iPad users will miss out on third-party app stores, browser engines, and more

https://9to5mac.com/2024/01/26/ios-17-app-stores-and-more-ipad-changes/

by microflash • 2 years ago

172 180 2 years ago

9to5mac.com

rezonant10• 2 years ago

iPadOS on the iPad is a completely different platform in the eyes of Apple and the European Commission.

Is this correct, or is Apple making the distinction here?

sharkjacobs• 2 years ago

Is what correct? Is iPadOS a different platform than iOS?

That's not an easy question to answer. It's a different OS, it has a different name, it runs on different devices, it has different features, it runs different apps.

But iPads ran "iOS" for many years, and iPadOS was clearly just a rebranding of the iOS that ran on iPads. On the other hand, iOS (then iPhoneOS) was announced as a "compressed and streamlined" version of OSX.

I don't think it's unreasonable to say that iPadOS is a different platform than iOS, but I do think that Apple is being very self serving by saying so in this context.

zamadatix• 2 years ago

I think the question was framed around verifying the part where it claims the European Commission is said to agree with Apple that the 2 operating systems are separate.

rezonant10• 2 years ago

As sibling points out, it's about what the EU thinks.

"iPadOS" runs iOS apps, and iOS apps can be full fledged "iPadOS" apps with a single binary. The distinction is a business distinction, not a technical one.

There are strange tiny differences in what APIs are offered, but the same is true of two Windows computers, for example, for one that has a DirectX capable graphics card and one that does not.

Eric_WVGG• 2 years ago

now that iPadOS has features that frequently trail a year behind iOS — lock screen widgets, off the top of my head — as well as features like Stage Manager and whatever it is I'm using right now to make my iPad an external Mac display, I think it's safe to say we're at least four years into a now non-trivial hard fork.

kristjansson• 2 years ago

Given the literal billions of dollars at stake, presumably this has been viscously litigated already, and this is where the EC and Apple have landed

ChrisLTD2• 2 years ago

If it had been litigated, there would be stories about the court cases, no?

rezonant10• 2 years ago

If you presume that the EU has actually signed off on this and all the other DMA changes Apple announced, then the DMA at least as it affects Apple is useless.

If iPadOS was deemed separate by the EU prior to the DMA rulings, that's interesting, and am wondering if anyone can cite a source.

EDIT: Posted elsewhere, they have an iPadOS specific inquiry: https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/ip_23_...

jsnell• 2 years ago

No. EU doesn't pre-approve any of these plans. They'll only be assessed after the compliance deadline (in early March) and will take into account public feedback on the proposals.

The interesting question will be how plans that are deemed to be insufficient are dealt with. If the companies can just change their plans after getting the EU's feedback, it becomes a rational choice to submit illegal plans and then "fix" it. That way there's no risk of accidentally giving too many concessions. To avoid that, attempts as blatant as Apple's shouldn't be just negotiated down to a compromise but result in immediate fines.

poniko• 2 years ago

Yes, Apple stated they have 5 different app stores.

layer83• 2 years ago

App stores and operating systems are different things under the DMA to which different rules apply. The commission view Apple’s App Store as a single app store, but iOS and iPadOS as different operating systems. The rules apply accordingly.

layer83• 2 years ago

“Operating system” is one of the categories of things the DMA applies to. The commission so far has only designated iOS (among Apple OSs), not iPadOS. The commission could arguably have viewed them as being variations of the same single OS, but it didn’t.

dmart• 2 years ago

Suddenly it makes a lot more sense why Apple made a big deal about iPadOS being its own separate OS, even though the differences are so minimal.

cqqxo4zV46cp• 2 years ago

That must be it. It always felt super peculiar that they did this, and I really didn’t see the value in it for Apple, even from a marketing perspective. I 100% buy that we’ve just gotten to peak behind the curtain.

Someone1234• 2 years ago

It must be at least a little different since it is unable to run Calculator.

Vicinity9635• 2 years ago

FYI: If you swipe down you can just type mathematical expressions like finder on OSX. It may be finder, but I don't know.

lapcat4• 2 years ago

I'm as cynical as anyone, but iPadOS was introduced at WWDC 2019 and thus was in the works for some time before then. This conspiracy theory doesn't stand up to the historical timeline.

The more plausible and less conspiratorial theory is that iPadOS was made separate to help market more expensive iPad Pro devices.

lolinder2• 2 years ago

Government bodies also move slowly, and they usually telegraph their moves years in advance. When corporations act like they're caught off guard by a new regulation it's usually (though not always) just a PR move.

It's not improbable that Apple could have predicted that separating the ecosystems would be legally beneficial, even if they didn't know about this specific regulation back then.

goosedragons2• 2 years ago

And March of 2019 Spotify filed a complaint with the European Commission over Apple's practices.

https://newsroom.spotify.com/2019-03-13/consumers-and-innova...

And "iPadOS" was and still is basically just a name change. Even from day 1 iPads had a different set of features.

kmeisthax4• 2 years ago

iPadOS does not exist outside of branding. Apple never actually forked the OS - there's jailbreak tweaks that will enable Stage Manager on iPhones, for example. iOS and iPadOS also share the same SDK - which incidentally, is still called iPhoneOS.sdk, not even iOS.sdk. iOS has always had the ability to gate features behind iPads vs. iPhones ever since the iPad first launched.

That being said, I still don't think Apple rebranded iOS for iPads to evade an EU regulation. The EU wasn't even aware of Apple's monopoly until the Epic lawsuit a year and change later.

SllX• 2 years ago

Actually I think the real reason is even lamer.

The iPhone is their baby, and the iPad is decidedly not. It’s a good business, it’s a big business, and they sell a lot of them, but in terms of revenue it has never really exceeded the Mac and doing QA for both iPhones and iPads running the same operating system at feature parity year after year was holding their baby back. That’s why when they do new releases, things like widgets on the Home Screen appear on iOS a year ahead of when it does on iPadOS. By renaming it iPadOS, they’ve given themselves cover to hold stuff back a year and roll features out on a tick-tock schedule cuz now the iPad is running a totally different operating system.

That it may benefit them here dealing with the EU’s shenanigans is probably just a nice incidental bonus, but that’s just my own cynical take. Honestly though, gun to my head, I think prioritizing iPhone features and QA probably is the right thing to do. I like my iPad, but it couldn’t replace either my iPhone or my Mac, and it’s a supplement to both at its best.

nerpderp82• 2 years ago

I think you nailed it.

I have worked with Apple and know a couple people that work there. They would not be able to operate with the level of precision and scale to pull of a single OS across mobile and ipad. But it wouldn't be a totally different OS, it would be a branch.

davely• 2 years ago

I say this as a huge Apple fan: the iPad strategy is ridiculously frustrating (for my purposes).

The crux of the issue is that the latest Pros have one of the most awesome and powerful processors on the market for traditional computing purposes, but all that power is locked behind a toy OS that you can’t do much with.

There are few meaningful differences in the underlying hardware between this and a MacBook Air, but I can take my MBA anywhere to code, work offline, easily multitask by switching between numerous project windows, install all sorts of open source software as needed, etc.

With the iPad, I can watch some videos, and download some popular games with gacha mechanics. Cool?

I picked up a cheap refurbed Surface Pro X. While no means perfect, having an actual usable OS that I can do whatever I want with is so nice. Come on, Apple. Just let us run MacOS on these things.

theshackleford• 2 years ago

but all that power is locked behind a toy OS that you can’t do much with.

You and I may not be able to do our jobs on it, but I know people using it as their primary machine, including people running their entire business off it. (Such as my sister who runs a very successful photography/design Business with only an iPad Pro.)

It’s not for me, but I can accept not everybody requires the same of their machine and software as I do.

tonyedgecombe2• 2 years ago

Just let us run MacOS on these things.

I hope they never do that. The UI on Windows has been too compromised by the need to support both tablets and traditional users.

mepian• 2 years ago

Does anyone know how these new rules affect JIT/AOT compilers in apps?

Klonoar• 2 years ago

It changes nothing unless you’re a web browser, in which case you have to apply for the entitlement.

layer83• 2 years ago

It’s not clear. Download of executable code is still prohibited, but “installation” and “execution” is not mentioned anymore in the new terms.

miohtama2• 2 years ago

Didn't Apple enable JIT long time ago, or was it just for Safari?

mrtksn2• 2 years ago

For anyone interested, EU has started an investigation on iPadOS despite not meeting the threshold: https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/ip_23_...

The investigation should be completed within 12 months.

ivanmontillam• 2 years ago

The funny thing is that Europeans will eventually have a better experience with Apple than U.S. residents.

It's not my intention to poison the well, but Apple feels like treating its customers like cattle.

jachee• 2 years ago

I’m a U.S. resident who’s eyeballs deep in the ecosystem… (well, I will be, come Friday…) and I feel much more valued by Apple than cattle.

If there’s a future where there’s an app that requires me to install their store on my device to have the privilege of buying their app, I’m simply not buying that app.

I’m pretty sure I’m not alone in that.

hayst4ck2• 2 years ago

Apple feels like treating its customers like cattle.

How do you feel apple is treating their customers like cattle?

huytersd2• 2 years ago

We’ll see. I feel like it’s going to be a good Petri dish to see how shitty the third party stuff makes the Apple ecosystem.

seanmcdirmid4• 2 years ago

Or a worse experience? I mean android phones and tablets are already something you can buy, people still buy Apple products despite that.

It's not my intention to poison the well, but Apple feels like treating its customers like cattle

A lot of remember how the computing world was before, the Wild West that the EU is trying to make the only option. We aren’t eager to return to that, and would make different platform purchasing decisions if we did. The EU is simply taking away choice, not adding to it.

I get it, Apple has an unfair advantage because they lock down their platform, and the EU making it suck as much as the other platforms, Apple will compete with the other platforms more fairly.

chii• 2 years ago

It's called a cash cow for a reason. And this isn't referring to the product, but the customer!

bdcravens• 2 years ago

Choice is good, though I can't help but wonder what % of European customers will start getting their applications from third-parties. In 12 or so years of on-again, off-again usage of Android (usually as a secondary phone), I've sideloaded one app: a pre-release game that I happily pulled down from the official channel once it went "official"

hhh• 2 years ago

I have a feeling I am going to dislike a lot of the changes coming down the pipe. I like things as they are.

d0mine• 2 years ago

To distract/exhaust people, pseudo-solutions analogous to cookie pop-ups (do not improve privacy), recommending shorter shower to battle a drought (malicious/idiotic), etc may be suggested.

People interests appear to be used as a rhetoric device, while the actual solutions are harmful to EU business (latest example: AI regulations).

Nothing to be jealous of.

kmeisthax4• 2 years ago

Note that if you opt for the EU compliant new business terms for iPhone, you will still be obligated to pay Core Technology Fees on all Apple platforms, even if those platforms do not allow sideloading. So your iPad apps now have install fees and you still have to pass app review.

lxgr• 2 years ago

Does the iPad at least get support for alternative payments then?

Edit: Seems like they will. From TFA:

Changes to App Store policy to allow alternative payments and lower commissions affect the App Store across all Apple platforms.

crazygringo2• 2 years ago

Yeah but your App Store commission is significantly lower as a percentage. So you're still going to wind up paying less money if you're collecting amounts like €5 or €10 or more from customers.

In the cases where you'd come out worse, because your app is free or extremely low-cost like €1, then you shouldn't opt for the new business terms. You should use the current ones -- which show no indication of going away since they're what the rest of the world uses.

DaiPlusPlus3• 2 years ago

The point is that you've got a choice.

Supposing I want to release a free, personal hobby project, app that uses some private APIs in iOS, to solve some long-standing usability or feature-gap within iOS, then no, I don't have a choice: I don't have an option at all: I can't release it in the Apple-run iOS App Store becuase it uses Private APIs, and I can't release it in a third-party App Store as a free app because I can't afford the "Core Technology" fee (despite paying my $99 annual fee to Apple, which they said (back in 2008) pays for the platform, SDK+DX) - that leaves me only with Cydia as my only option and a significantly reduced audience.

-----

Actually, this whole debacle has me wondering - does this mean that Apple thinks they have the right to shakedown developers in the Cydia ecosystem for their "Core Technology" fees too? If so, it's going to be hilarious to watch them try to actually do that; and because they'll be unsuccessful, does that mean that other developers (using something-other-than-Cydia) can tell Apple to pound-sand as they have no moral-right to the rent they're seeking?

extraduder_ire2• 2 years ago

That's strange. I thought that the iPadOS appstore was one of apple's five completely separate appstores. /s

sologoub• 2 years ago

Are streaming gaming apps now allowed everywhere or just for EU users? Really want to see GeForce Now native iPad app!

CubsFan1060• 2 years ago

Everywhere.

dehrmann2• 2 years ago

Apple's really been acting in bad faith with moves like this and the 27% fee on external payments. Regulators took these actions for a reason, and Apple's doing its best to just barely comply, at the cost of bringing even more attention to itself.

addicted3• 2 years ago

The Apple apologia anti regulation response to this comment is ironic because without anti monopoly protections Apple wouldn’t even exist right now.

Microsoft bailed out Apple with an investment entirely because of anti monopoly regulations.

More importantly, MS kept producing versions of Office and even Internet Explorer IIRC that allowed the Mac to remain an option because of their fear of being regulation.

Then after that it was EU anti monopolist regulations that struck down MS and prevented it from strangling the open web, which allowed the web to become an open platform which made it possible for both the Mac and iPhone (which didn’t even have an App Store on launch and relied entirely on web apps) to exist.

The only success Apple can claim credit that wasn’t directly the result of anti monopoly regulation was the iPod and even that wouldn’t have happened because Apple would have folded if Apple hadn’t been protected by anti monopolist regulations.

addicted3• 2 years ago

Imagine if MS had done the shit Apple is doing and blocked iTunes from Windows because it didn’t “add enough new functionality”.

And then when it eventually did allow a gimped version of iTunes charged Apple 30% of all the music and movies sold on it.

If they were being Apple like they would probably have even started charging 20% of the album price of every music CD users ripped to their iPods using iTunes.

And MS was a far more ruthless company. If it wasn’t afraid of anti monopolistic regulation it would have come up with other ideas I can’t imagine in a 1000 years to have absolutely destroyed Apple.

dehrmann2• 2 years ago

allowed the web to become an open platform

Not disputing anything you're saying, but in hindsight, the web as an open platform was only viable from ~2005-2010 in the window where most people had at-home broadband, but smart phones hadn't taken over.

Anechoic• 2 years ago

Microsoft bailed out Apple with an investment entirely because of anti monopoly regulations.

Not "entirely", it was a lawsuit settlement: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Francisco_Canyon_Company

pjmlp• 2 years ago

Not only that, many people that only know Apple after they managed to survive, seem completly unaware that old Apple was always siloed into their own stuff, A/UX and the timid attempt to having clones being officially supported, were the only exceptions to their vertical integration.

Even Atari and Commodore were somehow more open to third party vendors in that regard.

Gow8876• 2 years ago

Expect Applet to get fined by EU 15B usd this year. Google tested EU years ago and fined 7B and 8B in 2 years.

jchw6• 2 years ago

I really think this is insanely poor strategy on Apple's part. They know damn well that they're simply delaying the inevitable, and probably in deluded hopes that this can get watered down significantly with enough effort, but I don't think the public or the government regulators are going to be amused by these stunts in the slightest.

They manage to get away with a lot by virtue of having probably the best PR in the entire computer industry as a whole, I don't think that's an exaggeration; but if they keep pulling moves like this, I feel they risk losing a lot of their public support. For me, it's quite unusual seeing even the most popular comments on sites like MacRumors absolutely trashing and condemning Apple--there is usually at least one highly sympathetic perspective that has a significant amount of mindshare, but in this case, it's hard to not see how egregious and petty this really is.

And to be fair, I doubt their famously positive reputation is going anywhere overnight, but there are definitely cracks forming, especially between this and the near-miss with the CSAM scanning debacle.

Well, the ball is in regulator's courts. I have mixed feelings about some of the EU tech regulation, but that doesn't justify malicious compliance like this, and I hope that regulators do their jobs and send a message that Apple (and Google) are not above the law.

bhpm• 2 years ago

For me, it's quite unusual seeing even the most popular comments on sites like MacRumors absolutely trashing and condemning Apple

MacRumors comments section is always filled with people bashing Apple.

tonyedgecombe2• 2 years ago

I often wonder why they are there.

hnburnsy• 2 years ago

Wonder if any of this affects the Apple Watch.

matt3210• 2 years ago

So will iPhone users under Apples current plans

yinyang_in• 2 years ago

Apple did lot of efforts building the ecosystem. No government system helped them in it. Now fruits have come up & they want to tweak it to their own taste.

If monopoly is causing trouble to small businesses & you’re able to prove it then impose fines & whatever is under the law. But just being jealous & imposition of laws just to target businesses(here almost Apple is being singled out).

But this is unpopular opinion.

With 30% fees you get access to big ecosystem of Apple imo is cheap. They’ve put lot of efforts in building it. If don’t want to participate, then don’t. Use android it has what you all what EU wants.

Ps. Not a US citizen neither stakeholder in Apple

techdragon• 2 years ago

You may not be an Apple shareholder and I’m not sure how being a US Citizen has any potential to be a conflict of interest in this case but you still sound like you “drank the cool aid”… the question I have for you is where (if anywhere at all) do you draw the line between what Apple should be allowed to do and and what it should do voluntarily … and what rights you think individual nations have to regulate their internal commerce including regulations on what manufacturers and sellers of devices must make it possible for the purchasing public to do…

while this regulation is targeting Apple’s software control the same principles are underlying the regulations that allow bilingual countries to require products be labeled in both languages, allow countries to mandate hygiene in health care facilities, higher food safety or ingredient quality control to minimise food contamination risks…

Does Unilever have the right to decide what’s good enough for consumers in a country? Or does the country and its citizens have the right to demand Unilever products meet their standards if Unilever wants to sell in that country?

filoleg2• 2 years ago

what rights you think individual nations have to regulate their internal commerce including regulations on what manufacturers and sellers of devices must make it possible for the purchasing public to do
while this regulation is targeting Apple’s software control the same principles are underlying the regulations that allow bilingual countries to require products be labeled in both languages, allow countries to mandate hygiene in health care facilities, higher food safety or ingredient quality control to minimise food contamination risks

I mean, while this regulation is targeting Apple’s software control, the same principles are underlying the regulations that allow countries like PRC to demand Apple to host data of their users in China in datacenters that are run by, essentially, the PRC government, as well as give them the keys to decrypt data of those users.

I don’t see how that’s a point in favor of anything at all here. Just because the countries have the right to do those things and sometimes utilize those rights for things like food safety management or bilingual product labeling enforcement, it doesn’t automatically make their usage of those same rights for other things (like compromising user data and, with full legal support, spying on political dissidents) any more justified.

No one is arguing that the EU doesn’t have the right to do what they are doing (the EU, indeed, has the right to do it). People are arguing whether it is a smart and beneficial thing to do.

duanem• 2 years ago

Apple did not build the ecosystem alone. The ecosystem is made up of the platform, the developers and the users. Lose one of these and you don't have an ecosystem. If all the developers leave, users will leave. If all users leave, developers will leave.

I would argue developers put in just as much, if not more effort.

Apple did not build the ecosystem alone, nor does it own the ecosystem. It is merely acting as a uncool gatekeeper.

addicted3• 2 years ago

If it wasn’t for government regulation Microsoft would have wiped out Apple before the 2000s.

Apple owes its existence to Microsoft’s fear of regulators.

So yeah, every penny of its trillion dollar market share is thanks to government regulation.

peterlada• 2 years ago

Also miss out on spam, scam and "custom" "keyboards" that just happen to use telemetry to collect passwords.

calini• 2 years ago

I really hope the EU doesn't take this lightly and modify the laws accordingly. And if not, I hope Apple ends up split like Standard Oil. - Sent from my iPhone

iPad users will miss out on third-party app stores, browser engines, and more

Related Stories