Cheap ipad Ooops, I mean tablet

[Devils Advocate]

Good Stuff Sid.

I'll copy,paste and fire those points off to her if it's ok with you.

Perfect
Thanks

[peteroldracer]

"Do you have a UK iTunes account? "
It would only let me open an account in Spain, as my billing details are there - there are various bits of Apple where I can change the language (I am still more comfortable in English, and guess now always will be) but the default used for their stuff is, naturally Spanish. They sent me a "how did we do" survey by email, but in all honesty, though I wanted to tell them hos good they were, I just could not be bothered to wade through all the stuff with dictionary to hand, so I sent it back with a comment to that effect!

[El Cid]

I had the same problem as although I have a UK credit card it is registered to my Spanish address.

If you try and set up a UK store account it will reject you when you enter your credit card details.

There is a way round this. Try ordering a free app on the UK iTunes site. When it gets to asking you for payment details it will give you the option not to have a payment method.

Find a friend/family member in the UK who has a UK account and get them to buy you iTunes gift vouchers which you then redeem on your iTunes account and pay them directly (or get them to give you some for Xmas/birthday presents). It's a sort of PAYG account and works fine for me.

Sid

[peteroldracer]

I'll give that a go Sid - it is virtually the same as the way we got round the Kindle/Amazon.es problem, where OH's granddaughter bought HER a Kindle Fire in the UK, set up the account (one of her accounts) and I chuck a bit of money in now and again - though I rarely download any book costing more than 69 cents and most are free!
Would I then need to dump the Spanish account, or do they not put 2 and 2 together?

[El Cid]

No, you can have multiple accounts using different email addresses and credit card details. If you need a second EM address Gmail will provide it. It' subset to stick to one account as it gets complicated when apps need to be updated and you can't remember which account you downloaded it through.

Just set up the UK account and use that where possible. If you run out of credit use your Spanish account but make a note of which apps are registered to each account. You can get most apps in English on the Spanish site but not all. I wanted a UK account to download films to my Apple TV and there is a difference there as they don't have multiple languages so you must get them from the UK store.

Sid

[IreneD]

Ooh, that's interesting! I have a Blackberry Playbook which was set up in the UK so I have no problem buying books from Amazon.co.uk. OH's Kindle Fire was set up here so he gets books from Amazon.es. Could he somehow use my account to get his books or am I totally misunderstanding?

[peteroldracer]

Trying to set up a non-credit card account with my gmail email address, it will not allow creation of an ID without a reference number for gift certificate, so. This must be sorted first. Another job for tomorrow!

[El Cid]

Ooh, that's interesting! I have a Blackberry Playbook which was set up in the UK so I have no problem buying books from Amazon.co.uk. OH's Kindle Fire was set up here so he gets books from Amazon.es. Could he somehow use my account to get his books or am I totally misunderstanding?

Kindles are not a problem. Go to "Manage my Kindle" and move the registration to the UK.

It shouldn't be a problem.

Sid

[El Cid]

Trying to set up a non-credit card account with my gmail email address, it will not allow creation of an ID without a reference number for gift certificate, so. This must be sorted first. Another job for tomorrow!

Are you trying to do this with a free app? If it's free it shouldn't ask you for any payment method or gift certificate.

Sid

[masterob]

El Cid wrote:
I had the same problem as although I have a UK credit card it is registered to my Spanish address.

If you try and set up a UK store account it will reject you when you enter your credit card details.

I have two Accounts, one Spanish and one UK. The Spanish one is registered to my Spanish e-mail address. The UK one to my Hotmail.co.uk account. I use a Spanish credit card for the Spanish account and a UK card for the UK one. Both cards are registered to my address here in Spain. I have never had any difficulties.

Not sure how that squares up with the problem you say you have with your UK card registered to your Spanish address.

[IreneD]

Thanks, Sid - we did try that but it wouldn't accept it. We'll try again

[El Cid]

When I attempted to set up a UK account it asked for a UK address and credit card. The card was rejected as the UK address I used is not the same as the address the card is registered to which is in Spain.

From the Apple forums it appears to be a common problem and that is where I found the work around that I posted. This was over a year ago so things may have changed now.

Sid

[peteroldracer]

I fear that there is one change - when you go to create an Apple ID (my present one is of course linked to me in Spain, by my email address) the form offers a choice of credit card - I can move the 'tick' around between Maestro/Visa/Amex etc but not remove the tick!
I have things to do this morning but will come back to the problem later - probably just as well as the perennial problem of having to duck and dive to be able to buy things and services from where I want really frustrates me!
Surely these things amount to restrictive practice? I am beginning to feel that is how I will be putting things to Apple...

[gus-lopez]

It is a common problem with Uk cards registered to a Spanish address, it is not possible for the systems to check & so it refuses. Paypal is worst of all.
Whenever I buy now I always ask the question whether the cards will be accepted first to save wasting my time .I've even taken it up with the CC issuers & they just say it is a problem " they are looking at"??
Why should a simple 5 minute purchase waste half a day or more of my time ?

[peteroldracer]

Why should a simple 5 minute purchase waste half a day or more of my time ?

It has already spoilt the way I feel about the iPad.

[El Cid]

Quite honestly it makes little difference as almost all the apps are in English and available from both stores. The only reason I wanted a UK account was for downloading films where the choice can be different and unlike a DVD they are not multi language.

It's even worse with the Google store as it is almost impossible to access the UK store when you are in Spain.

It's all to do with different pricing caused by different VAT rates and also there are the usual rights holder conflicts.

I have just tried to set up another UK account. It worked as I previously said - you must attempt to buy a free item from the app store and it will ask you to sign into your account or create one. When you get to the end of the process it offers you various payment options including a box with the option "none" in it.


Sid

[markwilding]

The work around for google play,
Connect to expat shield on laptop, sign in to googleplay on laptop, then click app you want to install and it will download to the phone.

[peteroldracer]

Yet another hurdle created by what I can only think is a work-creation scheme for geeks (present company excepted!) who understand the techno-babble: I have a gmail account, so tried to use this to set up a 2nd Apple ID. It only offers a few mail providers, gmail not being one of them, but selecting "Other" means that I am asked questions that I do not know the answers to ("POP"? etc) and more annoyingly no explanation of what these are and how to find them out!
In the good old days when I had a PowerMac desktop, virtually everything was plug-and-play, or handled by the system, now it is all as bad as the Microsoft stuff!
So, I cannot set up an Apple ID to link to a UK iTunes account, so cannot get to the stage of selecting 'none' as a payment option.
If you hear a strange knocking noise, it will be my head banging on a wall...

[El Cid]

You aren't setting up an iTunes account - that would only require you to give an email adders and it could be any email provider.

It sounds like you are setting up a Gmail account on the iPad which is an entirely different thing, and yes, there are a limited number of options, one of which is a Gmail account.

Just go to the iTunes App Store and you can do this on your PC or using the App Store app on the iPad. Select a free app and it will take you a page where you will be asked to enter your iTunes account info. Select set up a new account and go on from there until you get to the payments options and select"none"

That should do it.

Sid

[El Cid]

A further point. If you go to the App Store on the iPad it will default to your existing Spanish account. You need to sign out of this. Go to Settings and on the left hand panel scroll down to "iTunes and App Store".

At the top you will see your Spanish account email address. Click on that and select "sign out".

Now go to the App Store and try to order a free app and you can then get to the new account option.

Sid