EU Commission designates Apple’s iPadOS under the Digital Markets Act

Brussels – The European Commission today designated Apple regarding iPadOS, its tablet operating system, as gatekeeper under the Digital Markets Act (“DMA”). Apple has six months to ensure that iPadOS fully complies with its DMA obligations.

On September 5, 2023, the Commission designated Apple as a gatekeeper for its operating system iOS, its browser Safari and its App Store. 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.

The Commission’s investigation found that Apple “exhibits the characteristics of a gatekeeper in relation to
iPadOS, as among other things: Apple’s business user numbers exceeded the quantitative threshold elevenfold, while its end user numbers were close to the threshold and are predicted to rise in the near future. End users are locked-in to iPadOS. Apple leverages its large ecosystem to disincentivise end users from switching to other operating systems for tablets. Business users are locked-in to iPadOS because of its large and commercially attractive user base, and its importance for certain use cases, such as gaming apps..”

On the basis of the findings of the investigation, the Commission concluded that iPadOS constitutes an important gateway for business users to reach end users, and that Apple enjoys an entrenched and durable position with respect to iPadOS. Apple now has six months to ensure full compliance with the DMA obligations as applied to iPadOS.

The DMA aims to ensure contestable and fair markets in the digital sector. It regulates gatekeepers,
which are large digital platforms that provide an important gateway between business users and consumers, whose position can grant them the power to create a bottleneck in the digital economy.