How to Buy Music & Apps Using the US iTunes Store & Mac App Store in South Africa
A BlaBla Blog Illustrated How-To-Guide
South African music lovers and Apple product users have long suffered at the hands of draconian regional licensing issues when it comes to downloading music from legitimate sources such as iTunes. The same applies to many applications (especially games) that iPhone, iPod and iPad users around the world have access to, but which are not available for purchase in the iTunes South Africa shop.
I believe that part of the reason for the lack of games in the South African iTunes and Mac App Stores is due to the exorbitant fees charged to developers by the Films & Publications Board in order to get their software rated – a South African legal requirement for all such software. (I heard an amount of R1400-odd per application being required?)
Music lovers are particularly frustrated by the digital rights, regional licensing agreements and copyright provisions that are placed on purchasing downloadable music in South Africa. The record companies and their agents have made the process so laborious and fraught with overly-complicated legalities that Apple decided to completely exclude sales of music products (and video as well) in their South African iTunes Store from it’s launch a couple of years ago. In the deepest sense of irony imaginable, this has resulted in occasions where music produced by South African artists and listed on iTunes Stores could not be bought by South Africans, in South Africa. A recent example was the release of Die Antwoords’ $O$ album.
So what’s a legitimate fan to do? You want to support your favourite artists, you want to make sure that local music is rewarded whenever you can, and you don’t feel comfortable going the torrent downloading piracy route.
Well, we have a possible solution that has been around for a while now, and seems to work fairly well. Whilst it’s not 100% in accordance with various T&C’s, it is a preferable option to taking the path to piracy and free music downloading at the expense of hardworking musicians, artists and developers.
Important Disclaimer: The process described in these notes violates the Terms & Conditions of the US iTunes Store and the US Mac App Store. Neither the author nor The BlaBla Blog endorse this violation, nor do we encourage you to do so. This post is simply intended to provide a possible solution to a frustrating problem for many South African music fans and for Apple iEverything users. If you choose to follow it, be aware that The BlaBla Blog will not be responsible for anything that may go wrong.
- Re-read the Important Disclaimer above.
- Start up your installation of ITunes and ensure that you are signed out of any existing iTunes Store account that you may have. To do this, activate the present store by selecting “iTunes Store” from the menu sidebar and then select “Store” from the top menu bar and click on “Sign out…”. If you see the words “Sign In…” here then you are aces!
- Switch to US iTunes Store . To do this, scroll to the very bottom of the iTunes window and look in the bottom right-hand corner. You’ll see the flag of the last Store that you had active – the SA Store in the image above. Click on the flag, and then select the United States in the resulting window.
- Once the US Store has loaded, (you’ll know you are in the right place immediately – look at all the sub-stores they have there!) switch to the Apps Section.
- This is a VERY IMPORTANT step: Look down the right-hand sidebar and select any application under the “Free Apps” category. Click on the “Free” button besides the apps name.
- A Sign-In dialogue box will pop up. Click on the “Create New Account” button.
- Click “Continue” on the Welcome to the iTunes Store window.
- Tick to indicate that you have “Read and Agree” to the iTunes Store Terms & Conditions and to the Apple Privacy Policy and then click on “Continue” (NB: Re-read our disclaimer again!)
- Complete the required Apple ID Details information. Use a non-SA email address (try Gmail for example). Note the password requires at least 8 characters and must contain at least 1 uppercase letter, 1 lowercase letter and 1 number. The email address you use here becomes your Apple ID (your username basically). The address must be valid and accessible as you will have to to go to it to confirm and activate your new iTunes Store account shortly. Click “Continue”.
- The Details screen appears. Very Important here is to ensure that you select “None” as you preferred payment method. If you don’t see “None” as an option – only credit cards and PayPal – then you have missed something in an earlier step. Probably Step #5. Go back, confirm you are in the US Store, and make doubly sure that you select a Free App to download.
- The Details screen also requires a valid American address and postal code. This is where you get creative, or use a US address that you know, or let Fake Name Generator do it for you: Go to www.fakenamegenerator.com, confirm that the ‘Country’ option is set to “United States” and click on the “Generate” button. Note that you can use your own name and surname, or your generated one, or even make another one up – Apple does not check this info.
- Complete the required address details on the iTunes Store details screen and click on “Continue”.
- Head over to your email account and click on the “Verify Now >” link in the message. This will launch your internet browser and take you to the My Apple ID – Email Verification site. Log-in with your email address and password to verify your account.
- All that’s left to do now is to credit your newly verified US iTunes Store account with some spending money. There is only one way to do this: get a iTunes Store Gift Card (or Voucher Code as it’s seems to be referred to online). You obviously cant use your South African credit card or SA registered PayPal account as the billing addresses wont match and your account will most likely be frozen. Nope, unless you have a credit card issued against an American address you’ll need to get or buy iTunes Vouchers. (And if you do happen to have a US addressed credit card you really shouldn’t be bothering with all of this – just use that address to register your US iTunes Store account!)
- So, how do you get one of these iTunes Store Gift Card/Voucher thingies? in one of two ways basically: (a) you get someone in the States to buy them for you there, and let you have the codes; or (2) you buy them yourself via any one of a number of online vendors. For most of us, option (2) will be the one we use so here are a couple of sites to consider using for your purchase:
Revised iTunes Vouchers & Vendors List - Whichever way you decide to go, once you have your iTunes Store Voucher codes in hand, head back to your iTunes application, go to the iTunes Store link (making sure that you are logged into the US iTunes Store with your new account of course) and click the “Redeem” link under the Quick Links section near the top right of the screen. Enter your code and you should be all good to go! (When redeeming your code, you will be asked to re-enter your account password.)
- This process and the account you’ve created should now allow you to purchase any item in the US iTunes Store – music, video, apps, the lot. It should also work for Mac App Store purchases if you are using that service via your Apple MacBook. Obviously you’ll need to log in to the Mac App Store using the Apple ID account credentials you just created.
- Let us know if you try this, if you find a better iTunes Voucher deal anywhere, or if you just want to say thank you
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Hi I have tried changing my apple ID on my iPad to ensure that the same ID will be reflected on my I tunes account,however when creating a new apple ID they ask for payment details and there is no “none” option -please assist
Dave
Hi Dave
Not sure where the problem is because I’m not sure what you are trying to do?
If you are trying to create a new ID be sure that you have signed your existing account out of the iTunes Store (go to the App Store on your iPad, select “Featured”, scroll the the bottom and if the button on the bottom left has your Apple ID on it, you are signed in with that account. Hit the button and choose “Sign Out” from the menu).
Then check that you are also signed out of the iTunes Store on your PC – go to “Store” on the iTunes menu and check for the “Sign Out” option near the bottom. If it says “Sign In” then you are good to go.
If you are sure you have completely signed out of your existing ID, and then follow the tutorial closely – double check you are in the US store, double double check you select a FREE app to download – it should work as described. Also, remember that you will need to use an email address that is different to any one that you have used with an Apple ID in the past.
Let us know if you get it sorted out, or if you are still stuck what you’ve tried and we’ll see if we can resolve it for you.
Cant recall if this has ever been mentioned but you have to go to FREE APPS and use a free app. It wont work with free songs, free books, free anything else, and not “Free on iTunes”.
Hi, I have successfully registered a US id thank you. My question is how do i transfer the apps bought on the sa id to the us id to avoid switching ids on the ipad the whole time.
Hi Elsje, and welcome to The BlaBla Blog
Glad to hear that you have sorted the iTunes store out. Sadly, the answer to your question is not such a pleasing one.
The short answer is no you cant transfer the apps bought on the SA App Store ID to your new US ID. Apple simply do not allow this to be done.
Theoretically you could contact Apple Support and plead your case with them and get them to move all your old purchases to your new ID, but that would require a very strong justification as to why you want it to happen. And in our case, we technically shouldn’t be using US iStore accounts in SA, so they might get a little grumpy with you and shut down both your accounts, so this is not an option I recommend
As you have discovered, you should still be ale to use both sets of apps on your iPad without problem, but will have to manually log in to the old account whenever you want to update the SA bought apps. Tedious, but bearable.
My advice would be to go through the SA purchased apps carefully and (1) delete the ones you dont use entirely, (2) list and then delete any Free apps you do use and then reinstall them from the US account later, (3) contact the publisher/developer of the Paid apps you still want or need and ask them if they would be prepared to give you a redeem code for their app to allow you to reinstall them on your new ID and delete the licence against your old ID.
For the rest you need to either simply live with them being out of date, or accept the login-logout-login again routine.
Have a read of the 1st page of this Apple Support Forum post: http://bit.ly/Q7DMFx
He Greg,
I managed to create new apple id -get itunes voucher from wildtwig, but when I try and redeem voucher the following message appears “This apple id has not yet been used with the itunes store” Review account info- so then it takes you to payment method which I marked none and address details which are all filled in with details from fake name generator and when i try and proceed it tells me to contact Itunes support to complete the transaction – PLEASE HELP
Hi Dave
Not near a machine to test right now, but 2 quick things to check which may help.
First did you have an old ID account at all? If you did you need to check that the email address you have used for your new account is not listed as a secondary email on the original account. If you did have an old account, go to apple.com, sign in with the old ID and then check the settings for “secondary email address”. Change or delete it if needed.
Second thing: I’ve only ever heard of this error occurring if the account is created directly on the iPad. Was that your approach too? The recommendation in either case is to use iTunes on your Mac/PC and once the new ID has been created and verified to login on iTunes with the new ID, authorize the machine with the account, and then actually do a download of the free app that you used at the beginning of the process.
Once you have managed to download least one free app with the new account you should then be able to login on your iPad, load your voucher code and download some paid apps.
Give that a try and let us know how you get on.
Hi Greg,
Followed your instructions deleted 2nd email address on old I’d -tried to access iTunes on pc with new apple I’d but still tells me this I d has not been used with iTunes store and I should review my address which is the American one – not too sure where to go now?
Hey Greg,
Finally managed to get all working- updated to iOS 6 and tried to redeem gift voucher and it went through- thanks for your blog and advice
Great to hear that you have sorted it all out Dave. Hopefully that’ll be the only time you have any problems and your future iTune shopping will go without a hitch.
Thanks for letting us know how you managed to fix things – I’m sure your experience will help others in the same situation.
HI,
Having problems with Wildtwig. Created the US account successfully but iTunes won’t redeem the voucher. Wildtwig have created a link into iTunes but iTunes responds saying there is an error (1001) what ever that is – try again later. Still no success several hours later. Opening the account and going to redeem and entering the code manually gets the response that the code is invalid. Have emailed Wildtwig who checked the numbers and said they are valid. They then said there are problems using PC’s with iTunes and I should use an iPhone or iPad. Would rather have downloads on the PC and a keyboard is better for organising things. Any suggetions other than trying another voucher vendor
Steve
Hey Steve. Sorry to hear that you are having issues with your voucher – got to be frustrating I’m sure.
First off let me say that I have never heard of an error (1001) and cant find any mention of it ether on the trusty Google Knows All in relation to redeeming iTunes vouchers. For this reason everything I suggest in this post is pure speculation at this stage – I cant promise it will work at all.
The only mentions I can find of the error seem to be related to either network connection errors or time-outs, or to software updates failing to download correctly. I’d start there for no other reason than I haven’t got anything else to suggest. First off check that your iTunes software is up-to-date. 10.7.0.21 is the version number in my install (select Help menu and then “About iTunes” to check). Just above that option you can confirm you are running the most recent version of iTunes by clicking the “Check for Updates” option.
Obviously if an update is available, download and install it. This should also confirm the second suggestion – check that your internet connection is stable and that you aren’t experiencing random disconnects or time-outs. Bare in mind too that the problems could be on the iTunes store side as well – it’s not unheard of that the mighty apple men have occasional issues with the istore servers.
Other than that, I am at a loss to suggest anything else. I have personally purchased vouchers from wildtwig on a number of occasions and have used every code that I have received successfully. I’ve purchased vouchers and applied them automatically using the confirmation screen link via my PC and on my iPad directly, and I have manually entered the code into a entirely different iTunes account from my own on a different PC for my wife. They definitely do work via iTunes on the PC.
Having said that though, have you tried manually entering the code directly into your iTunes account on your iPad/iPhone at all? I honestly find it a heck of a lot easier, especially if I just use the same device to purchase the voucher in the first place.
Go to iTunes, scroll to the bottom of the screen (on my iPhone the Store loads “New Releases” in the Music category). Just above the Apple ID and current account balance is a “Redeem” option. Tapping that will take you to a manual code entry screen.
If you are dead set on using the PC though the only other things I can suggest are checking, rechecking and double checking again that you are registered and logged in to the correct account in the US iTunes Store. Check under the Store menu in iTunes towards the bottom should be an option that says “Sign out”. If it does, you are logged in. Just below that will be a menu item saying “View my account (with your ID in brackets)”.
If all of that checks out okay, double check that the PC you are using has been correctly authorised to access the iStore with that ID. Again from the Store menu, select “Authorise this computer…”. If you have already you’ll get a message confirming that fact, if you haven’t you’ll be told what number the device is in your authorisation set (you can only authorise a maximum of 5 per Apple ID account).
Finally, and again an extreme long shot, double check that the ID you are using was definitely created in the US store – select iTunes Store from the left-hand menu, and in the main store window on the right, scroll to the very bottom and look for the US flag icon in the bottom right-hand corner. If it’s there you are aces. If it’s some other flag your US Store iTunes voucher will fail.
I seriously do hope you find the fault and get sorted Steve. Again, I can only personally vouch for Wildtwig based on my own experiences with them. On that basis I would be hesitant to assume that the voucher code you have from them is bad and would worry about spending more money at a different vendor, only to have the same problem occur with their code too.
Whatever you do decide to do, please let us know if you ever work out the cause of the problem – you may well be helping others.
Best of the best Irish luck to ya.
HI Greg,
Thanks for your long reply. Will check for updates etc and have another go on the PC today. One other question, as I am a newbe at this, my iPhone and iPad are at the moment twinned with my SA account. I also signed up for iCloud which I hope isn’t a complication. When I connected to iTunes in the US account I get a box asking if I want to change the settings on my iPhone. Have not responded as yet as I am unsure where that is taking me. Can you advise?
Thanks,
Steve
Hey Steve.
Yip, my understanding of the way the Apple ID works is that it associates itself with your ITunes and devices, and subsequently with your files, etc that you add to our iCloud account. You can use more than one account on each device (say a SA account and a US account) and just switch between them by logging out and then logging in with the new account.
But the apps, etc that you install using a specific account remain connected to that account. Ideally you want to stick to the ID that you have the most use and joy from. In my opinion that would mean the US account based solely on the availibility of apps and media in the US store compared to the SA store.
Final note on iCloud, and again this from a purely personal point of view. I am heavily dependant on MS Outlook for my calendar and contacts listings and found a number of complications and hiccups when I initially used icloud to sync them. The relationship between the two different operating environments gets s little confused sometimes. I’m sure that if you are working in a Mac environment things would go smoother. The attraction of iCloud is certainly huge – add an appointment on your iPhone and it automagically gets duplicated on your iPad and in your Outlook calendar. But I personally found the conflicts and duplications a little much and after using it to creat a cloud-based bsckup of my contact lists I have since disabled iCloud.
I may well revisit it after the new operating system arrives later this week to see if it has changed any though.
Hi Greg
I found I had the same issue as Steve when trying to redeem a Wildtwig gift voucher that I purchased today. The error given was: We could not complete your iTunes Store request. An unknown error occured (1001). This error appears after clicking the Wildtwig link and entering my iTunes password when requested by iTunes. The error also appears when trying to enter the code manually into iTunes. I am running the latest version of iTunes on OS X Mountain Lion with all updates applied. I tried several times over several hours with no success. I logged in and out of iTunes to confirm that the Apple logon servers were working. I also successfully purchased an app with my previously loaded balance, and in that case the password was accepted. Just not accepted for redeeming the voucher. I googled the error and found this post. On it’s recommendation I tried to enter the same code from my iPhone directly and it worked immediately. Thank you for the help! By the way, have never had a problem with Wildtwig before, and I suspect this problem is on the Apple side.
cheers, Mike
Hi Mike
Thanks for confirming that entering the voucher code directly on your iPhone works to solve this elusive error 1001.
And also for letting me know that the great google-bot has picked up on this posts’ comments. Hopefully it will able others having the same problem.
Good to hear too that your faith in Wildtwig is still solid.
Two thumbs up for you!
Maybe this 1001 error is related to the fact that everyone is updating their iDevices to iOS 6, so Apple’s servers are being hit hard. It should return to normal in a couple of days. Just a thought.
I think JCD has a very valid point there. And it would tie in with the references to error 1001′s being related to either network connection errors or time-outs, or to software updates failing to download correctly.
Hopefully all those suffering from this issue get things sorted out eventually.
hi, im having trouble making the account, i fill all the data in (fake name generator) click continue and it says please contact i tunes support to complete transaction, eish, now what
Hi. From the above it certainly appears you’re an xpert in these matters so I look fwd to your reply. I have a US iTunes account on which I run my iPad. Occasionally I wld like to buy music (not apps) from the SA store as it can b cheaper with the exchange rate. Is this possible? Once purchased and downloaded I assume I can do what I want with it such as convert the song to mp3 (I have software for this). I assume once downloaded there is no DRM in place?
Morning Clinton
Not entirely sure about the “expert” label, but we’ll take the compliment, thanks.
It is ironical that your question is what caused this post to be made all those months ago – the desire to purchase music locally. It’s come full circle now.
DRM restrictions are odd to say the least, but in general your approach is precisely how I do it. Two entirely separate accounts, each with its’ own email address and billing info is pretty much what I have in place, and like you intend, I only use the SA store account for music downloads.
I am maybe a little paranoid about it, so only ever use the SA account on a different machine, never log into it on my main machine nor on any of my devices. Once downloaded, the file is in M4A format. If I want the music on my other machine or on my phone I then convert it to MP3, copy it over to the main machine with a flash or external drive, and then synch it to my iTunes library and subsequently to the phone.
Works for me. Hope that helps?
Ok thx. In this case I’ll do the same! Wld love to know what happens when switching btw these accounts on the same machine/device tho. Pity we don’t know someone who has done this….