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

(arstechnica.com)
380 points rezonant | 1 comments | 30 Apr 24 04:44 UTC | HN request time: 0.2s | 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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walterbell ◴[30 Apr 24 10:17 UTC] No.40209236[source]▶
> Just imagine how much more versatile the iPad Pro would be if only you could run Linux VMs on it

After installing https://ish.app for Alpine Linux emulation on iPad, one immediately comes up with use cases, even though it's excruciatingly slow.

Hopefully Apple opens up the imminent M3 iPad Pros to allow macOS and Linux VMs, even if the feature is initially price segmented to devices with extra RAM. The iPad 4:3 high-resolution screen offers unmatched vertical real estate for text editing.

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rickdeckard ◴[30 Apr 24 10:47 UTC] No.40209501[source]▶
As long as the majority of the target group keeps buying MacBooks AND iPads, I doubt that Apple has an incentive to cannibalize its own product line.

They are well-aware of this, visible from the fact that they never bothered to add a touch panel or Pen-support to any MacBook, or make the Watch a standalone device: Customers wanting this either buy the devices individually anyway, or wouldn't be willing to hand over the sum of all combined devices for a single "superset" device.

Just imagine that Apple's view of the "iPad Pro with MacOS" demographic are customers who purchased a 1600 USD MacBook and a 1000 USD iPad. Is the "iPad with MacOS" able to replace either of those? Would they be able to charge 2600 USD for that device and sell comparable volumes?

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1. walterbell ◴[30 Apr 24 20:26 UTC] No.40215872[source]▶
> Just imagine that Apple's view of the "iPad Pro with MacOS" demographic are customers who purchased a 1600 USD MacBook and a 1000 USD iPad. Is the "iPad with MacOS" able to replace either of those? Would they be able to charge 2600 USD for that device and sell comparable volumes?

"iPad with MacOS VM" is technically adjacent to "iPad with Linux VM", since both make use of hardware nested virtualization support that is present on Apple M* processors. Good performance/watt Linux on Arm will launch in a month on Microsoft/HP/Dell/Lenovo/etc laptops and tablets with Qualcomm-Nuvia (ex-Apple) Snapdragon Elite X.

If Apple opens up Linux VMs on iPad (as a side effect of opening MacOS VMs), they can keep some users entirely within the Apple walled garden, similar to Microsoft's introduction of WSL on Windows. If they allow defections to Nuvia hardware, it can expand to Macbooks Pros, given the Qualcomm roadmap for AI silicon on laptops, co-funded by billions of automotive pipeline.

Those who already purchased two Apple devices have already given their money to Apple. They won't do it again, since iPads are already overpowered for the artificially constrained use cases. If new iPads with extra memory/storage allow VMs, that's net new revenue above the $1500 price point. We'll find out next week.