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Apple must open iPadOS to sideloading within 6 months, EU says

(arstechnica.com)
380 points rezonant | 5 comments | 30 Apr 24 04:44 UTC | HN request time: 0s | source
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DCKing ◴[30 Apr 24 07:36 UTC] No.40208207[source]▶
The iPad App Store is perhaps an even more dysfunctional place than the iPhone in how much it holds hardware and use cases hostage to the manufacturer's vision. Just imagine how much more versatile the iPad Pro would be if only you could run Linux VMs on it in the moments you want to do anything remotely tinkery on an iPad.

Apple's hardware since the 2021 iPad Pro (with M1) has had the ability to do this. The iPads have the RAM (16gb on higher storage models), appropriate keyboard and trackpads, the works. Great hardware being held back by Apple's vision people weren't allowed to deviate from.

A straightforward reading of the DMA suggests that Apple is not allowed to restrict apps from using hardware features. Let's hope that means Parallels/VMware style VMs are possible without too much of a fight.

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BillyTheKing ◴[30 Apr 24 08:41 UTC] No.40208607[source]▶
totally agree - the iPad Pro could be a great second coding/programming tool - I'd love to justify buying myself one, but.. I just don't see a use-case if I can't work on it. I don't design stuff, don't really feel like I need a separate browsing device either
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dainiusse ◴[30 Apr 24 09:02 UTC] No.40208738[source]▶
Yep, I've got one and don't use too much. Too big for scrolling, too limited (software) for work. But Apple knows iPad might cannibalize mac and limit it's uses on purpose
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whywhywhywhy ◴[30 Apr 24 11:40 UTC] No.40209889[source]▶
> But Apple knows iPad might cannibalize mac and limit it's uses on purpose

Felt the goal was to overtake Mac during the 2015-2019 era, all the real engineering focus was on iPad, the Macs were underpowered and not really fit for purpose.

Why would Apple choose a platform where they don't get 30% of every Creative Cloud sub when they could have had that.

Only reason they backtracked was because Mac sales didn't fall off and the iPad just isn't that good to do real work on.

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rickdeckard ◴[30 Apr 24 12:12 UTC] No.40210152[source]▶
I believe it's simply more lucrative to keep selling both devices to the same target group, than try to solve the users' problem with a single device.

Everything in Apple is designed to silo off the two product groups.

An "iPad with MacOS" would just shift revenue from the MacOS division to the iPad division, losing a MacOS customer and probably NOT gaining a iPad customer (as he would have purchased an iPad anyway).

Just as much as developing an MacBook convertible is not an issue of user experience but an issue of unnecessary cannibalization of iPad sales...

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1. ajdude ◴[30 Apr 24 16:54 UTC] No.40213188[source]▶
This is the same reason behind the Apple Pencil not working on the iPhone. Despite the iPhone approaching sizes of an iPad mini, I can't use the incredibly expensive pencil on an iPhone because according to Apple only the iPad should be used for tablet stuff.
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2. Kirby64 ◴[30 Apr 24 17:14 UTC] No.40213420[source]▶
What? The Apple Pencil works because there’s a special digitizer layer on the screen for pencil compatible devices that allows it to work. This isn’t included on the iPhone. Same reason a Samsung S-Pen doesn’t work on devices that don’t support it.
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3. rickdeckard ◴[30 Apr 24 17:27 UTC] No.40213550[source]▶
I think the technical reason why the Pencil doesn't work is beside the point here.

Apple is building the hardware, and they decide that the Pencil use-case a iPhone user may have shall not be covered by buying an Apple Pencil, but by buying an iPad (and a Apple Pencil)

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4. Kirby64 ◴[30 Apr 24 17:33 UTC] No.40213609{3}[source]▶
The technical reason is important, though. If it was totally free I suspect they’d allow it to function, but it doesn’t… so burdening the 200M iPhones with the additional cost of the pencil hardware is a trade off not worth taking. Just like Samsung not “allowing” S-pen to work on most of the phones since adding the digitizer element would be a silly cost adder, especially for their super cheap phones.
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5. rickdeckard ◴[30 Apr 24 19:04 UTC] No.40214900{4}[source]▶
It's a decision of product proposition, and Apple decided that the Pencil use-case shall support iPad sales and not be cannibalized by the iPhone.

They also decided for a while that all their premium iPhones shall have "Force Touch", an entirely unique display technology only for iPhones to sense pressure without the potential of additional accessory sales.

These are all valid decisions. They are not a charity, they operate to maximize the profit they can gain from each customer.

The iPad has the big "issue" of barely needing to be replaced with new models, as most use-cases are consumption-oriented and there are no real disrupting sales-driving requirements for iPad media consumption.

So the Pencil was created to drive the proposition towards Media CREATION, because people would buy a new, more-expensive iPad then and requirements for that segment are constantly increasing (better pencils, lower latency, more-demanding apps).

Also in the past year: iPhone increases focus on Media recording with more-complex video features, iPad is tagging along with demanding Media processing use-cases