Those are links to a whole other issue that deserves its own discussion. Why not the following from the article itself:
"However the Iranian Transactions and Sanctions Regulations issued by the U.S. Department of the Treasury puts blocks on this market. According to Techrasa, Apple has sent the following to Iranian startups attempting to upload apps:
“Unfortunately, there is no App Store available for the territory of Iran. Additionally, apps facilitating transactions for businesses or entities based in Iran may not comply with the Iranian Transactions Sanctions Regulations (31CFR Part 560) when hosted on the App Store. For these reasons, we are unable to accept your application at this time. We encourage you to resubmit your application once international trade laws are revised to allow this functionality.”
This. Apparently, it's shocking and newsworthy that Apple adheres to US law, and moves to rectify situations where they have been misled:
"While there is no official App Store available for the territory of Iran, many companies registered their apps as being outside of Iran to be able to get onto the store."
I hope I am wrong but if I read this correctly it's like the Iraq resolution in 2002 that gave the president the right to attack anytime. This can be used as bargaining in negotiations but also as rationale to go to war.
That bill is not passed yet and will take some time.
Also - a lot of bills are introduced that have no chance of passing. If it's coming from Paul Ryan or Mitch McConnel - then it's likely primary GOP policy, outside of that there are tons of things that nobody votes for.
Apple I think will comply with whatever laws the are legally bound by.
Since it's not law, I don't think that it's the issue here.
I don't see Apple doing anything pre-emptively, or as a favour to any politically partisan group.
I suspect there is either a misunderstanding, or we don't have the whole story.
"However the Iranian Transactions and Sanctions Regulations issued by the U.S. Department of the Treasury puts blocks on this market. According to Techrasa, Apple has sent the following to Iranian startups attempting to upload apps:
“Unfortunately, there is no App Store available for the territory of Iran. Additionally, apps facilitating transactions for businesses or entities based in Iran may not comply with the Iranian Transactions Sanctions Regulations (31CFR Part 560) when hosted on the App Store. For these reasons, we are unable to accept your application at this time. We encourage you to resubmit your application once international trade laws are revised to allow this functionality.”