[ficbot]

My Canadian parents got an iPad for my stepfather's birthday. He didn't open it until they were already in Florida for the winter, and now he can't get it registered due to geographical restrictions. They kept getting error messages when they put in their Canadian address and credit card info.

Apparently they even took it to an Apple store, spent over an hour at the genius bar with the store manager and finally heard from someone at Apple Corporate with the final verdict: they cannot register an iTunes account to their Canadian credit card unless they (and the iPad) and physically located in Canada while they do it.

They have asked me to bring the iPad back with me after my visit, and they are giving me their credit card info so I can do it here for them and then send the iPad back with the next person to visit. It doesn't seem like their is any other way around it! I think this is ridiculous. I just cannot believe they are the first people to ever find themselves receiving an iPad while they are not at home. I can't believe there is no way around this. But the word from Apple HQ is clear---you must be physically located in the country of your credit card information during your iTunes registration, or it won't work!