EU Gives Apple Six Months To Open Up The iPad To Third Party App Stores
Eight months ago, the European Commission designated three Apple entities as "Gatekeeper services" to bring them under the purview of the Digital Markets Act (DMA), forcing changes to the App Store. Today, the commission added the iPadOS software to its list, too.
In a statement, the commissioners said Apple has six months to make iPadOS DMA compliant in the European Union (EU) or face hefty fines.
The decision to designate iPadOS as a gatekeeper service came after the European Commission conducted an eight-month-long investigation into the platform. It concluded that Apple's iPadOS yields great influence within the tablet ecosystem and that it "constitutes as an important gateway for business users to reach end users". When the DMA was passed last year, the European Commission did not include iPadOS under its purview because the number of people using the platform did not hit the threshold needed for it to be designated a gatekeeper service. Since then, there has been a continuous rise in the number of business users within the EU, which currently exceeds the threshold set by the Commission.
The commission also noted that all iPadOS users are essentially locked in to the ecosystem and disincentives them from switching to tablets from competitors. Apple's iPhone iOS software, the iOS App Store, and the Safari browser on iPhones were declared gatekeeper services back in September 2023.
What is DMA, and what does this really mean for iPad owners in the EU?
The Digital Markets Act, passed in 2023, aims at what the European Commission describes as "Gatekeeper Services”. These are platforms and entities owned by billion-dollar corporations that yield considerable market power, and possess almost monopolistic advantages over their rivals. This EU says companies often use their undue advantage to make it difficult for anyone else to compete, ultimately harming consumers.
Apple's made changes to the way it operates in response to EU rulings before. When the tech giant released iOS 17.4 for the iPhone earlier this year, it included changes allowing users to download apps outside the App Store, among other EU requirements.
If you are an iPad owner in the European Union, the inclusion of iPadOS as a gatekeeper service would mean Apple might make similar software changes for that device too.
Bringing iPadOS under the purview of the DMA may likely mean that users will also have the option to uninstall preloaded apps on the iPad, instead of sticking with what Apple includes by default.