When the European Union adopted the Digital Markets Act, it designated certain companies and platforms as digital gatekeepers, where, in order to avoid competitive abuses, certain organizations had to open up their system.
Apple is bringing big changes to iPadOS.
Apple was one of those companies when it came to its iPhone platform, but as of Monday, April 29, the EU confirmed the iPad as yet another gatekeeper. Which means the major software changes it brought to the iPhone will also come to the iPad. As with iPhone updates, these changes will only affect the iPad in the 27 EU countries, but rest assured that other governments will be watching closely to see if such changes should be made to iPad users around the world.
As reported by Bloomberg“The move means Apple has six months to make sure its tablet ecosystem complies with a series of precautionary measures under the EU’s flagship digital markets law.”
EU Competition Commissioner Margrethe Vestager said that despite not meeting all thresholds under the DMA, research has now shown that “iPadOS is an important gateway that many companies rely on to reach their customers”.
The responses were swift and varied. Apple said: “We will continue to work constructively with the European Commission on DMA compliance across all designated services. Our focus will remain on providing the best products and services to our European customers while mitigating the new privacy and data security risks that DMA poses to our users.”
The new decision from the EU means that Apple will have to enable the same features on the iPad that were transformative for the iPhone. This means sideloading apps, alternative app purchases, and choosing to install alternative browser engines instead of sticking with Safari.
The announcement has just been made, but Epic has announced that it plans to bring the blockbuster game Fortnite to the iPad to its Epic Games Store for EU users – the company had already announced that it would be coming to the iPhone.
Epic told X, “Today, the European Commission said iPads will also have to comply with the Digital Markets Act. We’re moving forward to bring Fortnite and the @EpicGames Store to iPhones in the EU soon and iPads this year!”
