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Comment by willthames | Hacker News Reader

Also a problem for the Apple App Store - I recently moved countries and all the apps I'd paid for (including OS X Lion) were no longer available to download until I switched back my details to the old country.

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And Android (to a lesser extent). While I was in China, I was blocked from buying any apps as paid apps aren't available there. Even dialing a VPN wasn't enough - the phone knew where it was.

With the amount of stuff(TM) that we buy digitally now, this is becoming a huge problem.

Oh, really? That's the first I have heard of Apple using geographical location to disable features, rather than using the location that issued the credit card linked to the account.

Come to think of it, last year in Shanghai, I did buy a GPS map app for iPhone using my US app store account... is this something new (and lame) that Apple is doing, or did you mean something different?

EDIT: Oops, sorry, I guess I should have read your comment far enough to get to the second word where you clearly indicated you are talking about Android... :-p

Android.

Android goes off the country of the SIM card that's in it, last I checked. So either you can pop in a foreign SIM and make your purchase over WiFi (this worked for me even with an expired SIM), or use an app such as MarketEnabler to spoof your SIM carrier code.

What about Android devices without 3G? Like all WiFi only Android tablets or Galaxy S players?

Yes this is annoying but not on the level of Microsoft. Some apps are only available in the U.S. App Store. If you switch stores to say, New Zealand then you lose access to those apps. But iTunes does allow you to easily change stores and download your U.S. only apps provided you still have a valid U.S. payment method and address. You can then change stores again but your locally downloaded apps remain. It's inconvenient and messy.

At least you had the ability to modify your details in that case. With this blogpost it sounds like your location is immutable once your account is created.

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