(including that funny country selector thing - why do I have to do this again? I don't need to do this when I visit apple.com)
This is a really good point - GeoIP is almost guaranteed to be accurate enough to determine country of origin now. We should no longer have to deal with that crap.
No. No no no. Please don't do that. I know everybody does, but it's such a terrible idea. If you rely on geographical ___location to set language, you're ignoring travelers, expats, regions with multiple languages, etc.
Look at my browser's Accept-Language header. Go with that. It's almost certainly what I want. If you have a really good reason to serve me content based on my ___location, use GeoIP to determine that. Never ever use it for language. And make it really easy to change both.
Fair enough, Accept-Language sounds better. The idea is the same though -- don't require a region splash page first. I had assumed that the reason for the splash page was different product offerings in the country, not language, but if the real reason is language then by all means use that.
I would prefer a combination though. If I live in Italy but am browsing in English, use the Italian product page via GeoIP but the language according to the Accept-Language header.
This is a really good point - GeoIP is almost guaranteed to be accurate enough to determine country of origin now. We should no longer have to deal with that crap.