In the latest blow to Apple, the tech giant has been given six months to bring iPadOS into line with the European Commission’s DMA despite being deemed exempt last September.
The DMA's rules came into play on iPhones in March 2024, but the iPad operating system got through unscathed at the time, which was legal because the number of iPad users was below the quantitative threshold needed for the EU to force compliance.
However, in the seven months since September’s ruling, the commission has been investigating iPadOS qualitatively instead, and on this basis, it has now concluded that Apple’s tablets must comply with DMA demands, too.
Getting qualitative
In half a year’s time, in order to meet the DMA’s standards, iPads must be held accountable to the same rules that iPhones have been subject to since March. The EU’s reasoning for this is that the number of end users on the iPad operating system now comes close to the quantitative threshold laid out last year, and it expects said threshold to be surpassed soon.
Not only that, but so many business users are on iPadOS that they have already surpassed the threshold 11 times over.
The investigation also determined that Apple does indeed leverage its large ecosystem to "disincentivise end users from switching to other operating systems for tablets" and locks business users into the platform, especially in "certain use cases, such as gaming apps".
What all this ultimately means is that iPads must be held to the same standards as the iPhone in the EU and must, therefore, fully comply with obligations set out by the DMA. It also demonstrates the EU’s determination to make Apple play ball - finally bringing both operating systems under one set of rules after iPads slipped through the cracks last year.
Applying the ruling to iPadOS also marks the DMA’s first application of qualitative criteria and its only qualitative investigation under DMA rules thus far.
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