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I don’t know why we didn’t take action on this sooner. We should start right here to voice our need for an Egyptian App Store or a Middle East/Africa App Store, just like all the other countries.
Speaking of which; iPhone3G is only sold officially in 3 countries in the Middle East (Egypt, Jordan, Qatar). App store is tied to iTunes store, I’m not sure if in order to have an App store we should have iTunes store first *update* I just read that a country can have App store without the rest of iTunes stuff. Here are the Middle East/Africa countries that do have iTunes stores:
- Kuwait
- Lebanon
- Qatar
- Saudi Arabia
- South Africa
Only South Africa and Qatar (iPhone coming soon) have App stores and iPhone Sales!!
Egypt, Jordan along with 11 other African countries are store-less !!
UAE has an App Store, but surprisingly no official iPhone sales.
Steps to EAUG members should take:
- Petition
- Send Apple an E-mail and find out the real reason why there is no App Store? (they answer in 24 hours)
- Get advice from Apple’s User Group Advisory Board (we are part of it, pending approval)
- Help out as a user group when we can.
Speaking to other Apple UGs I got a surprising reply
Lack of Egyptian App store may not be all Apple’s fault. Why does the Egyptian government prohibit civilian use of GPS? How would Apple deal with Apps in it’s store that won’t work as advertised because Egyptian iPhone is crippled?
Fair enough … this will put extra effort on Apple’s part, hence a delay in App Store Launch
sources:
7 Responses to “The road to Egyptian App Store, starts here!”
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January 22nd, 2009 at 5:27 pm
Hi Admin,
I’ve opened an SR with apple due to the fact I can not create an iTune account. They promised to have an Application Store for Egypt, but of course they did not provide dates …
Hope we can manage to move it forward. I have to create an account through Qatar App Store as they do not verify the address like the US or UK.
hGaber
January 22nd, 2009 at 5:40 pm
Hi hGaber,
“I have to create an account through Qatar App Store as they do not verify the address like the US or UK”
Is this Apples Official response to everybody in your situation?
Also can you tell us what differences there are between the Qatar store and the USA store. Can you find google Earth?
January 22nd, 2009 at 6:44 pm
Hi Admin,
Here Apple’s official reply:
“Although I cannot comment on future expansion plans of the iTunes Store, you can rest assured that Apple is committed to bringing the iTunes Store to people around the world.”
As for using Qatar App Store, it was my research as I’ve tried to register to many stores, and Qatar was the easiest one.
Regarding Google Earth, I will check it and come back to you soon.
BR
Hany
January 23rd, 2009 at 4:43 pm
Slight correction to you, we only have App Store in UAE, no music, TV and movies. Why we have App Store though I don’t get since we don’t have iPhone yet, perhaps it’s to run apps on iPod touch but then all countries should have App Stores, right?
I wish you well in your campaign. Perhaps we can start something on a Middle East level in Shufflegazine.
January 24th, 2009 at 4:49 pm
Hi Admin,
I was able to download both Google Mobile App & Google Earth through the US App Store.
You can follow the steps in this link to create US App Store account without a credit card:
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT2534
Enjoy
January 26th, 2009 at 12:35 am
Speaking to other Apple UGs I got a surprising reply that didn’t really cross my mind.
“Lack of Egyptian App store may not be all Apple’s fault. Why does the Egyptian government prohibit civilian use of GPS? How would Apple deal with Apps in it’s store that won’t work as advertised because Egyptian iPhone is crippled?”
Fair enough … this will put extra effort on Apple’s part to filter out all the apps that use GPS , hence a delay in App Store Launch
January 29th, 2009 at 2:56 am
Hi everyone i found away to get around the itunes store prob i took the thread from someone who recommended using the quatar store and did it actually but found that it’s a very poor store with only app store and not even all the apps (couldn’t find google maps there) and the U S store verifies the address and zip code so the easiest way is to put a real address and zip code and phone # how to do this is by going to the US yllow pages and pick any address u want and use it now i have google maps which is amazing by the way so try it