Releasing of content to the Appstore

By Q, 30 January, 2013

Forum
iOS and iPadOS

Hi all

Lately there has been some really cool apps and games released for the iDevices, and many of them caiter for the VI community as well. This really is applaudable.
The only downside to all this, is that some of the apps are not released to app stores worldwide, meaning that, if you live in some countries, you cannot buy these games, unless of course, if you create another iTunes account.
This can be done, but still, if you want to update the software you bought from an app store in another country, you have to go through the schlep of signing out of your default iTunes account, and back into the other one. Once you got all the updates, and did all the perchases from your "secondary" iTunes account, it's going through the whole rigmarole of signing out of said account, and back into your default again.

Another thing is that, if you're not signed into your "secondary" account, you won't know when updates for the apps you bought there, are available.

Now I am by no means an expert on laws governing releases of apps to stores across the globe, and i don't know what it is that constitutes a developer's rights to release to certain countries only. I'd appreciate it if someone who is more knowledgeable in this field could explain all the do's and don't's, the pro's and cons to me.

I realise of course, that this is an issue that affects every consumer of apps worldwide, and that it is not just restricted to the VI community. However, seeing as developing apps that accomodate the VI is a bit more specialised, if you will, I'd like to ask that, where it is at all possible for developers to release their content worldwide, I really would like to apeal to you to do so. Not only would it give the entire world access to your work, i'm sure you as developers would benifit from it financially as well.

Thanks for hearing me out, and I look forward to being enlightened about this whole issue.

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Comments

By Esther on Saturday, February 2, 2013 - 20:12

Hi, I notice that you're writing from South Africa when you ask about the availability of game apps in the app stores of certain countries, and "what it is that constitutes a developer's rights to release to certain countries only." Two years ago, when two chess apps, Shredder Chess and Chess-wise, were made accessible, the developer of Chess-wise provided information to the viphone list that the new versions would be appearing in app stores around the world. List members from South Africa and Brazil reported that the app was not available, and the developer, once made aware of this, followed up on this. Here''s a section of the forwarded reply: "And I found out why Chess-wise is not available in South Africa and Brazil: national laws in these countries require games to be approved by a censor committee, and therefore Apple has decided to exclude all games from these stores. I know there are some developers who have gotten around this. Apple called me to discuss, but strange enough they had no idea how to help me. Sorry…" He did finally manage to get his app added to these stores, but I have no idea of what additional measures were needed to accomplish this. Maybe someone from other affected countries can provide more information. The point is that in this instance the developer was not trying to restrict distribution of his apps, was only made aware of the problem when directly contacted, and did not know beforehand that the laws of these countries required extra steps to get games approved by censor committees, or even how to go about doing so. HTH. Esther

By Q on Saturday, February 2, 2013 - 20:12

Hi Esther Thanks for shedding some light onto this for me. It is interesting, and hopefully the developer who managed to get his games downloaded in SA, would be able to elaborate further. One can only hope that authorities here in SA will wake up some day and allow content freely. I mean, we've only been allowed access to the iTunes store 2 months ago, so there is light at the end of the tunnel, ... i hope.