US customers and that is also accepted by Apple. I haven't found one that satisfies both criteria.

I was in the same situation up until a while ago. Then I realized that an US account is a pain if I want to do family sharing on that account with the rest of my family with Austrian accounts, or use local apps that are not available in the US store. My solution is (for work related things that need to be country specific) to use https://www.pcgamesupply.com/ - they sent codes within a few seconds and you can pay with credit card. Very convenient and not as annoying as eBay. There are a lot of these shops though so not sure what’s the problem for you.

I can only recommend a local account if you plan on staying there for longer though, the more things you buy the harder it is to convert it into another country later and take your purchases with you. I had to go through that and it was annoying, as afterwards (on your account after the switch) you don’t see your purchase before your switch, but if you buy them you get a message saying “You already bought this one, this will be free” - but you are never sure if you get charged or not as this message comes at the step where you usually get your payment confirmation.

You can buy US gift cards via [0], at least it works for me. Also you can switch to Canada region without any payment method(while switching to US region requires a US credit card).

[0]: https://www.apple.com/shop/gift-cards/itunes-email-10

> You can buy US gift cards via [0], at least it works for me.

Unfortunately it requires a credit card with a US billing address[1].

> Also you can switch to Canada region without any payment method(while switching to US region requires a US credit card).

The US store also does not require a credit card[2][3]. It does require entering a US address, but the address is not validated in any way.

Edit: apparently you can't always chose "none" as a payment method when changing regions[4]. I can't remember what I did, I might have created the account while being in the US, or perhaps I used ssh port forwarding with an US server, but, as you can see it works for me.

[1] https://i.imgur.com/dvT9M1J.png

[2] https://i.imgur.com/5ZQ0Lih.png

[3] https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204034

[4] https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT203905

I have no problems with my visa card which is issued by a Chinese bank and a US freight forwarder address(apparently not my actual address) for billing. Since I set my credit line to 0, I dont bother with risk of frauds.

Yeah, faking the billing address sometimes works, sometimes it doesn't work, depending on the issuing bank and all kinds of other factors. Believe me, as I am often in the US, I try this all the time.

Some systems don't check anything, most systems only check the numeric characters written in the address, but some systems also check the country and/or zip code.

I can't use my Austrian CC to buy from your Apple link, but I could use it at Lowe's with some US address (I used my Austrian address street but with country US).

Btw, I could not order a Macbook Pro from apple.com (online), even when I was in the US, and the online system allowed entering an Austrian billing address. The payment went through, but the order was cancelled a few days later with no explanation (and no money back either!). I had to plead with Apple support that I am not, in fact, some kind of scammer, and they made me come in person to an Apple store and only after I presented them with two separate types of government ID they returned me the money (and allowed me to place a new order there, in person).

Life sucks if you are not a US person.

Thanks for sharing your anecdotes, it seems Apple's online store is a lot trickier to deal with that I originally thought. Given the fact that there are almost none posts about having troubles with ordering US gift cards in the Chinese social media, I wonder if they are offering Chinese people some special care(like lowering credit card validation standards? We don't apply for a CC to make domestic payments). Life is strange, without ever been to the US, I have the account you've always wanted for years.

Exactly. Apple's like "The App Store is for your protection" but it cuts both ways: It's enabling government control of which software you can install on your device. Unexpected unintended consequences...

Your primary priority is also to increase revenue.

do you actually know this poster?

Or is this some sort of pseudo-intellectual libertarian assumption that functions as 'true' by eliminating all variables which disagree with it?

Can you please not post ideological battle-style comments to HN? They're not what this site is for.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Could you please stop posting unsubstantive comments to Hacker News?

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