That's for card emulation. This article is about using iOS devices as readers.

ISO 14443 card reader functionality has been made available some iOS versions before, but it's still restricted (e.g. you can't select any "payment" ISO 7816 applications, you have to predefine the list of AIDs you want to be able to select, and you don't have lower layer access to ISO 14443).

I'm not aware of any announcements to further open up "reader" mode.

Agreed, but it’s certainly more open than it used to be. At least now you can emulate a variety of cards directly in an app.

Big companies that can afford to pay the certification fees maybe can; I definitely can’t. The entitlement is not available to regular app developers, unfortunately.