Comment by gorbypark | Hacker News Reader

Comment by gorbypark | Hacker News Reader

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I'm a bit perplexed about region handling, maybe you could shed some light on it. I have an iPhone from Canada, with a Canadian Apple account (Canadian CC/billing address, set location to Canada in App Store), but live in Spain for the last few years. I am still fully "Canadian" according to Apple. I don't get any of the 3rd party App Store stuff that's region locked to the EU, and have access to Apple Intelligence and other features not available in the EU.

I can't give the hearing aid feature a test because it's not available in either Canada or Spain, but I am wondering what the difference is (if any) between the hearing aid region lock and other geo-locked/geo-enabled features Apple has.

You can login with a second account that is an EU account, my wife went this route. You get the best of both worlds.

I ended up transferring my account to an EU account (pro-tip, you may be on the phone with Apple support for 6+ hours if the automation fails). I still have access to both US-specific features (like Apple Cash in USD and the feature in this article) and EU-specific features (like the new app store stuff).

Are you _physically_ in the EU too?

I'm surprised that this worked for you, my main Apple ID is a German one, with active CC/subscriptions/etc; but I am physically in Japan and definitely don't get to play Fortnite on my phone.

Yes, I'm physically in the EU. I'd be curious if you set your computer up as an access point and connected to a VPN (so the phone won't know if it is on a VPN) and then use an exit point in the EU. You could even go so far as spoofing GPS in your house using SDN to even make it think it is in the EU. (just don't forget to make the testing room a faraday cage to prevent any airplanes from getting confused).

I'd even be happy to repeat your cellular signals here in the EU, so you connect to EU towers.

That would be entertaining to see if it worked.

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