Apple iPad users in living in the European Union (EU) will be pleased to know that you can now sideload third-party app stores. The allowance of other app stores on the platform is very obviously a break from Apple’s stance on the matter, albeit unwillingly.
To quickly recap, Apple took the Digital Market Act (DMA) in the EU to court over issues with the fruit company’s ecosystem and lost the case earlier this year. In addition to being ordered to pay a hefty fine, the European courts also ordered it to open up the entire ecosystem to developers and users who wish to sideload apps on to their devices.
In the case of iPadOS 18, the changes to allow sideloading third-party app stores were made after the courts determined that the OS was a “core platform service” under the DMA in April. Naturally, Apple didn’t take the classification sitting down, contesting the mandate and arguing that the platform’s user base did not meet the requirements because of its size.
One critical difference in iPadOS 18 compared to previous versions, is its ability to use alternative browser engines. It’s a feature that has been available for iPads running on iOS 17.4 and now, version 18, but developers such as Google and Mozilla have, reportedly, not yet taken full advantage of this change.
The EU disagreed with the argument and ultimately laid down the law on Apple, stating that iPadOS and iPad devices were significant gateways for European consumers, and thus the fruit company needed to comply with the regulations in iPadOS 18.
Again, this support is only currently available to iPadOS 18 and iPad devices within the EU, and nowhere else officially. For that matter, it doesn’t look like Apple is planning on backporting the feature to older versions of iPadOS.
(Source: Techspot, MSPowerUser)
