Why does Apple penalise it’s European iTunes customers?
A friend gave me his iTunes login today to download the Google application for the iPhone 3G and I was shocked to see exactly what we aren’t getting in Europe.
Firstly movie rental no sign of it on European store, why not, surely its a global market.
Second TV series, I am a huge fan of “Run’s House” and “Anthony Bourdain” no option to get these either.
Onto the apps store, no Google apps, no games, nothing, its really incredible what we are missing here, surely it can’t be royalties when I can buy everything I need by walking into a USA store and bringing them home with me.
Apple are definitely loosing revenue here also with the weakness of the Dollar
USA paid apps
Europe Paid apps
USA free apps
Europe free apps
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- AJ McKee » Blog Archive » So much for a global company. How Apple & Others treat Europeans
Twitter: shanekny
It’s all about content distribution rights – it’s not actually down to Apple. Think of the iPlayer, it’s not available everywhere either.
Although the prices are a little unfair but there’s nothing new there. Having said that, it doesn’t cost more to ship to different countries, so there’s no excuses for providing equal/fair pricing models.
With the Music in the store, pricing was easel y ascribed to Greed on the part of Distributors. Some of these app changes could be clever naming, or paid product placement…Greed.
Talking price – I was reading somewhere that Canadians are being asked for a 3 year contract on the iPhone…
it’s not just apple and itunes.
the movie industry is at it too with region codes for dvd’s – so when you move from one country your discs wont play. Why do we put up with this kind of treatment?
and audiobooks – audible why can’t I pay for the book I want in ireland?
I know it’s available, I can see it in the US and UK?
I could get it for free with bitTorrent or usenet but i want to pay the author …
this doesn’t prevent piracy it promotes it
p*&&%es me off!!
Two issues here.
1) Content rights
2) Currency
With regard to 2) – anyone outside of the US is going to be stung. This is not a new thing.
1) presents a different experience. If Apple could provide these episodes, music tunes, RINGTONES and applications, don’t you think they would? It al comes down to licensing.
Ringtones is a perfect example. Available on the US Store. Not on the UK store. Why? The Music labels make more money out of over-the-air download and won’t consider an alternative. Why? Because then everyone would expect it.
Movie Rental arrived recently (and quietly) on the Uk store but is still to penetrate throughout Europe.
So, yeah, it’s a pain in the ass but direct your venom where it is due – to the content copyright holders and your MP/TD/whatever.
Also…we have FEWER games in the UK. But we do have SMB, Moto Racer, Crash Bandicoot. …
…we don’t have Scrabble….
It’s just beyond me why we don’t have the Google App available when the dudes across the pond have.
Anybody want to lend me their US iTunes login to download some free apps?
I’ve rented movies from the UK iTunes store – quality is excellent, though (of course) price isn’t great – typically £3.49, not $3.49
Distribution rights mean that the USA iTunes store gets most movies first
& I agree, there’s TV shows on the USA iTunes that I’d pay to see, but can’t get from iTunes UK
Pat:
As Paul Walsh said, some of the variation in product portfolio on offer may be down to geographically limited or demarcated content distribution rights (although access to iPlayer has a slightly different story).
Re pricing:
It is all about what the market will bear, isn’t it? Some of it may be down to historically higher price tolerance in European markets. We are so used to being taken for a ride in all product categories that we never complain! The European Commission investigation into iTunes pricing was a rare occasion of prices being challenged and as far as I can see all the palaver has made sweet FA of a difference to iTunes.
However unlike physical goods, where real estate costs and costs of shipping may justify differential pricing, a virtual product has virtually zero replication costs so this differential is unjustifiable. (That said, on a tangent, I am reminded that when the euro first wave transition happened, many merchants took the chance to adjust prices ‘upwards’ so there is no end to creativity of that sort in retail pricing).
There is, in my view, also a ‘legacy’ issue with how companies have historically viewed pricing. Pre-web, prices weren’t so transparent. Apple has tried its dashedest best to keep it that way with iTunes by disallowing UK customers even to have a log-in on iTunes-US but it is harder to hide prices on the web. So this may be a case of Apple biding time while customers, such as you, use work-arounds with trusting and close friends.
Besides why bother with iTunes? Amazon.com has a good and growing portfolio of music and films on offer too now. Their prices are on par with or lower than iTunes (although once Amazon.co.uk starts, I am sure we will be having this conversation all over again).
The only way out in my view is two-way consumer action – in the form of complaints to competition authorities and in the form of boycotts (after all, in the end, nearly everything is dispensable and we can live without most of it cluttering our lives and our MP3 players).
@Joe – That wouldn’t surprise me, last time I was in Toronto it seemed a 24-month contract was about average, even for entry-level handsets though a 36-month contract for the iPhone is just ridiculous.
@patphelan – Do iPhone apps developers have a say in what regions their apps are allowed retail when making it to the iTunes store (the way we would when distributing music for sale across iTunes US / UK / AUS etc.)
Will Rowan writes:
That said, when you can get movies on DVD for a fiver on play.com, why bother with rentals.
Yes pricing is a con but we are used to that at this stage. Actually not selling games etc. to this market? is insane. My IPhone shows ZERO games available for download here. I have money to spend, but no where to spend it.
Get rid of the borders and get rid of the problem….
1. There are UK movie rentals on iTunes. Negotiating rights for the EU market is an extremely complex business though.
2. The app developers themselves state which iTunes markets they want their app to be available in. It is *not* an Apple decision. When submitting your app you are presented a list of all available regions and you simply check which ones you want to be in.
Twitter: topgold
14th July, 2008 at 11:57 am
I would be more concerned about limitations about dragging and dropping onto and off of my iPhone than whether I can get an App for the phone. There are plenty of online options for music if you don’t have to worry about the iTuns sync.
One of the most tedious things I do is back up cracked DRM tracks purchased on iTunes. I won’t permit a single-system playback track to suck away my purchasing power,
Twitter: topgold
14th July, 2008 at 11:58 am
I would be more concerned about limitations about dragging and dropping onto and off of my iPhone than whether I can get an App for the phone. There are plenty of online options for music if you don’t have to worry about the iTunes sync.
One of the most tedious things I do is back up cracked DRM tracks purchased on iTunes. I won’t permit a single-system playback track to suck away my purchasing power,
Yes, us Canadians are forced into a 3yr contract if we want the iPhone.
@ Ken McGuire – Apple are blaming the developers by saying developers specify which regions apps are made available in and must not have selected Ireland, but I contacted one games developer who told me his game had been made available to the whole world so it should have been on the Ireland list. It wasnt.
Apple are blaming the developers and the develoepers are blaming Apple so until someone actually looks into the problem instead of blaming someone else we wont see any games or the full list of applications.
See also: http://www.globalbydesign.com/blog/2008/07/14/the-iphone-app-localization-opportunity/
Take a look at this Pat
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20080716-eu-finally-cuts-through-licensing-red-tape-for-digital-music.html
keith
At least you have some content on iTunes.
Here in Hong Kong, iTunes has finally arrived (along with the 3G iPhone), but you can’t buy music or movies — just apps.
I’m actually just the opposite of you guys I live in the U.S. and am upset that I can’t get a europe account. i’m takeing french in school and my teacher intoduced me to a really good french song and I was looking it up on itunes and it’s only avalble on the europe one so I can’t buy it. And the worst part is that on my itunes i can buy a kareoke version and download french podcasts that have the singer in them!