I hope the situation improves there someday. I always wanted to visit after seeing all of the documentaries and travel shows which often depict Brazil as a troubled country with strong people, distinguished culture and beautiful scenery. I've visited several countries in South Amerca, but never Brazil. Part of the reason was concern over the security situation there in recent years. My concern is probably overblown to some degree given my own experience growing up in New York City during the 1980s, when crime was really bad here, taking the subway at night was a rather risky endeavor and a lot of people actively avoided coming here or staying. Despite that, my family and I had a good life here and people found a way to adjust, move/stay here and eventually improve the situation.
Yes, Brazil has a high crime rate, but the worse situation is in big capitals like São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro. If you're afraid but want to visit Brazil, try to visit some of the cities in the south region. You'll be welcome.
From what I heard (and this from multiple sources, even though I never went there - it's too far from here, almost 2 thousand miles), the best places to visit are from the South Region:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Region,_Brazil
And a few places from São Paulo. The South Region (surprise!) had strong influence from European immigrants, so it's better than the rest.
However the media will never tell tourists to visit the South, only Rio de Janeiro (Southeast), which in a very distant past was no differerent than major cities from first world countries. In modern times it has become an embarrassment, and if you visit there be prepared to not go back. Visiting Rio is nowadays like going to Syria, Afghanistan or Iraq.
Forget anything good said about this place, it's all 100% lies masked by propaganda. Nobody likes it. Saying that Rio represents Brazil is the same as saying North Korea represents Asia.
Most cities from the Northeast Region (where I live) are equally bad compared to Rio, and the North, unless you are interested in the Amazon rainforest, is completely forgotten by the rest of the country (and like the Northeast also underveloped). Asking people from other regions if they know someone from the North is like asking if you know someone from another planet.
I just came here to tell that ANATEL (our FCC) has released the documentation for the iPhone X and it will also be assembled in Brazil (which exempts it from some taxes). And there are people refusing to believe that our government isn't the only to be blamed in the history.
I heard Apple was due to stop until the end of the year:
http://www.gazetadopovo.com.br/econ...rrada-ainda-em-2017-ddybv7t8zsd57kf6nulmwbgf6
Meaning all iPhones sold in Brazil will not even have that. The report says the final costs are increased by 25% (not including all the taxes) with this idea of assembling them here. The components are all manufactured and imported from China.
And there's also another graph that shows Apple is selling less devices in the country each year...
https://tecnoblog.net/210954/smartphones-market-share-brasil-2016/
For all the reasons I stated it's no surprise that no one wants (or is able to continue) investing in Brazil. There's no way to survive in a hostile environment for business.
My personal example is all you need to understand how Brazil barely works and can't evolve in any way.
If I were forced to pay all the taxes the government wanted for that IPP 10.5 then I would have to forget buying anything else from Apple and my only alternative would be Samsung products, which I already dismissed:
https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/what-would-you-do-in-this-scenario.2078736/#post-25253181
And don't think for a second Samsung smartphones are cheap, it's just that most people can barely have them, while for ALL Apple products their only alternative is to not pay most taxes the government asks. Unless you have a lot of money, of course.
But even fooling customs won't last, iPhones/iPADs aren't selling anywhere near what they used to 5 years ago.
