iPad EULA doesn't mandate paid OS upgrades

The iPad is set to launch this Saturday. In preparation for the launch, Apple has already posted two related files to its download servers: the final iPad firmware and its EULA. Based on some language in the EULA it has been widely reported that the iPad will require users to pay for OS upgrades like on the iPod touch. However, looking closely at the language reveals that paid upgrades aren’t necessarily a foregone conclusion.

The relevant section from the iPad Software License Agreement is worth quoting in full:

Apple will provide you any iPad OS software updates that it may release from time to time, up to and including the next major iPad OS software release following the version of iPad OS software that originally shipped from Apple on your iPad, for free. For example, if your iPad originally shipped with iPad 3.x software, Apple would provide you with any iPad OS software updates it might release up to and including the iPad 4.x software release. Such updates and releases may not necessarily include all of the new software features that Apple releases for newer iPad models.

Here, Apple is making some specific promises. The company is promising free updates for all point releases of iPhone OS 3.x (the iPad will ship with iPhone OS 3.2). It’s also promising a free update to iPhone OS 4.0—expected to ship this summer with the launch of the next iPhone iteration—as well as any subsequent point updates.

The license agreement also specifically does not promise a couple things. It doesn’t promise that updates beyond 4.x will be free. It also doesn’t promise that software updates will necessarily give the current iPad all the features that future iPad models might gain from that software, just as iPhone OS 3.0 didn’t give the iPhone 3G all the features of the iPhone 3GS.

It’s worth noting that this language in no way precludes iPhone OS 5.x or higher from being a free upgrade, only that Apple isn’t promising that it will at this specific point in time. Apple puts a lot of work into the iPhone OS just as it does with Mac OS X (historically a $129 upgrade), and the language of the license agreement gives Apple the option to charge for future updates if that work needs to be funded by paid upgrades.

The truth is that we won’t know anything for sure until at least a year from now—the absolute soonest we are likely to hear anything about iPhone OS 5.0. For now, we see no cause for alarm.