Finally bought an Apple product. An Apple iPad mini to be exact. My wife wanted one so much. I'm not much of an Apple fan, but caved in against my better judgement and bout the Apple iPad mini.

The apple iPad and the iPad mini is a very sleek and attractive device. Owning an iPad or perhaps any Apple Product is much of a fashion statement as owning a Gucci handbag or a Carducci suit. Alongside what is advertised as a great product, there is the promise of hundreds of thousands of apps, games and music. However, owning an Apple product in South Africa or any so called third world states, or in fact any Apple product such as the iPad and iPad mini is completely useless. Reason being that the Apple South African store is so restrictive that you cannot download about 80%-90% of the apps, games, movies and music.

Cannot Download Apps and Games

Yes there are apps and stuff to be downloaded to your new iPad from the South African store. But not as many as you might expect, and certainly not the top apps and games that are normally available in the US and Europe. Take Angry Birds for example. Angry Birds, the paid version as well as the free version is not available on the South African Apple app store. The only thing available for Angry Birds on the South African Apple store are Cheat Sheets and Walk through's. What good is that if you don't have and cannot get the game?

Doing and internet search on this issue, I find thousands and hundreds of thousands of similar issues and complaints. Yet, nothing is done about it. The just of the outcome of all this is that Apple blames the FPB (Film and Publications Board), the FPB blames Apple. But nothing is done about it. At the end of the day we are left with literally a white elephant. A product that is of no use to us because we cannot get the apps that we need. Why buy an Apple iPad if you are not going to use the apps that would normally be available for it. It just becomes a very expensive paper wait.

A Work Around

As with anything there are various work arounds available. Just do an internet search to find hundreds of work arounds. Solutions range from Jail-breaking to fake US Apple ID's. Most of these are in the true sense illegal and some could actually cause more damage to the device. Also some work and other do not. I would suggest proceeding with caution. You could be wasting your money and even cause damage to you iPad.

But why should we go through the trouble and hassle of finding work arounds. The thing should just work as advertised. Currently there are not hundreds of thousands of apps and games available. Thousands maybe at best.

Angry and Disappointed

Bottom line is that I am angry and disappointed. I feel cheated and abused. Lied to and defrauded. Certainly will not by an Apple product again. This circular blaming game will not cut it either. I do not care who is at fault. I just want to have a fully working product. If it is a Publications board thing, then there should be warnings when I buy the product so that I can make an informed decision. If it is an Apple issue then they should either fix it and or warn us of such.

Anyone else have this issue? How do you feel about it? What have you done to resolve it? Let me know in the comments below.

Go to Apple's lack of games, books, movies & TV in South Africa for a great article, updates and discussions on this issue.