The European Union (EU) has issued new regulations that could force Apple to allow the downloading of applications outside the App Store on its iPadOS. According to the EU’s Digital Markets Act (DMA), a service or application is considered a gatekeeper when it has 45 million or more monthly users in the EU, an annual revenue of 7.5 billion euros or more, or a market capitalization of 75 billion euros or more. Based on these criteria, the EU has classified iPadOS as a gatekeeper and has given Apple six months to meet its obligations.
The European Commission (EC) believes that Apple has a dominant position in the market for distributing applications and other digital services. Therefore, the EU wants Apple to make changes that promote healthy competition in the market. One potential change could be to allow users to download apps outside of the App Store on iPadOS. This change would provide users with more options and could lead to more competitive pricing for applications.
At this point, Apple has not made any official statements regarding the classification of iPadOS as a gatekeeper. However, the company will likely have to make some changes to iPadOS in the coming months to comply with EU regulations.