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Apple Bans Iran from the App Store (bleepingcomputer.com)

Posted by msmash on from the closer-look dept.

Iranian users have not been able to access Apple's App Store all day today, in what appears to be a ban put in place by the US company. From a report: According to reports and sources who spoke with Bleeping Computer, the ban appears to have been put in place earlier today, around noon, GMT. Users were not able to connect to the Apple App Store to install or update applications. When visiting the App Store, they were instead greeted with the message "The App Store is unavailable in the country or region you're in." This ban appears to be IP-based. Meysam Firouzi -- an Iranian security researcher -- told Bleeping Computer that he successfully connected to the App Store while using a VPN, despite having Iran-related details set on his account.

4 of 58 comments (clear)

  1. Not first post by FormOfActionBanana · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I think this is kind of standard for businesses that have a stake in the United States. Tech companies I have worked for have restrictions from making sales to Iran or North Korea. Isn't there an embargo? It changes almost every year it seems.

    Question from me is, how did Apple EVER be able to make sales to Iran?

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    Take off every 'sig' !!
  2. Re:Enough! by SvnLyrBrto · · Score: 2

    Seriously. Smartphones with full-up web browsers have been around over a decade. And unicode has been a thing for just HOW long now? I'd be embarrassed to be a Slashdot developer... or staffer of any kind... what with 1990s-esque deficiencies like this. It make me wonder, just where Slashdot spends its income. They're certainly not spending their money on writing, editorial, or operations staff. And I guess not on developers (or good developers anyway) either.

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    Imagine all the people...
  3. They might ban iRan by tonywong · · Score: 3, Funny

    But they'll never ban iRack.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xcjLEwZqcQI

  4. Re:Enough! by Goragoth · · Score: 3, Insightful

    What baffles me the most is the fact that we know that there is a unicode whitelist. I get that allowing all of unicode causes all sorts of issues, but why is it so hard to add the few smart quotes to the whitelist? That alone would solve most of the problems. If you then add like maybe 5-10 other common used unicode characters to the list and it would probably fix 99% of the remaining problems. Is it really that hard?