Don't get too excited. It's the SE "Slow Edition." Apple won't let apps access JIT acceleration, let alone the iPad's virtualization capabilities, so this is all interpreted and barely usable.
We know that recent (M2+) Apple Silicon has hardware support not only for virtualization, but nested virtualization. Time may improve Apple's risk/reward for enabling virtualization in specific iPad use cases.
Thanks to aShell and iSH emulators for pioneering Linux-alike experiences on iPads, at the cost of overheated silicon.
Thanks to Asahi for bare-metal Linux, including virtualization, on Apple Silicon.
It's more likely that the EU will improve it.
As things stand today, Android allows for JIT acceleration on all apps, essentially unrestricted. The DMA only allows for security measures that restrict APIs insofar as those measures are "strictly necessary and proportionate".
Since Android manages just fine on that front with full JIT, Apple's defense relying on that DMA exception will fail.
Even if Android is compromised all the way up to (and including) the host kernel, the isolated VM remains uncompromised
> we have replaced pKVM with Gunyah Hypervisor Software – our own, more versatile hypervisor – on our Qualcomm Technologies’ chipsets. With Gunyah, we can use one hypervisor across use cases as varied as automotive, mobile broadband, IoT and wearables. We’ve upstreamed Gunyah for general use by the Android community.
How do we know this? No vulnerabilities/exploits reported using these?
Is this the same Android that has a 5x+ share of malware compared to iOS?
Things they see as problems:
Reducing need for MacBooks,
Virtualised app-stores that use creative accounting or some other trick to circumvent apple tax,
True free-software culture on their platform,
Lack of control re privacy / data collection / platform guidelines / software publishing,
DRM circumvention...