The iTunes Music Store is broken resulting in countless developers losing revenue, and Apple is missing out on yet another cash generating opportunity.
Assumption: We travel internationally (some more than others), and as such are exposed to new and different things as we bounce from city to city and country to country.
Assumption: We live in a global market place, and as such expect to be able to consume things as we are exposed to those new and different things (see above).
So, I am in France and was out and about and saw a magazine that interested me, yes one of those old fashioned print thingies. So, I actually bought it, and yes, that still happens. While I was reading it I spotted a particularly interesting iPhone app that I wanted to download; its name is irrelevant as this is a global issue, we can call it the Unknown App if you want.
I typed in the app’s name in the iTunes search box and was told that it didn’t exist. For many users this would actually be enough of a turn off and result in a lost sale.
Then I went to the magazine’s Web site and they thankfully had a direct ITMS link to the app. Success right? Not quite.
Ok, so I needed to change store. Big deal, I’ve done that with Amazon countless times in the past; Amazon.com , Amazon.fr , Amazon.co.uk who cares – I just wanted what I wanted, end of story. Well, not quite.
I ended up on the main app page, finally, and after inspecting the goods decided to make the leap of faith to buy the damn thing. Being in a new store I had to re-enter my login credentials and got this wonderful message:
Ok, total failure as I am now stuck in some form of Apple purgatory, going around and around, never to purchase the thing I am willing to fork over my money for (that’s another recent gripe of mine – more to come). So rather than allowing me to pay for an app I want, I am being forced into a situation where I go without it or commit a crime and pirate it. That’s ridiculous.
Quick sidebar, after having worked for many years in the music industry, I am intimately aware of the plethora of rules and regulations regarding what can be sold where, when and by whom. That being said and acknowledged, applying a brute force blanket to all apps is inefficient, incorrect in its applications of the laws, and honestly, lazy on Apple’s part. They could easily flag apps on an individual basis and allow/disallow them to be sold in countries other than their point of origin. If I were looking to download the Spotify app, a movie like (500) Days of Summer (excellent, you should see it), or an episode of 30 Rock, then I could understand that there are limitations with regards to international distribution. But think about it for a second, if I were the developer of a farting app and based in Brooklyn, I wouldn’t be able to sell farts to France or the UK? Seriously? Again, this whole situation is ridiculous.
This is a strategic and implementation failure, plain and simple, resulting in lost customers for developers and lost revenue for Apple, and in these days with Google and itsNexus One, another advantage for the Google Android platform/marketplace.
General disclaimer: I have used nothing but Apple products since 1984, yeah that Orwell commercial was effective, so I could be described as a fan boy. I just hate it when great companies do stupid things.
—Update:—
Not to beat a dead horse, but after my friend @kerim astutely pointed out that I neglected to mention that I could re-register, I went ahead with that plan with the same frustration and failure as before.
Again, not a painless process as one’s email address is your unique user id which means that one needs a different email address for each store you want to register with. Again, completely ridiculous and reinforces my point of laziness considering the notion of unified login has been around for a while now, especially across one brand’s properties.
Then provided you have a secondary email, you also need a credit card with a local billing address. Total Re-Fail. Great.
