Sideloading is Coming to the iPad in Europe

One of the things that’s easy to miss in Apple’s recent big App Store changes in Europe is that they apply solely to the iPhone. However, that could soon change as the European Commission has now ruled that the iPad should also come under its “gatekeeper” provisions — even if it technically doesn’t meet the requirements quite yet.

In a press release, the European Commission announced that it has “today designated Apple with respect to iPadOS, its operating system for tablets, as a gatekeeper under the Digital Markets Act (“DMA”).” This follows the same designation made for iOS and its browser and App Store last September.

However, the changes may not take effect for a while yet. Apple reportedly has six months to bring the iPad and iPadOS into compliance with the DMA. While that presumably shouldn’t be too difficult in light of the similarities between iOS and iPadOS and the common app frameworks used by both, Apple isn’t likely in any hurry to make changes.

The iPad was initially excluded as the European Commission (EC) considered iPadOS a separate platform that wasn’t large enough to qualify as a “gatekeeper.” However, the Commission also noted that this decision wasn’t final, and it reserved the right to reclassify it after further inspection.

On the same day, the Commission opened a market investigation to assess whether Apple’s iPadOS, despite not meeting the quantitative thresholds laid down in the DMA, constitutes an important gateway for business users to reach end users and therefore should be designated as a gatekeeper. European Commission Press Release

Nevertheless, as Mike Wuerthele points out at AppleInsider, it seems the EC is grasping at some new straws to try and bring the iPad under the same umbrella. According to the press release, it’s decided to use “business user numbers” as a threshold, adding that even though overall end user numbers are merely getting “close to the threshold,” business users exceed it “elevenfold.”

The Commission continues by saying that since both end users and business users are “locked-in to iPadOS,” it considers it “an important gateway for business users to reach end users, and that Apple enjoys an entrenched and durable position with respect to iPadOS.”

To be fair, the iPhone and iPad are so closely joined at the hip when it comes to the app ecosystem that it does make things a bit weird and confusing. For example, as things stand right now, developers can publish their iPhone apps on alternative app marketplaces and will soon be able to make them available for download from the web. However, iPad apps don’t qualify for any of these new rules and can still only be distributed through Apple’s App Store.

Considering that many iPhone and iPad apps are “universal” binaries — a single app that runs on both devices — it’s not hard to see how that could actually make it difficult for developers to switch to the alternative app marketplaces and web distribution models as they’d effectively have to leave their iPad apps behind on the App Store.

It also gives rise to several other complications that haven’t been satisfactorily addressed. For example, nobody has been able to quite figure out how in-app purchases and subscriptions would be handled across a universal app that runs on both the iPhone and iPad. Since iPad apps can still only be distributed through the App Store, and Apple will still take its usual 15/30% cut of all digital purchases, it’s virtually impossible for a developer to try to leave the App Store while maintaining an iPhone and iPad app that share a subscription or even a set of consumable purchases like in-game currency.

Since some of Apple’s changes under the DMA apply to the App Store as a whole — not just on iPadOS, but also macOS, tvOS, and watchOS — developers can still agree to new terms and use alternative payment processors, effectively saving 3% on the commissions they typically pay to Apple. However, they don’t qualify for the reduced 10/17% commission rate as that’s only available to “iOS apps on the App Store.” In fact, Apple’s Alternative Terms Addendum for Apps in the EU is quite explicit about the differences in commission rates.

There’s still much debate on both sides of the fence about Apple’s changes in regard to the iPhone, and the European Commission may ultimately decide that Apple hasn’t done enough in that area. However, it seems reasonable that with the close relationship between iPhone and iPad apps, anything that applies to one platform really needs to apply to both to avoid an even more confusing mess.