Sometimes, being in Canada just plain sucks.
by Carl Mercier
Ok. This definitely goes in the rant category. I got myself a shiny new iPhone 3G. I decided to play by the rules (this time): I didn’t unlock it, I didn’t jailbreak it. Problem is, most of the apps I want are not available here. What gives?
Just to name a few: Pandora, Loopt, AOL Radio, Google Mobile. Why does technology always have to suck in Canada? Not only we get ripped off BAD by mobile carriers, but we can’t do half of what people in the US can do with their mobile devices.
EDIT: and some more: Jott, Evernote, Yelp, Save Benjis, Ebay Mobile,
One word: proxy
Denis: I thought of that, and I immediately started an EC2 instance with Squid to try it out. It didn’t work because Apple looks at your billing information, not your IP.
I finally found a way around everything. I have a US Paypal account for my company, so I changed my country to US in my iTunes Store account, and linked it with my US Paypal account. Works fine! (You may want to try linking your account with a Canadian Paypal account, it might work as well, not sure).
So now I can download apps, but I still can’t use some of them: Loopt is useless if you’re the only one around you using it, Yelp doesn’t have Canadian data, and Pandora won’t let you stream music if you’re on a Canadian IP. The solution would be to go through a US proxy all the time from my phone, but it’s kind of a hassle.
Nevertheless, I’m glad I found a workaround!
You don’t wanna use Loopt, trust me! It’s an evil app that sends SMS spam to all of your friends. STAY AWAY!
Try and see if last.fm works.
There are many annoyances in Canada in regards to the web. I already have 2 paypal accounts (1 US and 1 Canadian) and in fact, while I was in the US, I had a paypal credit card which unfortunately expired since then. Since I don’t have a physical address there, I no longer have it. The benefits were not that great anyways.
Sometimes Canada is seen as another US state, but in reality, we’re more like a totally different continent…
Oh well, perhaps someday people will understand that the Internet is International after all…
Pants: last.fm does work, but I greatly prefer Pandora
Denis: totally agreed. The lack of competition and stupid regulations make us look like a 3rd world country when it comes to technology
Hi Carl,
Just thought you should know we just brought Save Benjis to Canada. Apple isn’t counting it as a new release, but its now on the Canadian App Store. I wrote a quick note about it on my website.