images.jpegPlanning to give an iPad or iPod Touch this holiday season? A word of warning just came my way from my vacationing parents, who at last cracked the seal on stepdad’s birthday gift iPad only to find that they can’t register it—at all—until they are back in Canada. As this won’t be until March, they are understandably upset!

The issue is that they (and their credit card) are Canadian, but they are physically located in America at the moment. So they kept getting error messages when they tried to set up an iTunes account. Eventually, they took it to the Apple store, where no higher an authority than the store manager spent an hour on the phone with someone at corporate HQ. The verdict? You must be physically located in the country of your credit card when registering an iTunes account. No exceptions.

We have a plan for fixing this that involves me taking the iPad (and their credit card information) back to Canada with me after my holiday visit, registering the iPad here, and then sending it back with my aunt when she goes to visit them in February. But in the meantime, the iPad is pretty much useless, and I have to admit, this did not leave a good first impression on my tech-phobic parents. These are people who have a Kobo that is still registered to MY account—my mother won’t even hook it up to her own computer! I had been hoping to go down there at Christmas break and set stepdad up with a Kobo app and some ebooks of his very own, but now it seems that won’t be possible.

I am a bit stunned that there is no workaround for this. I can’t believe that they are the first people to ever get an i-gift while not physically located at home. But let this be a word of warning to any other travelers who may be thinking of gifting an iPad or iPod this holiday season) make sure that your recipient already has an iTunes account before the traveling starts!

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"I’m a journalist, a teacher and an e-book fiend. I work as a French teacher at a K-3 private school. I use drama, music, puppets, props and all manner of tech in my job, and I love it. I enjoy moving between all the classes and having a relationship with each child in the school. Kids are hilarious, and I enjoy watching them grow and learn. My current device of choice for reading is my Amazon Kindle Touch, but I have owned or used devices by Sony, Kobo, Aluratek and others. I also read on my tablet devices using the Kindle app, and I enjoy synching between them, so that I’m always up to date no matter where I am or what I have with me."

12 COMMENTS

  1. The proxy/VPN approach would almost certainly work, but it’s hardly technophobe-friendly (and will probably cost you a few bucks if you use a commercial VPN service, which I’d recommend over using an open proxy – doesn’t Apple want your CC info when you sign up for an account?).

  2. Invent yourself an address in Florida, and a name to go with it. Use it to create a new iTunes account. Indicate “no credit/debit card” when asked. Fill it up with prepaid iTunes cards, available at every corner.

    Alternatively, whoever is in Canada may create a Canadian account (using real name and address), and once account is set up, the details (email/password) may be emailed to people in Florida.

  3. Peter, when proxying SSL, the proxy doesn’t decode the encrypted data – it’s just as secure as if you’d connected directly to the host. The real question though, is once you’re registered on the PC, can you use those login details on the iPad even though it’s not in Canada (without a proxy/vpn)? I would think so, but I’m not sure.

    Joanna’s right in that all this shouldn’t be necessary, but unfortunately Apple seems determined to put regions restrictions in their stores. Good luck trying to buy music from an Apple store outside your home region for instance – it won’t work. This is also why I’m very skeptical about ebooks ever getting rid of region restrictions. Once they’re in place, they’re very hard to get rid of.

  4. An additional suggestion – in iTunes, why can’t they set the store to Canada and then create an account in the iTunes Canada store. That would solve the problem. Of course, then they can’t buy anything from the iTunes US store but that might not matter.

    Note: you can’t blame Apple for region restrictions, even this one. They are just working within the restrictions placed on THEM by the media producers.

    Amazon has region restrictions imposed on them by media producers also. The major difference is that with Apple’s walled/curated garden approach – in order to circumvent such regional issues you have to jump thru an extra complicated hoop or two.

  5. Of course I can blame Apple for it – they’re the ones that host the service and have restricted access to it based on IP. They also charge extra for worldwide distribution of music compared to single countries, with the result that you get restrictions because the record companies can’t be bothered to pay the extra it would cost, even in those cases where they do have world rights to something.

    Incidentally, Steam also has this problem – I’ve tried before to purchase games while traveling, and it wouldn’t let me because my IP didn’t match the address associated with my credit card. This is particularly frustrating when, like me, you tend to be gone for months at a time. I’ve had to resort to having friends purchase and gift me content in order to get past region restrictions.

  6. I am assuming the geek squad tried setting the store to ‘Canada.’ But I don’t know if they tried to register on the iPad itself or on their computer. If they register with their Florida address and no credit card now, can they change it over to Canada and add a credit card when they come back? We don’t really have a computer here we can use to register them with their Canadian info. The only computer we have is mine, it is already registered to my account, and I don’t want to mess it up by de-registering it.

  7. Let’s make it even simpler.

    An iTunes account is just an AppleID with payment info associated with it. A single AppleID can be used for all sorts of things in the Apple eco-sphere. iTunes, apple online store, etc. Some of which doesn’t require payment cc info so it is possible to create one outside of iTunes.

    Have them go here in a web browser, not iTunes, and create an AppleID:

    http://appleid.apple.com

    There’s a great big button just for that purpose.

    And then when the iPad “asks” for an AppleID or iTunes account they’ll have it. And it won’t require changing your iTunes info.

    Theyll still have to set the payment option to “None” to download free apps.

  8. what a load of rubbish, I’ve setup iPads for many relatives, in 3 different countries.. Can’t believe the Apple store person couldn’t do it. All you have to do is go into itunes, go to the iTunes store for the country the credit card is issued and setup an iTunes account in that store. Note Credit card and billing address for Credit card must both be valid for that countries itunes store.

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