Actually there are no DRM workarounds (short of pirating the apps) if you jailbreak an iOS device. MarketAccess allows you to legally purchase the apps.
Your original point about Google's geographically restrictions is technically wrong. It's not based on your geolocation but on the simcard inside the phone. If have a simcard from the USA then putting it inside an Android phone gives you access to the USA store even while in Thailand—you can still download over WiFi.
Moreover Android's system solves the problem stated in the original article i.e. move to a new country and Google switches over to that country's store. Move to another and Google switches again. All your apps already downloaded continue to work. All apps purchased can be redownloaded if they aren't restricted in the new country. There is no need to have separate Google Play accounts for different countries or merge accounts.
I have one Google Play account. I have four iTunes accounts (USA, Canada, UK and Japan). Android gets it right imo.
> Your original point about Google's geographically restrictions is technically wrong. It's not based on your geolocation but on the simcard inside the phone. If have a simcard from the USA then putting it inside an Android phone gives you access to the USA store even while in Thailand—you can still download over WiFi.
It's both. For apps in the Play Store it is generally SIM-based, but for "content" (i.e. Music, Movies & TV, Books, Magazines) there's a geographic block on the stores in addition to the SIM check. Even with that, Music and Books are semi-sane (you can use them wherever after purchase). Movies & TV, OTOH, is batshit crazy. Even after buying something you can't stream it or download it if you fail either the SIM check or the geographic check. Even playing things you've already downloaded can be an issue.
On top of that, you have devices without SIMs (e.g. tablets) which have a geographic check on everything, including apps. And then there are the corner cases...
P.S. These days even previously-purchased / downloaded apps can be re-downloaded even when restricted in a country because they still show up in your purchase history.
Hmm, thanks for the tip about about the SIM card; I was excited to read that, as I happened to have a US SIM card in my bag (here in Tokyo).
But, after replacing the Docomo SIM with the US SimpleMobile SIM and rebooting, while I do indeed get some variant of the US store, I still can't access various things I've purchased or that I would be able to access from within the USA (movies, magazines) presumably because I am physically located in Japan, and those items aren't available here.
So they are doing something with the SIM card, clearly--putting in the US card changes my Play store to some lobotomized version of the US store with whole sections missing. But they are also somehow using my physical location to restrict my account block my access to things I have purchased in the USA.
With Apple's credit card-based authorization, this does not happen.
Either way sucks, but for me personally Apple's way is a lot better, because things don't stop working when I physically move. (They would instead stop working if I had to cancel all my credit cards in one country, though.)
Your original point about Google's geographically restrictions is technically wrong. It's not based on your geolocation but on the simcard inside the phone. If have a simcard from the USA then putting it inside an Android phone gives you access to the USA store even while in Thailand—you can still download over WiFi.
Moreover Android's system solves the problem stated in the original article i.e. move to a new country and Google switches over to that country's store. Move to another and Google switches again. All your apps already downloaded continue to work. All apps purchased can be redownloaded if they aren't restricted in the new country. There is no need to have separate Google Play accounts for different countries or merge accounts.
I have one Google Play account. I have four iTunes accounts (USA, Canada, UK and Japan). Android gets it right imo.