Still no hypervisor support in iPadOS 17
Hypervisor is indeed physically possible on any of the M series chips included in the iPad Airs and iPad Pros, but locked away the iPadOS.
Block hypervisor on iOS is reasonable to me, because it consume powers, not frendly for battery and not sutable for a mobile phone.
But for iPadOS, the limitation is not reasonable to me.
First, the Guideline 2.5.2 of iOS and iPadOS blocks code execution that loads dynamically, it may protect users because apps may load malicious code after it passes the revew from app store.
But if we load codes in the hypervisor, any malicious can only run in the VM, and the safety of the VM is not an issue. Escape from a VM is even harder than escape from the sandbox of the safari browser.
Even there are still other concerns about load arbitrary codes to hypervisor, we can limit it only load user selected code to the hypervisor, blocks app load code from interent without user intention.
Running user selected code in the hypervisor won't threaten the security at all, there is no reason for Guideline 2.5.2 applies to hypervisor.
Second, iPad a laptop replacement in the advertisement.
As a laptop, it can't execute any user generated code on it, it can only be interpreted. As a software develper, it means iPadOS basically not useable. I can only run code on a remote server, and use iPad as a thin client. It can't be a standalone devices, even it has a powerful M2 chip.
For the xcode on iPad, if apple concerns xcode on iPad breaks the security model, we can run the compiled code in the hypervisor, which isolates the reviewed code and user generated code. iPad has a powerful M2 chip, but iPadOS limit the power for it.
