The European Union Commission has designated iPadOS as a gatekeeper under the Digital Markets Act (DMA). After an eight-month investigation, the EU Commission concluded that iPadOS meets three key criteria.
Apple leverages its ecosystem to discourage users from switching to other operating systems and devices, essentially locking them into iPadOS. A similar argument is made for business users who find themselves tied to the platform due to its large and commercially appealing user base.
The EU Commission also determined that iPadOS’s business users exceed the gatekeeper platform threshold by eleven times, while its commercial users are near the threshold and are expected to grow soon. Gatekeeper platforms are those with over 45 million monthly active users and 10,000 annual business users in the EU.
iPadOS now joins iOS as a gatekeeper platform and will need to comply with EU regulations such as allowing the download of third-party apps outside the App Store, choosing third-party custom browsers, and removing preloaded apps. Apple has six months to comply with the DMA, failing which will result in a 10% penalty on Apple’s global revenue. Subsequent violations will increase this fine to 20% of global revenue.
