So I just saw another post referring to Pandora as an app and having seen similar posts before I did an iTunes store search which came up with nothing named "Pandora". As someone had just referred to it here tonight I found that odd so I googled the term and found that it was indeed an app technically called "Pandora Radio". While apps have been closed, cancelled or otherwise terminated in the past I didnt think it too odd but decided to search one more time with the full name and guess what ...

Canadians are getting screwed by Apple A search for "Pandora Radio" comes up the app but when you click on "free app" you get asked to move to the "US iTunes" store as this app is not available in Canada and guess what ... as a Cdn you cant have a US iTunes account ! so exactly how many apps are we missing ? This is pretty silly (unless I am missing something about this app that prevents it from working 20 minutes north of the US border where I live)

So silly!

Apple would love to make all apps available in all App Stores but due to licensing, royalties, copyright issues and local and national regulations it is unable to. It is not a restriction imposed by Apple, for sure - hey, why would they, they're missing out on revenue.

For example, in some countries, Apple are not allowed to offer any music or movies in their iTunes Store. In some countries, the iPad is sold without the pre-installed FaceTime app, because of national legislation. In some countries, Skype is not allowed.

None of this is Apple's doing - as I said they would dearly love to generate additional revenue by making everything available everywhere.

Tim

Anything related to music, in Canada, is severely controlled by the CRTC regulations. So apps like pandora cannot be distributed because the fact of distributing,copying,sharing any music is illegal without a costly fee... For example, the iCloud feature for music syncing between your devices won't make it to Canada, because it implies of making a copy of music material. Same goes for movies and videos...

So let's say that you have an iPod, an iPhone and an iPad. This means that you have to buy the same song 3 times to be legal on all you devices.. I know, it's pretty stupid...

They are the same guys preventing Skype to provide the skypein feature in Canada, or recent Netflix content. They are the one also ensuring that we hear Canadian content on the radio, even if the same song has been played 5 times already in the day. And here in Quebec, it's even worse because they are enforcing French content over English content. I don't listen to radio anymore cause I know I will hear Ginette Reno or Celine Dion over and over again

VicoPad addict!

Pandora [even from the PC] is restricted to the USA only. Chances are even if you go to the website you'll get a message saying you're locked out. So i won't be surprised if the app is only located in country-stores which actually have access to Pandora in general.

Hulu and Netflix would work the exact same way. Not Apple's fault, it's our wonderful Music and Media Industries locking everything down per region.

Try last.fm as a rough alternative

Originally Posted by Merk13

Canadians are getting screwed by Apple

I think you are being screwed by your Government not Apple. Blame should be pointed correctly in posts like this.

If you can access the website via your browser and log into pandora I would just save the link to your home page and there's app!!! But I feel your pain no native app of any kind.

Sent from my iPad 2 White 64GB + 3G Verizon using iPF

The comments above absolving Apple of responsibility are certainly correct. I'm not familiar with the Canadian regulations cited above but I strongly suspect that the Canadian government may not be to blame, either. Rather, I suspect that it may come down to Pandora's unwillingness (for business reasons) to pay for distribution rights in Canada. Perhaps the price of those rights is exorbitant or perhaps Pandora simply does not believe the payoff in terms of customers justifies the expense.