I travel between different countries every now and then and sometimes need to install apps that are only available in a given country. At least for that case, Apple uses your billing address, which is verified by a payment method. E.g. you need a Dutch domiciled payment method to configure your app store location to be the Netherlands and install apps that are available to locals only. These days many apps are available without geographic restrictions, but far from all. I would imagine they use a similar setup for the whole EU only perks.
I could not install the Italian train app while travelling in Italy due to this.
I had similar problems with a local train app in Germany on Googles store. The organisation when asked said to install another app instead, that was not linked anywhere on their homepage.
It’s definitely at least partially tied to the Apple account location and just not physical location. I’m a Canadian and have been living in Europe for three years now and don’t get any of these new Europe only features. I’m guessing because my Apple account is still tied to Canada / I use a Canadian credit card on it.
AppStore location country can only be changed if you have a credit card from a bank in EU with customer address also in EU.
And these days there are strong regulations in EU about bank accounts that pretty much ruled out an option to get a EU credit card while being a tourist that was possible like 8 years ago.
I believe it was tied to the Apple ID and ALSO had some countermeasures against faking location but I might be wrong.
I imagined that was the case, I was also starting a mental countdown clock until the first dot point side loading Ich bin ein Berliner iPhone guide appears.
Might be waiting a while. Just like iOS jailbreaks and Cydia stopped being a thing, I doubt Apple's gonna let publicized workarounds work that don't involve a ton of effort to work for an extended period.
My phones region is Lithuania, iCloud is Lithuania, VPN'd via Lithuania in Airplane mode via Wifi and I still can't get in.
Which kinda sucks because there are legit reasons where you could get caught by this.
Tangent: Unsure what my Homepod region is set to, but after updating my _iPad_ to iOS 18 and changing it's region to US so I get new Siri - the Homepod is not able to execute "Siri find my iPhone" command and bitches about mismatch regions... IIRC I had to change regions too so I get Heyless Siri.
Bonus edge question: Is an iPhone visiting the EU an "iPhone in the EU" and subject to the same EU data and open OS etc. regulations as every other (local) phone?