by Dan Moren
The iPad joins the iPhone in DMA land
Following an almost eight-month investigation into whether Apple’s iPadOS holds enough market power to warrant stricter regulation, the European Commission has now designated the iPad operating system as a Gatekeeper service under its flagship Digital Markets Act (DMA) rules.
“The Commission concluded that iPadOS constitutes an important gateway for business users to reach end users, and that Apple enjoys an entrenched and durable position with respect to iPadOS,” reads a statement published by the Commission on Monday. “Apple now has six months to ensure full compliance with the DMA obligations as applied to iPadOS.”
Apple only split iPadOS off from iOS in 2019 and the two continue to largely share their underlying, despite their differences. While I’m sure that Apple’s not thrilled about having to implement all the DMA requirements for yet another OS, I’d assume that it will basically follow the template for the iPhone. In some ways this is good, because it will provide some degree of parity between iOS and iPadOS for users in the EU, instead of having apps that will run on users’ smartphones but not their tablets.