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Apple's Haves and Have Nots, Around the World
Rambo Tribble writes "As this story in the Economist notes, Apple's policies regarding international sales are often confusing and outdated. Apparently, Apple either hasn't been aware of political and social changes in the world over the last 20 years, or doesn't wish to acknowledge them."
Soulskill rightly notes that at least some of the complained-about policies boil down to Apple's adherence to local copyright and licensing laws.
The only thing I managed to really garner from this article is this, it's about Apples country restrictions on music and movies.
If the economist did a bit more research independently they would see it's a rights management issue from the content generators. Music and film in both the US and UK tend to restrict certain things like to their respective countries on a belief it's the only way everyone gets their dues.
It's the reason the silly regional encoding exists for the encryption on almost every DVD; my Discovery Channel Living With Wolves DVD lacked any sort of encryption.
Partly the irrational fear that artists won't get their rightful dues, because of currency exchange rates. Piracy fears I think are the biggest concern on the media companies not letting stuff out of the country digitally.
Along with the fact they make probably loads licensing manufacturers in other countries to make them locally and get around tariffs.
Yeah, right. Ukraine, Poland and Romania amount to over 100 million people. In Poland and Romania, there are lots of people already owning iPhones and iPads are already being sold (and no, I mean no counterfeits, the real thing, they are legit devices bought from Western Europe and sold with inflated prices). And guess what, people buy them as well.
iTunes doesn't need large sums of money invested to make it work for these countries. But you are right, Apple "judges" and TBH, doesn't judge correctly. They CAN make money out of these countries, but they don't feel like trying. Oh well, this approach makes someone else rich anyway.
...gis sdrawkcab (usually not responding to ACs; don't bother posting as AC)
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The is prefix should only be used on predicate methods (i.e. ones returning a BOOL). If you have a KVC-compliant accessor, it can be isSlapped or setSlapped: for the @"slapped" key. Starting a method with side effects with is is very bad style.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
"Apple's consumer website www.apple.com is one of the best designed websites out there."
WTF? Apple.com is crap, complete and useless.
Let's say I'm a visitor from Ukraine (I am, BTW). I go to apple.com - and see a site in English. How do I switch language to Ukrainian or Russian? The common way is to have a switch at the top of the site, offering language choices from GeoIP database.
But here I have to scroll it all the way down and click on inconspicuous 'Choose your country or region' button.
Ok, I click it and see country names. There's Ukraine? Nowhere to be found, even though I know as a fact that there are authorized Apple sellers in Kiev. Ok, I click on "Russia" because I speak Russian as well.
Great, I see the big 'Buy' button on the top left. I eagerly click it (http://www.apple.com/ru/buy/). And see a lot of options (some of them with in a broken grammar - can't they find good translators?). What should I choose? What is the difference between Apple distributors and resellers?
Ok, I click on "Apple distributors" - http://www.apple.com/ru/buy/shop/
Great! I now can see the list of 3 (count them - THREE!) Apple shops for the whole Russia, all in Moscow. Wow!
And you might notice that I still can't find Ukrainian distributors.
Ok, I'm a power user and do a web search: http://yandex.ua/yandsearch?text=Apple%20%D0%B0%D0%B2%D1%82%D0%BE%D1%80%D0%B8%D0%B7%D0%BE%D0%B2%D0%B0%D0%BD%D0%BD%D1%8B%D0%B9%20%D0%B4%D0%B8%D0%BB%D0%B5%D1%80&lr=143&ncrnd=214 on a local search engine. Great! Now I found the http://www.apple.com/ru/buy/locator/ - reseller locator.
And with a couple of clicks I find what I need: http://www.apple.com/ru/buy/locator/map.html?tySearch=1&viaProduct=2&viaSpecial=-1&strCountry=UKR&lat=50.45&lng=30.5233333&gCountry=UA
But how can I find this locator without resorting to a search engine? It turns out, I have to click on "Apple Authorised Reseller" link here: http://www.apple.com/ru/buy/ Its description says: "They help you to choose Mac or iPod, provide professional consultation and technical support of Apple products" - not a word about ability to search.
In short, Apple's web site is a #$#*@(&$^#*(&$ mess.
It's not available ANYWHERE outside the USA yet, it hasn't been launched anywhere else due to the fact that US demand still outstrips ability to manufacture.
Because the authorised resellers for phones are networks: http://www.orange.ro/iphone/index.html QED, officially available.
And I'd like a pony. Look, the iPhone is 99with a contract on that Orange.ro site. That's not a ridiculous price.
It does for Romania and Poland. Go into the app store and change country. They're both there.
You're whining about nothing.