Is changing iTunes Stores possible?

[cutter74]

I am located in Europe and I want to change my apple id region/country in order to access the US iTunes store.

The reason for this is that I want to start building my movie library on Apple TV and for a reason I can't understand, unlike the app pricing, movies are much more expensive in the European stores when compared to the US one; not to mention the deals that are regularly offered on the US store but not on the European ones. Since my ideal library would eventually consist of thousands of titles, as you can understand the difference in price makes a huge difference.

I don't have a US credit card, nor a US address. Is there a way to change my existing apple id to use the US store? Maybe a workaround with PayPal or with the purchase and use of Gift cards?

 

[jpn]

I am located in Europe and I want to change my apple id region/country in order to access the US iTunes store.

The reason for this is that I want to start building my movie library on Apple TV and for a reason I can't understand, unlike the app pricing, movies are much more expensive in the European stores when compared to the US one; not to mention the deals that are regularly offered on the US store but not on the European ones. Since my ideal library would eventually consist of thousands of titles, as you can understand the difference in price makes a huge difference.

I don't have a US credit card, nor a US address. Is there a way to change my existing apple id to use the US store? Maybe a workaround with PayPal or with the purchase and use of Gift cards?

hi
having the need to have my own day to day apple id / store associated with apple in japan, i understand exactly why you want to do this.
the answer is not so straight forward.

unfortunately one apple id account can be only associated with one country / apple store.
in my case,i wanted USA television programming but unfortunately no TV programming at all has even come to to the apple Japan apple TV yet. only movies. its always been like this in the case of japan.

anyway, several years ago i made apple accounts in both the USA store (for USA TV programming) as well as the Hong Kong store as well (siince i needed several apps that were only available in the hong kong store).
the problem (at least at that time) was that even though i had/have a USA credit card, it of course uses my home address in japan as my home address, and that card is not able to be used to purchase things in the USA store for that reason.

so i needed to buy iTunes prepaid cards from places that have them on sale in the USA, and used them to make purchases from the USA store.
its still probably the most used way to do what you and i need.
there is a way to set up yr USA account so that it doesn't need a USA credit card, and then once its set up, you can fund it with iTunes prepaid cards. i think it will work with apple Pay as well, even though yr apple Pay might be funded with a non-USA credit card.

i have all this TV programming both on my computer as well as backed up on several large capacity USB. and the good news is that these shows still were able to be imported into apple TV (within the last few months this was done).
since you can't use yr current ID or even change yr ID to a different store, you need to make a new account ID.
remember this is on a mac. i don't know if any of this works to allow syncing of content you purchased in an apple store which doesn't reflect yr normally used store. (i can't check this since apple TV in japan doesn't even allow any TV programming. but i think syncing of content across iOS/macOS did work in the days of apple iTunes.)
the bad thing about this is that i needed to always log out of my japan apple id whenever i switched to the USA store, and then log back into the japan store. this deletes all previously downloaded japanese store bought apple music content so that always (still) needs to be re-downloaded every time i switch stores.

i have often thought of buying a device that just simply is used continuously with a USA store id.
if your looking at maybe around a thousand titles, then a mac mini or Air Pad with just links to titles, shown through Air Play to a video screen would be a great way to have it always using the USA store id.
that would be great as a home base; then buy an iPod Touch using that USA id for mobile access to yr library. (screen is only 4" though).

 

[cutter74]

hi
having the need to have my own day to day apple id / store associated with apple in japan, i understand exactly why you want to do this.
the answer is not so straight forward.

unfortunately one apple id account can be only associated with one country / apple store.
in my case, television programming has not even come to apple TV yet. only movies.
its always been like this in the case of japan.

so several years ago i made apple accounts in both the USA store (for USA TV programming) as well as the Hong Kong store as well (siince i needed several apps that were only available in the hong kong store).
the problem (at least at that time) was that even though i had/have a USA credit card, its tied to my home address in japan, and that card was not able to be used to purchase things in the USA store for that reason.

so i needed to buy iTunes prepaid cards from places that have them on sale in the USA, and used them to make purchases from the USA store.
its still probably the most used way to do what you and i need.
there is a way to set up yr USA account so that it doesn't need a USA credit card, and then once its set up, you can fund it with iTunes prepaid cards. i think it will work with apple Pay as well, even though yr apple Pay might be funded with a non-USA credit card.

i have all this TV programming both on my computer as well as backed up on several large capacity USB. and the good news is that these shows still were able to be imported into apple TV (within the last few months this was done).
since you can't use yr current ID or even change yr ID to a different store, you need to make a new account ID.
remember this is on a mac. i don't know if any of this works to allow syncing of content you purchased in an apple store which doesn't reflect yr normally used store. (i can't check this since apple TV in japan doesn't even allow any TV programming. but i think syncing of content across iOS/macOS did work in the days of apple iTunes.)
the bad thing about this is that i needed to always log out of my japan apple id whenever i switched to the USA store, and then log back into the japan store. this deletes all downloaded apple music content so that always (still) needs to be redownloaded every time i switch stores.

i have often thought of buying a device that just simply is used continuously with a USA store id.
if your looking at maybe around a thousand titles, then a mac mini or Air Pad with just links to titles, shown through Air Play to a video screen would be a great way to have it always using the USA store id.
that would be great as a home base; then buy an iPod Tough using that USA id for mobile access to yr library. (screen is only 4" though).

Thank you so much for taking the time to write all this, niji! There's lots of stuff to consider here...

Personally, I wouldn't mind permanently assigning certain apple devices (such as my Apple TVs and maybe an older iPad) to US apple ID accounts. What I find troubling though is whether this is something that is indeed a viable permanent solution or not. What if somewhere down the line, Apple limits access to the US Store, based on, say the IP address. I know VPNs, blah, blah, but this was just an example; it could be virtually anything.

I's frightening to think that I could be spending thousands of dollars (well, euros in my case ), only to wake up one morning and find my account locked, my collection unavailable and my investment lost! In this scenario, family sharing also wouldn't work, since you can't share purchased items between Apple IDs belonging to different countries...

It looks like I may have to rethink this... the US account creation seems like a huge gamble. I may have to wait for Apple to change their movie pricing in Europe (because there's no way I am paying twice as much as the US pricing for thousands of titles I'm interested in), or else abandon this plan altogether...

 

[jpn]

Thank you so much for taking the time to write all this, niji! There's lots of stuff to consider here...

Personally, I wouldn't mind permanently assigning certain apple devices (such as my Apple TVs and maybe an older iPad) to US apple ID accounts. What I find troubling though is whether this is something that is indeed a viable permanent solution or not. What if somewhere down the line, Apple limits access to the US Store, based on, say the IP address. I know VPNs, blah, blah, but this was just an example; it could be virtually anything.

I's frightening to think that I could be spending thousands of dollars (well, euros in my case ), only to wake up one morning and find my account locked, my collection unavailable and my investment lost! In this scenario, family sharing also wouldn't work, since you can't share purchased items between Apple IDs belonging to different countries...

It looks like I may have to rethink this... the US account creation seems like a huge gamble. I may have to wait for Apple to change their movie pricing in Europe (because there's no way I am paying twice as much as the US pricing for thousands of titles I'm interested in), or else abandon this plan altogether...

hi

you are right in thinking not to trust a VPN-ed address resulting in always being able to access data when outside that site's allowed IPs.
for example, Netflix will allow any kind of VPN-ed address at all. even the worst, most ill positioned VPN servers. i think this allows them to say to their content providers that they are respecting the content providers jurisdictional limitations.
but amazon in japan definitely can spot an IP as coming in through a VPN and rejects them all, for its Prime content, unless the IP does originate within japan. no VPN can spoof an IP good enough to fool amazon japan.

but in the case of apple, they haven't taken to using a person's apparent IP to limit any iCloud services.
apple is all about using the power of the entire global internet to sync content for users.
i think you will be ok on that.
instead, they have preferred to tie a person to an original geography defined by his/her apple store to deal with content provider rights and its market pricing strategy (which is why you and are trying to find a better way that works).

you are also heading in the right direction to think that a dedicated device or two for use of USA store content might be the way to go.
but an additional thing to consider however, is that if you want to have Family Sharing enabled for that content and for them to see it on their devices, all connected family members must have an apple ID associated with the USA store...that was a real let down for me when i realized my family could not easily share this USA bought content.

my advice is ease into it and open a USA account ID and purchase through UK apple Pay or through prepaid iTunes cards; using it on an old apple device. and see if a larger scope does work for you in yr lifestyle situation.

or, and apologies to apple for this, if streaming instead of "ownership" is ok, then invest in an amazon UK Prime membership. it keeps payments and id and home address all within yr own country.
it will be a very cheap, one yearly cost, and the amount of content for free for amazon prime members is huge.
if the content needs to be rented or purchased, the prices in most amazon stores outside the USA is about 50% to 75% cheaper than than what you and i would be paying for renting/purchasing the same content at a non-USA apple store.
yesterday i just also discovered that amazon prime's Kindle has a huge selection of kindle books that are actually totally free! and immediately downloaded 10 (you can only keep up to 10 at any one time).

wish you good luck.

 

[cutter74]

hi

you are right in thinking not to trust a VPN-ed address resulting in always being able to access data when outside that site's allowed IPs.
for example, Netflix will allow any kind of VPN-ed address at all. even the worst, most ill positioned VPN servers. i think this allows them to say to their content providers that they are respecting the content providers juridictional limitations.
but amazon in japan definitely can spot an IP as coming in through a VPN and rejects them all, for its Prime content, unless the IP does originate within japan. no VPN can spoof an IP good enough to fool amazon japan.

but in the case of apple, they haven't taken to using a person's apparent IP to limit any iCloud services.
apple is all about using the power of the entire global internet to sync content for users.
i think you will be ok on that.
instead, they have preferred to tie a person to an original geography defined by his/her apple store to deal with content provider rights and its market pricing strategy (which is why you and are trying to find a better way that works).

you are also heading in the right direction to think that a dedicated device or two for use of USA store content might be the way to go.
but an additional thing to consider however, is that if you want to have Family Sharing enabled for that content and for them to see it on their devices, all connected family members must have an apple ID associated with the USA store...that was a real let down for me when i realized my family could not easily share this USA bought content.

my advice is ease into it and open a USA account ID and purchase through UK apple Pay or through prepaid iTunes cards; using it on an old apple device. and see if a larger scope does work for you in yr lifestyle situation.

or, and apologies to apple for this, if streaming instead of "ownership" is ok, then invest in an amazon UK Prime membership. it keeps payments and id and home address all within yr own country.
it will be a very cheap, one yearly cost, and the amount of content for free for amazon prime members is huge.
if the content needs to be rented or purchased, the prices in most amazon stores outside the USA is about 50% to 75% cheaper than than what you and i would be paying for renting/purchasing the same content at a non-USA apple store.
yesterday i just also discovered that amazon prime's Kindle has a huge selection of kindle books that are actually totally free! and immediately downloaded 10 (you can only keep up to 10 at any one time).

wish you good luck.

hi niji,

I think I'll follow your advice of setting up a currently unused old 3rd gen Apple TV with a new Apple ID US account and try to purchase a couple of films there to see how that works our for me.

If this works, I guess I'll monitor the prices of movies for a couple of months on a regular basis between the US and my local country store to verify that indeed the pricing difference remains considerable. Then I'll have to make a choice whether the financial gains of such a venture are worth the risk of the investment.

Again, thanks for all your input and advice.

 

[KALLT]

Keep in mind that films and series are DRM-protected. You might put any purchases at risk, if you create a US account with an address that is not yours. Although it works till this day, Apple could change its terms and conditions, if it isn’t explicitly prohibited already.