Well I purchased the first apple product for my kids to put under the tree. They now are somewhat happy owners of I pod touches. As for a parent maybe a credit card nightmare. I did not want them to have access to my credit card to there itunes account so they each have there own from Itune gift cards. So with there Itune accounts loaded with gift money they can go shopping right? WRONG… In Canada apparently you can only purchase music. Is there any way a kid can purchase Ipod applications without a credit card?
If those cards said that they were good for buying apps, then take them back to where you bought them. Or e-mail Apple. Most of the cards I’ve seen say that they are for iTunes music. Apple says it doesn’t allow iTunes cards to be used for app purchases because of legal reasons – whatever those might be… It should say that right on the card.
A couple of things you could try – buy one of those disposable credit cards – ie: Vanilla Mastercard. These are available at the same places that have the iTunes cards.
Otherwise, use your iTunes account on their iPods, but don’t give them the password. This way, you get to approve purchases in advance, and you can share purchases among the iPods. ie: if you buy an app on one device, you can download it for free on another one. When you “buy” it again in the future on another iPod or iPhone, it will say that you’ve already bought it, so you can download it for free. This is what I do with multiple iPods / iPhones.
But yeah, you’re out of luck using iTunes music cards for Apps.
Thank you Mig.
I will log into Itunes with my account and purchase for them. Then could they transfer there money to my account?
I don’t know if you can do that or not, but if you e-mail apple support and tell them that you were trying to buy apps, they might transfer it for you. I fell for the same trap as you a year ago (didn’t read the fine print), and they transferred the money from one account to another and then gave me 10 free songs as well.
It’s actually a good idea to use one account if you’re buying a bunch of apps, 'cause you can get duplicates for free. ie: FIFA 10 was $9.99 on my iPhone, but free on all the other devices I have… so I have someone to play against.
Went through the same thing with our child. He ended up having it jailbroken which is an apple no no but really, what do they expect? He now has access to many games and apple sees no money for it
Did dome searching and there a lot of Canadians pissed that the Itune gift card won’t work for apps in Canada.
enkerli.wordpress.com/2009/01/12 … follow-up/
I looked at the cards and no where it saids “Not for applications in Canada”. In fact it give you that sly hint that saids “Music, Videos, Podcasts and more”. Not sure what the more is but it is not apps.
For being the first Apple product I have ever purchased it somehow leaves me with a question in my mind of all those Mac adds of how easy it is to use there product over a PC questionable. Who are they to say with a crapy stunt like this!!!
Well, the same thing would apply if you were using a Windows PC, so it’s not a Mac-versus-PC thing. It’s a matter of buying a card that’s meant for music and assuming it would work for apps.
How does that make you question how easy it is to use a Mac? Did you try this on a Mac and it didn’t work, but it did work on a PC? I don’t get it.
“Who are they to say with a crapy stunt like this!” Did they pull a stunt on you? Or did you just make a mistake? I think a lot of people have made the same mistake (me included), but that’s a result of making an assumption, not of them selling you something that didn’t do what it promised. You bought a music card and wanted to buy non-music stuff with it.
I know what you are saying Mig. You don’t have to tell me from that point of view. I am just choked and made a mistake and like any customer of a product I just want to rant good or bad.
Wasn’t trying to compare a Mac to a PC but there ads make me feel like Apple products are no head aces and trouble free. I just managed to stumble over something only in Canada that I wish I knew before I made a purchase. Just upset with myself that I didn’t do more homework and maybe my post might help some kid that goes out tomorrow and purchases a gift card for apps with the money he got for Christmas.
I don’t know what the original reasoning was for Apple not to allow Itunes cards to be redeemed for apps (I have one right here and it says “Not redeemable for all purchases, such as iPod games or App store purchases” on the back) but I do notice that lately, there have been more and more apps being introduced that have more to do with seeing boobs and tush than they do with playing games or increasing your iPod’s functionality. So while it may be a pain, at least your kids are less likely to use the Apple store to get their soft-core porn…
Near as I can tell from reading a whack of the bulletin boards that complain about the lack of app transportability on the iTunes card, it comes down to the government (or so it seems to be)
Some kind of tax thing seems to be the overwhelming fave response.
So hey pick your favourite politician and complain to them, even if they have nothing to do with it, you’ll feel better. 
They split the app revenue with the developers, which means that they would probably have to collect taxes (GST, HST, etc) and pass that on to the developers? Some crap reasoning like that.
As for controlling what your kids do on the iPhone or iPod Touch, they always have a web browser 