If you are in one of the European Union (EU) countries, you can install from the beginning of the year. alternative app stores On your iPhone. The feature, which arrived with iOS 17.4 last March, never made it to the iPad, so if you have an Apple tablet, the App Store is still your only option.

This will soon change. Apple announced this Friday that block users will be able to use alternative stores on their iPads from next September 16. This is one of the many changes that will arrive with iPadOS 18, an interesting version of the operating system that was introduced at WWDC 2024.

Alternative stores are coming to iPad

At the time of writing, EU users five alternative stores To download on your iPhone. The first of these was AltStore PAL, but others like Setapp and Epic Games came later. It is likely that these stores will also reach the iPad, allowing for many more options beyond the App Store.

Installing alternative stores on compatible iOS devices is as simple as visiting the store’s website, clicking the “Download” button, and authorizing the store from the section. Settings Although the process is simple, we have a step-by-step tutorial for the first time on how to do this at Xataka Basics.

iPadOS 18, as we said, includes other changes. For a long time, users were able to download different browsers to the iPad, and we were even able to change the default browser, but the engine was still WebKiti.e. the Safari engine. This changed with iOS 17.4 and will now change on the iPad as well.

Apple had to make these changes

The unprecedented opening we are witnessing in the Apple ecosystem was not a voluntary decision by the Cupertino company. It was EU legislation, especially the Digital Markets Act (DMA), that forced the company led by Tim Cook to make significant changes to several products.

Let us remind you that Apple is one of the “gatekeepers” determined by the European Commission. The others are Alphabet (parent company of Google), Amazon, ByteDance (parent company of TikTok), Meta and Microsoft. These companies are obliged to take a series of actions to comply with the current legislation and therefore Avoid multimillion dollar fines.

It was initially unclear whether iPadOS would be covered by the EU-required changes, but that system was finally designated a “core platform service” last April, prompting Apple to copy the changes it made to iOS. Things change in technology.

Pictures | Robert Nickson | Christian Lue

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