Apple’s iPadOS is to be treated as a “gatekeeper” in the European Union and will come under the scope of the region’s landmark Digital Markets Act (DMA) in order to prevent anticompetitive barriers in the sector, according to the European Commission.
Apple will be given six months in order to make sure that it is complying with the DMA requirements.
The iPadOS is not the first of Apple’s products to be treated this way, and others include iOS, the Safari browser, and the App Store.
The European Commission pointed at Apple’s large number of business users which it expected would rise in the future, as well as the ways both end and business users were “locked-in to iPadOS.”
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“Apple leverages its large ecosystem to disincentivise end users from switching to other operating systems for tablets,” noted the Commission in its statement.
Apple has announced a May 7 event, where it is widely expected that the iPhone-maker will unveil a new range of iPads, hopefully with OLED screens, and enhanced Apple Pens.
“The Digital Markets Act is a dynamic tool which allows us to tackle the realities of digital markets. Today, we have brought Apple’s iPadOS within the scope of the DMA obligations. Our market investigation showed that despite not meeting the thresholds, iPadOS constitutes an important gateway on which many companies rely to reach their customers. Today’s decision will ensure that fairness and contestability are preserved also on this platform, in addition to the 22 other services we designated last September. Apple has six months to make iPadOS compliant with the DMA,” said Margrethe Vestager, Executive Vice-President in charge of competition policy.
