> Final Cut Pro, Logic Pro, Pixelmator Pro, Motion, Compressor, and MainStage — plus new AI features and premium content in Keynote, Pages, and Numbers — come together in a single subscription
Well really they are copying the original Microsofts suite packaging which everyone has copied over the years! But yes specific they are trying to take market share on Adobe.
Its actually like taking on MS and Adobe together... but they aren't really taking on MS office.
You're never free to unsubscribe because you become accustomed to the tools, and use the file formats, etc. (That's why I don't do subscription, ever.)
When there are no more new buyers to sell devices, or new versions of existing software packages, the only way to keep the curve growing for shareholders and MBAs is to sell subscriptions.
It is also the only way to convince developers to pay for software.
Having a part hosted on some server is so much better than whatever anti-piracy schemes one can think of, and provides the continuous growth curve for printing money.
Thus subscriptions aren't going away in the modern software world.
> Name me something a product, not a service which you can only subscribe in Apple's ecosystem.
The shows on Apple TV are only available via a subscription; there's no way to have a perpetual purchase (at least as far as that a la carte style of purchase is perpetual).
It’s cheap enough it’s not enough to fund development of Final Cut but also not enough money to bother spending time on it. Find it odd personally, just offering them free to keep hardware makes more sense than trying to push a tiny subscription revenue number.
It's the problem that the whole industry is facing - the current generation of hardware is sufficient that hardware refreshes will continue to decline, and companies that want to keep milking us for money regularly need to find a new way to do it.
> the current generation of hardware is sufficient that hardware refreshes will continue to decline
If anything, Apple is refreshing their hardware much faster now compared to the Intel days. There's literally a new MacBook Pro and MacBook Air every year. And of course there are 3-4 new iPhones every year.
I hate subscriptions as much as the next person but how would you pay for continued development of software? Do you say a person can continue to run version X forever but if they want a new version they pay for it?
$129/year is surely better than $300 once, 15 years ago. Though I'm guessing not offering it for free is to keep it distinct from iMovie and to maintain some semblance of "Pro"-ness (which I'm gathering is up for debate either way.. the last time I did any actual video editing it was on Final Cut Pro 5 so I'm out of the loop)
> It’s cheap enough it’s not enough to fund development of Final Cut but also not enough money to bother spending time on it. Find it odd personally, just offering them free to keep hardware makes more sense than trying to push a tiny subscription revenue number.
Apple doesn't work that way.
Unlike almost all other tech companies that are organized by divisions, Apple uses a functional organizational structure.
So all of the software teams are under one head of software; there's no senior vp of the Final Cut division, for example.
For accounting purposes, all software is lumped together.
Apple made $391 billion in revenue last fiscal year; when you're making that kind of money, you can afford to do things for reasons other than the amount of money you could make.
Whatever revenue Final Cut generates isn't required to fund the Final Cut team.
Subscription model so it’s adobes model. But you can buy “one time”. Though they have a tendency to just end product support (aperture software was canceled leaving a lot of bad taste for photographers that used it)
Wonder what Adobe thinks of this. Their support for Mac was pretty important in getting OS X off the ground, now they’re competing with a unified stack.
When I was a Mac user I remember buying Logic express 9 (I still have the disk). The price is a good deal, but you really are all in forever..
FTA: “Alternatively, users can also choose to purchase the Mac versions of Final Cut Pro, Pixelmator Pro, Logic Pro, Motion, Compressor, and MainStage individually as a one-time purchase on the Mac App Store.”
Except that isn’t an alternative title, unless you want to lie by omission thus being wrong.
“Apple offers new option for subscription in addition to existing one-time purchase optinos” might be an alternative though, and reduce the number of cynically inane comments from people that apparently didn’t RTFA before commenting.
I played once with hosting a VSCode server on a raspberry pi for general development and it was actually quite powerful, when used from an iPad. Just not strictly for Swift unfortunately
The ecosystem is fine for non-Apple development. It's just building apps for iOS, macOS, etc. that is impossible on iPad right now past some basic applications.
I'm hosting a VSCode server with Termux/Ubuntu container on my old Pixel 6a and I cannot overstate how awesome it is for just a fun dev setup, especially with a tablet. Easy to nuke and start clean too!
Unless Apple gets off several high horses regarding code signing and, more importantly, app containerization; any Xcode for iPadOS is going to be useless. Like, imagine Xcode without custom build steps or third-party compilers.
The larger problem is that the iPad has a dual nature. At the launch of the product, Apple positioned it as a netbook killer - i.e. a simplified computer for specific tasks, one where the locked down nature of the device might actually be considered a feature. That's why they built everything on iPhone OS[0]. However, there's always been the implication that this is supposed to Someday™ replace the Mac. It keeps getting new features to make it more useful as a computer replacement, which just makes the deliberate restrictions placed on the device more and more glaring. And Apple seems to think they can just keep adding features until they can make you do every computing task wearing a strait-jacket in a padded room.
This particular duality came to a head with the Apple Vision Pro. Any app that would actually be useful on a VR headset is either:
- Incompatible with Apple's code-signing and containerization requirements (i.e. developer tools)
- Not economic to offer at the small scale of the visionOS app market (at least, not while Apple is demanding 30%)
- A game (Apple really doesn't wanna talk about the Vision Pro as a games machine)
On a related note, Swift Playgrounds stopped getting updates almost a year ago. I updated my HTML editor demo project for iPadOS 26 and now I can't even compile it because Apple has yet to ship the version 26 SDK. And there's really nothing any third party can do to fix Swift Playgrounds to make it actually usable again.
[0] Strictly speaking, Apple's first internal demos of capacitive touch were for a tablet project specifically to spite Windows XP tablets. Although by the time they were writing actual shipping code it was intended for iPhone and iPad came later.
It isn't about doing and publishing apps without having to buy a mac.
Rather having a more powerful development experience that isn't as constrained as Swift Playgrounds, useful for prototyping ideas.
I do not care if in a similar vein, to a Smalltalk like environment I would always need to run the app from inside the dev env, and then use a Mac, or some cloud build workflow if I ever would like to actually publish it.
Just like I use several other coding on the go environments.
God fucking damn not you too, Apple. Adobe isn't a role model to emulate. I hate Adobe's practices. The whole world hates Adobe's practices. I want to pay for a thing with my money and then use it without worrying about ongoing costs, the UI changing, features breaking, or shit being shoved down my throat because some seedy PM wants a raise.
EDIT: I know you can still buy the software... but for how long?
Doesn't sound like it
> Alternatively, users can also choose to purchase the Mac versions of Final Cut Pro, Pixelmator Pro, Logic Pro, Motion, Compressor, and MainStage individually as a one-time purchase on the Mac App Store.5
> Alternatively, users can also choose to purchase the Mac versions of Final Cut Pro, Pixelmator Pro, Logic Pro, Motion, Compressor, and MainStage individually as a one-time purchase on the Mac App Store.
I'm curious how many people actually use all this stuff themselves. It seems like an extreme niche, and more often than not will have people paying for apps they will never use.
Maybe I'm old skool... but for the last 30+ years I've been using a combination of photoshop, illustrator, FCP, after effects (back when it was CoSA...), some audio editing and mixing in quite a bit of code as well. While others on my team specialize in one or two domains, I've managed to keep my skills in many.
Back in the day I was considered a 'MultiMedia' creative. I don't even know what to call myself these days.
It's $12.99/mo or $129/yr for a subscription that includes Final Cut Pro, Logic Pro, Pixelmator Pro, Motion, Compressor, MainStage, Keynote, Pages, and Numbers
Educational discount with verification required drops the price to $2.99/mo / $29.99/yr.
The regular-price subscription includes family sharing, education price does not.
One-time purchase versions remain available: Final Cut Pro ($299.99), Logic Pro ($199.99), Pixelmator Pro ($49.99), Motion ($49.99), Compressor ($49.99), and MainStage ($29.99).
Pretty spot on. I think what's new is that Apple is employing this tactic, before they always went with "Our stuff is more expensive because it's better", but as they seem to slightly pivot into other directions now, this choice also seems to align with the new direction.
They want marketshare to enhance their other market positions and give them optionality for future strategy.
They'd love the whole market, but they don't need it and they won't employ too many resources chasing that.
They're a powerful giant with hands in so many places. Each enforcing other endeavors.
This encourages people to stay in the Apple hardware ecosystem, for instance. It dog foods their silicon. It keeps people thinking of Apple as the creative brand and operating system. More creatives buying Apple -> more being produced and consumed for and on Apple.
Also the strategy of getting kids young has always been genius. They started that in the eighties, I think.
They don't need to, but they do lose a bunch more of the 'feeder' market. If need to edit video to a semi professional standard I'd pick this bundle at 12.99/month (and get extra tools i might need) vs adobe premiere for 22.99/month.
As someone who came up along side adobe, the only reason photoshop is as entrenched as it is is simply because of piracy. Ditto for premiere. It created the market that they then locked down with subscriptions.
I think you are going to see shops that are smaller, doing their own design stuff internally, increasingly moving away from adobe subscriptions.
Apple hardware has "only" a 36% margin, while their software and services have a 75% margin. They definitely want to make more money on software with absurd margins.
I would assume it's because younger generations of creatives are using their software less and less, increasing the risk of losing the market completely on the software side. At this pricing, more of them will turn to paying Apple rather than paying for multiple services, keeping them tied into the ecosystem.
Also so many people are paying for Canva, Capcut etc that taking a piece of that cake is quite a low hanging fruit if you have a distribution platform.
The acquisition of the Affinity software by Canva I imagine motivated this.
It’s even a similar pricing model, though technically with Pages / Numbers / Keynote covers a little more ground but I think the main intent is to get creatives using Apple’s creative software again
Pixelmator being the only 3rd party software because Apple never made a competitor to Photoshop
Though since Canva went full on toward more robust tools I imagine they have started capturing the entire editing chain more than they did 2-3 years ago, hence the Affinity acquisition
The competition for the Creator Studio is not exactly Adobe. Of course Apple will be happy to build on their offerings to be able to really take on Adobe, but this subscription is priced to compete with the online services popping up from nowhere that have stolen the ease of use market away from Adobe.
The real competition in this market in 2026 is Canva.
Canva, really? Is this looking forward at what is coming?
I see the rise of and have to deal with Canva-generated PDFs instead of Adobe Illustrator. So the low end market of video / animation, I could absolutely see Canva dominating. Doubt we'll see audio tools though.
Final Cut Pro -- Professional non-linear video editing
* Canva? Partial: Best for social clips; lacks FCP’s RAW, multicam, and AI transcript tools.
Logic Pro -- Professional music production and MIDI sequencing
* Canva? No: No DAW capabilities, plugin hosting, or live mixing.
Pixelmator Pro -- Advanced image editing and graphic design
* Canva? Partial: Good for templates; lacks Pixelmator’s precision layers and AI retouching.
With Canva’s ownership of Affinity, yeah I see Canva as being a big competitor in parts of this space now. Or will be as those tools become more widespread across Canva’s users.
I finally had to give mine up. Needed to reset the password which required a trip to 4HELP office and I live halfway around the globe now. But the kiddo will be starting college soon so I can mooch off their edu email address.
Ah, I've been mooching off an old library card for years to rent books for my Kindle. Finally got an email saying "Just pop into your local branch to renew this year." Ah...
YES! I was a happy Kanopy movie viewer until last year I got a message that my library card no longer worked on Kanopy and I had to physically go in to the library to get a new one. Maybe someday....
You have to renew them? I've been using the same card since '03. I went in a 2 years ago to pay my fine for a book lost in the couch cushion for a few months. Librarian thought it was quaint that I still have my old tattered library card.
If you are planning anyway to break the terms of the license and effectively steal the software, why even bother paying something for the privilege? Just get it for free, surely it has to be available cracked
> break the terms of the license and effectively steal the software
We're all (mostly/some) software people here, you don't need to use terms established by the "anti-piracy" firms to make your point, no one is "stealing" anything here, even if they were getting it for free from TPB or whatever.
Indeed. But people are stuck on these archaic unrelated terms for now. AI firms will make the whole thing obsolete while luddites cry about “stealing from artists” and stuff like that.
There was no morality play. My point is your copy/use of software is equally "illegal" whether you just download a cracked copy or pretend to be an active college student and pay the student price, when you are not in fact an active college student. Either way, you won't have a valid license. So why bother paying?
This is quite the slippery argument IMO. So it’s not about morality, it’s about legality. But also it’s about paying for a valid license, so they shouldn’t pay at all?
When I moaned to the Adobe support person about a recent price hike they said "It's a real shame you haven't signed up for a free educational course online, like the ones from Google, that would qualify you for a student plan. Or have you? I'll wait here while you tell me if you are enrolled in one of those free Google courses. Take as long as you need."
The most important benefits in my opinion are choice and price - people like me who prefer to buy software outright can still do so at a reasonable cost, while others who opt for a subscription can also do so (again, at a reasonable cost).
It's pretty clever that they keep the "pay one time" option still alive while announcing the availability of subscription, so anyone who says "Boo, not you too Apple" can easily be shut down with "You still have the option to buy it!" instead of leaving those critics without answers. Of course, they'll eventually remove the option to buy the software by paying once, I think everyone can see the writing on the wall, but still clever of them to choose to do it later for PR purposes. 1-0 to Apple :)
Yes - but perpetual purchases have an interesting gotcha that Microsoft didn't realise at first. To encourage subscription over perpetual, ongoing or evergreen updates are limited to subscription version.
Office 2024 has every feature that was added since Office 2021 to the subscription version - while a chunk of loyal customers are unaware of them.
Back when Google was competing hard with Google Suite, a big perception problem formed with the perpetual customers believing and convincing others that Google were far ahead, with collab editing and other features - after Office had added equivalent.
So for me, If there's a subscription and one-time option - I wonder if the one-time gets all updates going forward. If it doesn't, I realise that they'll regret that if competition picks up, and try to fix it later.
If it does include updates... I worry it will be like many other lifetime updates one-time purchases - when competition is low they'll renege on that promise.
So far from what I can tell, Final Cut Pro has gotten perpetual updates. Since you can only buy it via the Mac App Store, ther can’t do upgrade pricing.
They could - and some of the 3rd party vendors did: There is a 1Password 7 and a 1Password 8. There was also a Things 1/2, which is now a Things 3. it usually works by creating a new app, and not updating the old one anymore.
Yes. That sentence is setup for the speculation in the third paragraph. Folks in this sub-thread are wondering how the one-time price option plays out with Apple Creator Studio.
You would definitely not get free upgrades for Office. You would get minor point release updates. You also had to upgrade the Mac version often for:
- the System 7 transition
- the 040 Macs and to get a “32 bit clean version”
- to get the full speed of running natively on PPC Macs
- to get a native OS X version instead of one that ran in the OS 9 sandbox
- the Intel transition to get native performance.
I would much rather pay $150 (?) a year for a five user license where each user gets 1TB of storage and each user can use Office across Macs, Windows, iPhones and iPads.
It’s the same price as Dropbox’s 2TB plan and all you get for that is storage.
On a related note: Steve Jobs was right - Dropbox is a feature not a product.
Because there is no such product as Office 2025, much like there was no Windows 96. There is Office 2004, 2008, 2011, 2016, 2019, 2021 and 2024. They usually release roughly every three years so there might be an Office 2027. 365 is a separate (but closely related) product.
The one-time purchase version of Microsoft Office is not available worldwide. Where offered, it is reduced to Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and OneNote, with Outlook as a Business edition extra. Individual apps can sometimes be bought separately, but pricing usually makes this impractical. This is to push buyers to Microsoft 365 subscriptions which is the primary product.
Yes, of course, ultimately every choice they ever do is for money, because they're a for-profit company. But maybe we can be slightly more granular about exactly how that choice makes them more money, which is because it gives them good PR. I was just being more specific, but we're saying the same thing :)
Parent isn’t insinuating otherwise. They’re saying the subscription model is more lucrative, so eventually they’ll remove the one time payment option, but keeping it as an option for the announcement keeps the bad PR at bay.
> It's pretty clever that they keep the "pay one time" option still alive while announcing the availability of subscription, so anyone who says "Boo, not you too Apple" can easily be shut down with "You still have the option to buy it!"
Probably not. Those customers are almost completely irrelevant and not people who Apple or anybody else cares about. They won't mind if you kick and scream.
Yea I've already purchased some of these apps so I was not going to thrilled if they pulled an Adobe and made me pay for an overpriced subscription on top of it >:(
It's not outrageous, for sure, specially if you happen to have a use case for all the bundled apps. But things change if you consider that the one time payment for Logic Pro equals about 18 months of the subscription. In my case, I bought Logic Pro in 2013 for 180€. Obviously a subscription seems expensive no matter what the price is.
Indeed, and considering the 14 years of free Logic upgrades I'm surprised they bothered charging the initial $199! (I do remember being a bit miffed that it was $199 regardless of my existing license for the giant $999 box that was Logic Studio.)
If a students needs Logic Pro for 3 months for a class then they can get it (with the other apps) for $9 total ($6 if you count the free month). That makes more sense than a one time fee of $200. On the other hand, if you're planning to use the software for over a decade like yourself then $200 is very cheap.
Exactly what I was thinking. I bought Pixelmator Pro 3 days ago… But I am happy, as I have absolutely no need for the others, except for the free ones.
Why do you think they will remove the option to buy the software?
They’ve kept the model for years. They’re targeting different audiences with the move.
> so anyone who says "Boo, not you too Apple" can easily be shut down with "You still have the option to buy it!" instead of leaving those critics without answers
This is like saying that it's clever for Mars to keep Mars Bars while launching a new bar, as it "shuts down" complaints that Mars Bars will no longer exist.
I don’t really understand the point you’re trying to get at but your analogy doesn’t really work here because a new chocolate bar would be a new product. Not a different way of buying the same product.
> Of course, they'll eventually remove the option to buy the software by paying once, I think everyone can see the writing on the wall
There's no indication Apple is planning to end the option of paying once for these apps.
Apple introduced subscriptions for Final Cut and Logic nearly three years ago [1]; this isn't new by any means. Pages, Numbers and Keynote remain available at no cost.
The other thing that’s going to go away is purchasing only what you need. I want exactly one of these apps, I bet virtually nobody uses all of them, and yet the suckers are going to be telling us that being made to buy stuff we don’t want or use is “more value”.
Of course predictions about the future are not present reality.
It’s not set in stone, but it’s supported by the times this has happened before and by trends in Apple and in tech. “Nothing will ever change” is a prediction, too, and one much less supported by evidence.
Final Cut Pro X has been available for purchase (at the same price, IIRC) for well over a decade now. Pro feathers were ruffled at the time they leapt from FCP7 to FCPX: the $299 price point was something like 1/4 of the going rate for its predecessors, was Apple planning to abandon its pros for the consumer market? Well. Here we are almost 15 years later, and if you paid the one-time price back then, you're still getting free updates today (at least on desktop). And you can still buy in with 299 2025 dollars, rather than 299 2011 dollars.
At the time, the common wisdom was that they'd go the same route as Adobe: you'd have to buy Final Cut X+1 in a couple years for another $299, and Final Cut X+2 a couple years after that... to their credit, that's not the way it's gone.
So that way, I imagine, all the film folks have a little more money to chuck at their high-powered Mac hardware budgets in the next refresh cycle instead... An evergreen Final Cut Pro license costs almost as much as 1TB of SSD from those guys!
That is true, but it is also true that FinalCut lost big time against DaVinci for all semi-professional users which are exactly FinalCut's main target group.
I'd argue that it is very likely that Final Cut X+1 was Apple's plan. It just did not pan out and they were busy with other things. Now they made the first step correcting that (or cutting the losses, depending how you want to see it).
Davinci Resolve is free. At least, for the non studio version. (There’s a few studio only features, but almost everything is available in the free version of resolve). And a lot of people want to learn resolve anyway for color grading. Why not just edit in resolve too? Resolve studio is also quite cheap, given you buy it once and own it forever. Including updates.
I spent last week helping out at a short filmmaking course. The DP running it has used Final Cut for his entire career. But not a single student chose to edit their film using Final Cut. The class was split between resolve and premier pro. (Premier was chosen by a lot of people because it’s what they use at school, and they have a free licence to premier from their school while they’re studying.)
> At the time, the common wisdom was that they'd go the same route as Adobe: you'd have to buy Final Cut X+1 in a couple years for another $299, and Final Cut X+2 a couple years after that... to their credit, that's not the way it's gone.
And that's despite Apple having zero interest in doing things that don't ultimately make them money.
I have a theory for how sales of these one-time-purchase yet indefinitely-updated apps happens to work out positively on Apple's balance sheet, while it doesn't for most other large players right now.
And that's that, due to Apple's vertical integration (they make the hardware, they make the OS that runs on the hardware, they make the apps that run on the OS) — and due to these apps only targeting their own OSes+hardware, with no consideration of portability to other platforms — a lot (like 90+%) of the "enablement" work for these apps ends up time-budgeted as OS work, rather than apps work.
Or, I guess, to be more charitable, you could say that Apple's engineers develop first-party apps not just to sell them, but at least in part to drive the development of the OS as a developer platform. You could even describe the OS frameworks as the product, and the apps themselves as the byproduct. (In that lens, the only reason FCP would cost anything at all is to avoid accusations of anti-competitive behavior.)
The core of Apple's success has always been to capture the cultural leaders. Artists, musicians, journalists, etc. have used Apple at much higher percentages than the general public.
Now that the iPhone made Apple much more of mainstream company, it's harder to do -- what does it mean to focus on cultural leaders when 90% of American teens have an iPhone? But in the 15 years since Steve Jobs' death they have still been doing a decent job of it.
There are features they are planning to make exclusive to the subscriptions. I don’t know if they’re planning to make the one-time purchase go away completely, but it seems like it’s going to be approached as the “lesser” option.
I think it's okay, or even better probably, if they move to subscription only. All Apple's paid apps have languished for years and if its actually a revenue stream for them maybe they'll actually make them industry-leading again.
Not Apple, but iMazing switched to subscription model and they simply lost me as a customer.
JetBrains tried something similar a while ago too, and almost screwed it up - but managed to listen to their customers and nailed it with the perpetual fallback licensing. Making me not just pay the subscription but feel respect to the company.
All companies should do this. Sometimes I want a one-time purchase. Sometimes I want to try the program for a few months and I prefer a cheap subscription over a big upfront cost. And very, very rarely, I'll prefer the subscription, even though it's more expensive over time, to support a cool indie studio with recurring revenue instead of one-time purchases that may dry up and lead to lack of interest from the devs.
This is my argument for the Adobe subscription. One day, I'm a photographer needing apps like Photoshop and Lightroom and After Effects (because I do a lot of timelapse). One day, I'm a graphic designer, so I need Photoshop and Illustrator. One day, I'm an editor, so Photoshop, Premiere, Illustrator, and After Effects. One day, I'm doing desktop publishing with Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign.
So what about next year when all of the apps receive updates/upgrades? Will the paid-in-full versions receive the upgrade for free, or will they have upgrade prices? I remember the days of Adobe's annual version upgrades, and they were at least $99 per app. Using that as the basis, the Adobe subscription plan is not more expensive that just broken up into 12 payments. People that kept running v4 to avoid the upgrade prices eventually got left out as they could not open files provided to them from others using the most recent version. Let's not forget our history on the one-time purchase pros/cons
These are being sold on Apple's AppStore, and there the model is that you get all of the updates for that App. Of course there is the work-around that some apps use, which is to create a new App (i.e.: MyApp vs MyApp2), which Apple could do at some point in the future.
The best one to watch at the moment is if Pixelmater Pro license holders from before it was bought by Apple get access to any of the new improvements.
Not related to your comment exactly but I feel like I need to get this out in this thread somewhere:
As someone who defended FCPX and used it professionally for years even when it was at its most hated (2011 or so), it’s been woefully supported the last few years and no one should be on it anymore. Resolve Studio outclasses it top to bottom for the same one-time cost and runs great on both MacOS and Windows. Linux it’s bumpy unfortunately but it does technically run lol
> Resolve Studio outclasses it top to bottom for the same one-time cost and runs great on both MacOS and Windows
Best 200-300 EUR I spent some years ago, and still receives free updates, Blackmagic Design is a really nice company. And, not only does Resolve run great on macOS and Windows, they have Linux native builds that run even better than it does with the same hardware using Windows, which is REALLY nice.
Runs like a dream for me, albeit on workstation-hardware so YMMV. It runs better under X than Wayland, at least the version I'm still stuck on, but otherwise the performance is top notch and easily worth a try :)
It lacks a lot more than flashy social media features - and given their biggest driver in the 2010’s was arguably YouTubers, they actually need more robust social media features. For starters, they just added voice isolation what? A year ago? That has been bog-standard for resolve and premiere for years now. The audio tools in general are still very subpar.
I used it professionally from 2011-2020 or so. Around 2020 the gaps in feature parity became wider and more apparent, it’s clearly not a priority anymore. Once I went to resolve I basically abandoned it. I use maybe every 6mo tops now for quick stuff for friends and family or to open an old project.
The one thing I will say is for speed cutting, it’s probably the best. And that’s no small thing! But that’s about it.
It's certainly interesting that Apple have been pushing Blackmagic's products. They practically rely on Blackmagic software for all their demos when they release some new bit of hardware. They totally conceded on the camera app, for instance.
Thank god they preserved the one time purchase. I bought all of these apps back in like ~2013 and have been using them for literally 13 years with all updates (fcp, compressor, motion)
It's rare for a company to not only offer one-time purchases, and keep updating them, but also not rebranding/renaming/version cut-off charging at some point.
It helps that you have to continue to buy their hardware to keep running said software. I guess they could be greedy and keep making me pay for Logic every few years so I'm happy they don't do that but they're still making money off my initial purchase of logic just in a different way.
I bought a license for Pixelmator Pro a couple of years ago. IIRC it cost 30 or 40 EUR. I don't use it much, but it is unlikely you're going to need all of that software.
I could see using an iPad for automation, triggered by midi, but I use an Air for that (and even if I used an my Pro, I still have to use a USB C hub because for some reason Apple things 1 (or 2) USB ports is enough. Sigh.
the other benefit is that subs can be a sort of extended trial. Ive been wanting to try out final cut pro but I don't want to do a full video project if i'm going to be evaluating it. better to have 1-3 months to really know before I plunk down 299 bucks.
There are far too many tools out there (from FL Studio on one end, to MuseScore on the other) that present piano-roll-based rapid prototyping and traditional western score notation as diametric opposites. From day 1, Logic challenged itself "what if we can use the same event-based data model to render both."
None of this complexity is hidden - you can edit the raw event stream directly. If you're a developer familiar with, say, React, it makes music creation quite intuitive - everything from visual to audio output is a function of a transparently formatted data store.
And while that has its challenges, and some of the UX innovations of e.g. MuseScore have been slower to arrive in Logic, because of this "dual life" it's unmatched as a pedogogical tool, and a professional creative tool as well.
Among professional-ready DAWs, as far as I know, it's unique in its approach. Pro Tools and FL Studio still don't have score rendering or even MusicXML export! Reaper has limited score rendering/engraving support, but minimal customizability.
And on the notation-oriented side, you have things like MuseScore, Finale, etc. where there is an event model, but the UI itself doesn't have mature (or any) support for tracking mixer/knob automation (outside of what can be derived automatically from dynamic symbols).
Years ago, I used Logic in a musical theater context where I could build a constantly-updated demo for pitching/rehearsals/live-iteration and edit the final orchestration to be printed for the pit orchestra, both from the same living document. Could I have duplicated my changes in a DAW and notation software separately, and kept them in sync manually? Absolutely, and many creators do. But there's something special about having that holy grail at your fingertips.
There's a lot of information in a traditional western score that cannot be easily represented in a pianoroll, at least not losslessly.
Considering them as alternate views of the same data model gets problematic when the composer uses the full bag of tricks that score notation allows (notably repeats, but also the problem of representing tuplets correctly when a pianoroll can offer no clues about how to structure them). So for example, the user can create a set of notes in the pianoroll that will never be played correctly by anyone reading the score; the user can create dynamics in the score that cannot be correctly presented in the pianoroll version.
I'm not saying it isn't possible to do an MVC-style system with two different views of the same data model - it clearly is. It's just moving between the two views is not lossless, and moving between the two controllers (i.e. editing) is not equivalent.
My concern here is are they going to start locking features for Pages, Numbers, and Keynote behind a paywall? Yes, it’s free—but will they still have all of the newer features without a subscription?
They'll be pressured by gdocs and other similar products to not keep too much of this behind a paywall. I already don't know anyone who loves using Pages (every time I share a document I have to export it to .docx, which is annoying), so they're already starting off behind by a bit.
I really enjoy Pages, but if they’re going to lock stuff behind a paywall — it might be time to look at other things. I can’t afford to add a whole bunch of new subscriptions.
I think many more would be on to Pages if they realized it was more than a simple WP. It's especially great for personal use, where there's no non-Mac sharing needed — there's no simpler layout program out there, & the typographic options are nice to have. If I have something longer/more detailed to put together, that's what ()LaTeX, Inkscape, etc., is for. We need alternate app ecosystems out there, & it's nice that Apple hasn't left these apps to rot like they did back in the 2010s.
Make the one-time purchase while you still can. The educational version is a great value, and the license allows the software to be used for commercial purposes.
TikTokers ("influencers" in general) don't do their editing or any part of their "production pipeline" on computers, kids are doing the full thing via smartphones nowadays. Blew my mind initially too, as I always did "serious work" at a computer and never the phone, but seems they're managing it somehow.
They often start there, some stay there, some graduate to an iPad, but a a lot of the higher end creators absolutely edit in desktops or laptops (usually MacBooks)
My old job dealt with this quite a lot as they were our target market, so I got some up close views of how for example, creators like MrBeast go about their editing (well the employees anyway)
Though I did note a lot of creators that do graduate to more robust software basically go from lightweight editor via Canva -> iMovie or equivalent -> professional software e.g. FCPX or Premiere
Yeah, that matches what I've seen too, bigger productions adopting a more traditional pipeline, while "influencers" or whatever they're called today, kind of stick with the tools they've learned, until they "graduate" as they expand the team and bring in actual professionals.
Logic Pro gets regular updates. I believe most of it is AI driven nonsense but they are making changes. Flashback capture was a nice fairly recent addition and surprising this wasn't implemented sooner. There are also regular bug fixes and performance improvements. I can't speak for the other apps.
I absolutely would. I've used them for years, alongside MS Office on Windows and Libre Office on Linux, and while they lack a few features they're not ones I've ever needed and the UI and ease of use is far superior to Office. Especially Pages is a pleasure to work with compared with Word.
Keynote is so much better for presentations that PowerPoint it's not even funny. But if you're not doing presentations, I can understand dumping it. I do like to have Pages because it means I don't have to bother with Word's annoying ribbon interface and Copilot AI when I'm writing...though sounds like that may be changing?
Keynote is completely underrated, likely because people assume it's just a Powerpoint clone, but it's more like a highly templated motion graphics app with a UI that steers people into using it as Powerpoint replacement.
So not only is it a far quicker way to make a PPT than using Powerpoint. I also see it used for making presentation videos, interactive PDFs and even animated GIFs/HTML5 animations.
The number of motion graphics marketing videos I see which are actually just Keynote files exported to video is impressive.
That’s kind of funny you mention “quicker way to make a PPT.” Everyone at my company had been asking me how I make my presentations look so good. I’m no designer; I’m a lowly engineer. But I do them in Keynote and export them to PowerPoint, which is half the battle!
(Sadly, my work laptop is Windows. So I create them on my personal laptop then migrate to PPT and do my best to fix up the fonts on Windows.)
I put up with Numbers awful pivot table mechanics (why do they have to be manually updated?) because it genuinely allows you to create nice information displays with your tables.
I have a numbers file for my personal finances and it is so nice having some tables at the top with mortgage info and then details below. It makes running what-ifs super easy. Charts in excel and GSheets just kinda float over your content awkwardly.
I paid for Numbers way back when it was a paid app. I have simple needs, and I much preferred the smooth inertial scrolling compared to running Excel in a VM (which was what I was doing before).
> These apps will continue receiving updates, with the latest versions adopting the beautiful new visual design language with Liquid Glass on all platforms
Are the Apple people really this oblivious, or is someone in PR trolling us?
I read it less as obliviousness and more as internal language leaking into marketing. What’s “Liquid Glass” to Apple reads like an aesthetic system though but to outsiders it sounds like jargon inflation. I feel the gap between internal coherence and external clarity shows up in these releases a lot.
I guess it's enforced top-down. Yesterday I picked up my MacBook from a logicboard repair and they forced Tahoe on it despite running Sonoma originally so I spent most of yesterday getting rid of Tahoe and reverting back to Sonoma.
Each new macOS version brings new restrictions causing some essential apps to stop working or work in a more complicated way so I keep delaying macOS upgrades as late as possible. macOS used to be an OS that lowered my cognitive complexity but that's no longer true these days due to security overreach.
As a macOS sysadmin I feel this in my bones, and of course I don't know what apps are essential for you, but FWIW Sequoia has been basically identical to Sonoma for me. In fact I had to double check what I was running on this computer before writing this because there's just no functional or aesthetic difference that I know of off the top of my head.
(And yes, I'm holding off on Sonoma for as long as possible because... yuck)
Of course not, but I'd rephrase what the OP said as something more like "it's unrealistic to expect them to go 'hey, guess what, never mind about all that' after a half a year.
I think it's more realistic to expect that they're going to stick with a UI officially called "Liquid Glass" for the next decade, but it's going to go through some serious iterative changes in the next couple of years -- probably much more than it would have were Alan Dye still around.
You’ve never worked at BigCorp have you? At Amazon, part of the initial indoctrination when I was hired there was competitive messaging when talking to clients (I worked in ProServe) and what you were never allowed to say. I remember we could never say we had a “moat”.
Doesn’t matter. The apps run on the OS, the latest hardware only runs the OS at the hardware release date and later. You’re getting the Fisher-Price UI whether you want it or not, even if the apps never change a thing.
Many years ago, before Final Cut Pro x my cousin asked me to help inject some video from tapes and keep the time code. In Final Cut Pro. I couldn’t figure it out.
So in desperation I read the manual. It was seriously well written and I understood the program, what needed to be done and how to do it.
And here's the ruining of Pixelmator Pro everyone was waiting for. I paid one time 20 euros for it (discounted). And I would gladly pay again even full price for a new major version.
I don't want yet another subscription.
I see that they can still be bought (for now) but I wonder how long that will last.
I don’t get why they think “professional” is a generic tier.
If I’m a music producer, what’s the value of being given a digital art drawing program? If I’m an illustrator, why do I need a cinema post production suite?
Some people might happen to do both, but overlap is largely accidental, right? The fact that they think of all professions as a bundle is even insulting as it signals the products are mostly toys/hobbyist stuff.
> If I’m a music producer, what’s the value of being given a digital art drawing program? If I’m an illustrator, why do I need a cinema post production suite
A lot of people round trip through various softwares to create things. As a film editor I use NLE’s, DAW’s, music production tools, various encoders (like compressor), graphic design tools…I’d say it’s the norm not the exception to need 2-3 specialized pieces of software during projects.
I think that's why they call it "Creator" studio. Creators - in the way the term is usually used today - indeed do use many of these tools. Maybe you produce music, create a video about you producing music and also need an engaging thumbnail for YouTube.
In a feature film production, these would certainly be separate roles. But apart from maybe Logic Pro for composers, Apple's tools are not really relevant at those levels of the entertainment business anymore. Post-pro would be Pro Tools for audio, something like Avid Media Composer for editing etc.
I think Apple has realized they are not playing on that level anymore and target their marketing to where they are still in the game. That's not necessarily a bad move.
Tons of professionals use logic. Really, you will find money making musicians using any of the major daws. Pro tools might still be the standard for recording studios but that's likely it.
My point was more that creators will often use more than one tool.
I know Logic is widespread amongst beat producers and songwriters, especially in the US. But you will also often see tracks getting produced on Logic but the final mix then happens on Pro Tools (by professional mixing engineers).
But that's why I explicitly mentioned Logic, I think it's the one pro app from Apple that still deserves the moniker, at least in regards to where it is used. The video stuff not so much anymore.
The real difference is that a "true professional" already has the software—purchased at full price by themselves or by their employer—and doesn't need a subscription in the first place.
The biggest distinction, in my experience, is that prosumers tend to be means-focused and professionals tend to be ends-focused, so there's less zealotry and evangelism in professional circles.
The individual one time purchase versions are still available for all the apps. Final Cut, Logic, Motion, Compressor, and MainStage are offered in a bundle for education by Apple as a $199.99 one time purchase (no education status is verified) [1]. Pixelmator Pro is available as a one time purchase as well for $49.99 [2]. Not included in the Creator Studio is the Lightroom alternative Photomator, which is available as a one time purchase of $119.99. You could recreate just the Creator Studio as a one time $250 purchase, or the entire suite (including Photomator) for $370.
Not available for one time purchase are the AI features and templates available for the free apps (Keynote, Pages, Numbers, Freeform).
Personally, I'm glad that one time purchases are still options for the core pro suite: long term they do hold value compared to paying Adobe a subscription (or dealing with the high seas on macOS). However, I don't see things like the education bundle sticking around much longer, so purchase it sooner rather than later.
The inclusion of Pixelmator Pro is simply so they no longer have a hole in the software lineup as a competitor vs Affinity (I think the real competitor to this bundle) and Adobe
I think they view Photos as a viable replacement for Lightroom and equivalents.
That's probably a clue that maintaining Photomator is not on Apple's long-term roadmap. I imagine they'll merge some features into Photos and eventually discontinue it.
Photos would need a lot of work to rival Photomator.
If they're essentially shutting down Photomator development, after doing similar with Aperture many years ago, they do seem very determined to drive people to Lightroom....
Additional info: Final Cut Pro is going to keep getting updates, but certain features (presumably AI related) are not going to be included with the one time purchase and are gated to the subscription [1].
Yeah! They were courageous enough to take the step that Microsoft did with the Office suite (announced 1988, launched 1990) and with Microsoft 365 as subscription in 2011.
I'm keeping an eye on Graphite (https://graphite.art/) as something to move to from Affinity's stuff, but it's good there's a new option for people who need more.
I’ve been waiting to see what happens with Photomator, and the fact that it’s not being included in anyway here makes me think it might not survive? Either that, or it’s gonna be heavily integrated into Photos…
I was also surprised to not see Photomator included. Wouldn’t it perfectly complement the lineup? I hadn’t thought of such a pessimistic interpretation, but now I’m worried as well …
I think Apple killed Aperture primarily because it was confusing to have iPhoto and Aperture with largely overlapping workflows. Aperture had the loupe view, and side by side comparison stuff, saved color grading tools (I think?), sure, but it wasn’t differentiated enough to justify a Pro designation. I think it makes more sense for Photomator features to be absorbed into Photos… and maybe Photos gets some new Pixelmator integrations if you have it, for quick touch ups / enhancement type things.
On the other hand, Final Cut / iMovie will exist side by side because it’s truly a basic vs Pro situation.
Not a product manager at Apple, of course, but this is what logically seems to make sense.
Uff, I sure hope you are wrong! I don’t want to use the iCloud library for photos, but have my photos available as digital files elsewhere on the ssd. Of course, your prediction makes more sense from Apple’s standpoint, unfortunately.
I do like the convenience of iCloud, but totally agree that having them safe elsewhere is necessary. I’ve been pretty bad about keeping solid, non-iCloud backups of my photos. I definitely need to be more proactive about it.
I mean, the friendly way to kill off the differences between Aperture and Photos would have been to add all the missing workflow stuff to Photos before killing Aperture. Photos did not get lift-and-stamp edits until late 2022, years after Aperture was discontinued, and it isn't as good as the corresponding feature in Aperture was. Also, it would have been cool if the Photos import from Aperture library had ever worked, even a little bit. I keep an external hard drive around with my old Aperture library because I know it contains photos that Photos.app still hasn't pulled in correctly.
Frustrating that Photos is really not suitable for anything other than editing snaps. I'd love to ditch Adobe, but Darktable doesn't support Fuji raws, and there really aren't that many great commercial alternatives to Lightroom that don't also have a subscription model.
I can’t help but notice Apple in the last decade has kind of been spinning in circles software wise while their hardware division makes breakthroughs with M-series chips.
Seems like a pretty solid deal, if you need everything. I don't know who that person is though. The intersection between Final Cut Pro and Logic users is pretty small, I'd imagine.
I'm that kind of user but I would rather not use Logic, Final Cut, or PixelMator unless Apple really improves those. On top of that there's also the platform lock-in concern.
It's a massacre. The originals[0] were metaphorical and easy to grasp. These new ones are meaningless, for most of them you can't guess what the app does from the icon. The beautiful 3-axis colorwheel gimbal, gone. The concert access badge, gone. The pressed record award replaced with a disc? Is that the MP3 player app?
And Final Cut Pro looks like Windows 11's garbage free ClipChamp! None of them have the gravitas of the old ones.
It's weird because uniformity and minimalism haven't been "in" in years, outside the Silicon Valley bubble. They're very culturally out of touch.
This seems like an Apple AI subscription under the guise of a software bundle.
It’s a good value for some, especially if you want to use FCP, but seems like a bad value for most users who are expecting more value from their Mac purchase.
I wonder if new Macs will offer a three-month trial for this suite, or if the standard apps will be pre-installed and the AI features are unlocked through a subscription.
If bundled versions of iWork go away, we may see a renaissance for G Suite.
Sounds plausible. Someone internally likely has AI sales numbers to meet, so creating new subscriptions and adding "AI" to them can help juice AI-related numbers toward that quota.
I find it useful as a massive canvas for keeping a bunch of stuff in context, visually. And accessible via Mac and iPhone. But it is sorely lacking a major feature: highlight text to add a hyperlink. I end up with full URLs instead of hyperlinked words and it's pretty messy.
I use it regularly to do rough sketches of objects on my iPad to model in CAD later on the computer. It doesn't feel right for artwork or notes or basically anything else.
I think this is a huge mistake at least as far as the office software goes. One of the key advantages to Pages.app and friends is that they are pre-installed and free on MacOS. This will just drive people to M365 and Google Docs.
Pages and other iWork apps will remain free. The premium features are for curated images and templates, and AI assisted document creation. If you don't care for those features, you will not be affected by the change.
It's a pity Apple didn't choose to acquire Affinity when there was a chance. Pixelmator Pro looks like a toy app compared to Logic or Final Cut. I don't see how it could ever catch up to Photoshop. Even at such small scale it's always been very buggy in my experience and development seems to have stalled (apart from some obligatory AI features).
I am glad the standalone purchases are still available and I assume they will stay updated in sync with the subscription-based ones. I would hate my copy of Logic getting slowly obsolete..
Your experience is starkly different than mine. Are you sure you aren’t thinking of Pixelmator, Pixelmator Pro’s much more toy-like predecessor from ~10 years ago?
My experience is that while there’s a feature and community gap for both Pixelmator Pro and Affinity, Affinity just tried to copy Photoshop, positioning it as a worse but cheaper Photoshop, while Pixelmator Pro feels like an attempt to make a better photo editor, losing some familiarity points but also being tangibly better than Photoshop at most use cases it can handle, which is many. It’s also an excellent macOS citizen. Between those two factors, it seems much more up Apple’s alley.
I guess it depends a lot on the use cases. I've used both the original Pixelmator app and the "Pro" may have been a rewrite internally but it didn't feel like a significant step up for me at the time, more like a rebrand and a way to charge for it again. And so many bugs. The development team did respond to a few of my bug reports, which was nice.
Your experience couldn't be more different than mine. I love Pixelmator Pro. One of my favorite apps on my computer. Super quick and snappy. Does what I need it to. Which doesn't mean it does what everyone needs it to. I get that it isn't a Photoshop replacement. But not everyone needs a Photoshop replacement.
Here is a quick side by side comparison between Apple Creator Studio and the Adobe Creative Cloud suite.
Each app may be stronger or weaker depending on the use case, workflow, and specific user needs, so this is only a rough equivalence.
Function | Apple | Adobe | Adobe price / month
--------------------|----------------------|---------------------|--------------------
Image editing | Pixelmator Pro | Photoshop | ~USD 20
Video editing | Final Cut Pro | Premiere Pro | ~USD 23
Motion graphics | Motion | After Effects | ~USD 23
Audio production | Logic Pro | Audition | ~USD 23
Video encoding | Compressor | Media Encoder | Included with Premiere Pro
Live audio | MainStage | No direct equivalent| N/A
Docs/presentations | Keynote/Pages/Numbers| Express/Acrobat | ~USD 10 to 24
--------------------|----------------------|---------------------|--------------------
TOTAL | USD 12.99 / month | ~USD 100+ / month |
| (7 apps bundle) | (5 apps separately)|
| | USD 69.99 / month |
| | (bundle 20+ apps) |
Disclaimer: table formatting assisted by ChatGPT (hope it works on HN).
What this misses is that Creative Cloud is much more than a bundle of apps. It includes everything you need around the apps for pro workflows (i.e. fonts, AI, stock, collaboration, etc...).
After Apple suddenly discontinued Aperture, which left users like me with huge complex photo archives hanging, I will never trust any professional software tool from Apple again. It is a disaster that I still haven't fully recovered from.
I've learned my lesson — all my archives will now be maintained by me, in file structures, with metadata in text files.
Learned that lesson too. Then got into Lightroom. Now getting out of that by exporting stuff slowly. Moving to files on disk and edits in Darktable now. No "library".
Please don’t take this as me saying you were wrong to ever trust Apple, however the best way to organise any data is usually just files on a disk.
That’s becoming a recurring theme for me and even some of my corporate clients now. Confluence, for example, is out the window for secure documentation around sensitive environments and Word Docs in One Drive are back in. It’s surprisingly refreshing and gets the job done way better.
From what I recall, aperture did use files-on-a-disk, maintaining original photos read-only and letting everything else be operations on those originals.
Agree with all of this, apart from possibly OneDrive but that's for another post.
Not Apple-specific really that point for sure anyway. Personally I don't think we should ever ever trust any vendor to control our data or act as a proxy for access to it. If it's not on a physical disk in your hands, in a format which is documented and can be opened by more than one application, then you're one step away from being screwed. There are so many tangible risks we love to sweep under the rug from geopolitics, commercial stability, security, bugs to unexpected side effects. And I've seen some real horror stories on all of those fronts.
At the same time I managed to embed myself thoroughly in it and I'm 3 months in to undoing the mess. It's VERY hard to get back to files on disk. No moving away from that is probably the best option I suspect a lot of us never took.
Hardest stuff to get out of is iCloud/Apple and Adobe.
It’s actually a pretty big deal. I always wondered why they didnt compete with Adobe. Even when Steve Jobs was still around. 90%+ of Adobe users are on Macs.
Why though isn’t such a significant announcement on the Apple.com homepage?
I've had "buy motion" on my todo list for a while now.. just wanted to learn something new but it never made sense to buy it. With the subscription I think I'll give it a shot. Awesome!
The only apps from Apple I give a sizeable fraction of a dam about are Pages and Numbers, and hopefully they’ll emerge from the scourge of AI largely unscathed.
Tangential, but: MainStage the best deal in the entire pro audio industry.
As a keyboard player who mainly plays (and owns) classic electro-mechanical keyboards like Hammonds, Rhodes, Clavinets, and Wurlitzers, Apple's emulators that they brought from Logic are really top-notch - often better than what you get with dedicated hardware.
$30 is an insane price for what it delivers. I just wish it were available for iPad, and I'd use it more for gigging.
> A one-time purchase will still be available, but access to some of the premium content is available only to Apple Creator Studio subscribers. If you already own Final Cut Pro, it will continue to be updated.
Looks like some new "premium content" features will be only available to those with a subscription
andsoitis | 13 hours ago
So Apple is copying Adobe's business model?
boringg | 13 hours ago
Its actually like taking on MS and Adobe together... but they aren't really taking on MS office.
jpalomaki | 13 hours ago
bambax | 13 hours ago
pjmlp | 13 hours ago
It is also the only way to convince developers to pay for software.
Having a part hosted on some server is so much better than whatever anti-piracy schemes one can think of, and provides the continuous growth curve for printing money.
Thus subscriptions aren't going away in the modern software world.
bayindirh | 13 hours ago
I don't care about video, so I'll be buying Pixelmator now, and maybe music stuff later, and Video part never.
So it works like before, if you want.
bearjaws | 13 hours ago
bayindirh | 13 hours ago
...and they integrated some of the Aperture to new Photos app, which is again was a transition to free.
Name me something a product, not a service which you can only subscribe in Apple's ecosystem.
arvinsim | 12 hours ago
asimpletune | 11 hours ago
ascagnel_ | 12 hours ago
The shows on Apple TV are only available via a subscription; there's no way to have a perpetual purchase (at least as far as that a la carte style of purchase is perpetual).
dagmx | 12 hours ago
ascagnel_ | 5 hours ago
I used to buy the season passes so I could return to shows later; that's not an option for ATV stuff.
andrei_says_ | 10 hours ago
For video, the free version of DavinciResolve goes a very long way, and their Studio is a single-payment-life-time license.
lynndotpy | 8 hours ago
tapoxi | 13 hours ago
whywhywhywhy | 13 hours ago
anticorporate | 13 hours ago
no_wizard | 12 hours ago
Not quite “buying on release week” basis but some % of employees always getting new hardware at max specs in the design org
Makes even engineering jealous sometimes
alwillis | 11 hours ago
If anything, Apple is refreshing their hardware much faster now compared to the Intel days. There's literally a new MacBook Pro and MacBook Air every year. And of course there are 3-4 new iPhones every year.
anticorporate | 10 hours ago
rstupek | 11 hours ago
anticorporate | 10 hours ago
I'm not particularly interested in sustaining the financial growth of software companies. I did that for years and I'm done.
But, what you suggest is literally what the software industry did for decades before subscriptions became the norm.
vile_wretch | 12 hours ago
alwillis | 12 hours ago
Apple doesn't work that way.
Unlike almost all other tech companies that are organized by divisions, Apple uses a functional organizational structure.
So all of the software teams are under one head of software; there's no senior vp of the Final Cut division, for example.
For accounting purposes, all software is lumped together.
Apple made $391 billion in revenue last fiscal year; when you're making that kind of money, you can afford to do things for reasons other than the amount of money you could make.
Whatever revenue Final Cut generates isn't required to fund the Final Cut team.
pier25 | 12 hours ago
acomjean | 13 hours ago
Wonder what Adobe thinks of this. Their support for Mac was pretty important in getting OS X off the ground, now they’re competing with a unified stack.
When I was a Mac user I remember buying Logic express 9 (I still have the disk). The price is a good deal, but you really are all in forever..
Someone | 13 hours ago
mirzap | 13 hours ago
F7F7F7 | 13 hours ago
Fraaaank | 13 hours ago
jen20 | 13 hours ago
“Apple offers new option for subscription in addition to existing one-time purchase optinos” might be an alternative though, and reduce the number of cynically inane comments from people that apparently didn’t RTFA before commenting.
pjmlp | 13 hours ago
eurekin | 13 hours ago
qn9n | 13 hours ago
ajcp | 13 hours ago
kmeisthax | 11 hours ago
The larger problem is that the iPad has a dual nature. At the launch of the product, Apple positioned it as a netbook killer - i.e. a simplified computer for specific tasks, one where the locked down nature of the device might actually be considered a feature. That's why they built everything on iPhone OS[0]. However, there's always been the implication that this is supposed to Someday™ replace the Mac. It keeps getting new features to make it more useful as a computer replacement, which just makes the deliberate restrictions placed on the device more and more glaring. And Apple seems to think they can just keep adding features until they can make you do every computing task wearing a strait-jacket in a padded room.
This particular duality came to a head with the Apple Vision Pro. Any app that would actually be useful on a VR headset is either:
- Incompatible with Apple's code-signing and containerization requirements (i.e. developer tools)
- Not economic to offer at the small scale of the visionOS app market (at least, not while Apple is demanding 30%)
- A game (Apple really doesn't wanna talk about the Vision Pro as a games machine)
On a related note, Swift Playgrounds stopped getting updates almost a year ago. I updated my HTML editor demo project for iPadOS 26 and now I can't even compile it because Apple has yet to ship the version 26 SDK. And there's really nothing any third party can do to fix Swift Playgrounds to make it actually usable again.
[0] Strictly speaking, Apple's first internal demos of capacitive touch were for a tablet project specifically to spite Windows XP tablets. Although by the time they were writing actual shipping code it was intended for iPhone and iPad came later.
pjmlp | 9 hours ago
It isn't about doing and publishing apps without having to buy a mac.
Rather having a more powerful development experience that isn't as constrained as Swift Playgrounds, useful for prototyping ideas.
I do not care if in a similar vein, to a Smalltalk like environment I would always need to run the app from inside the dev env, and then use a Mac, or some cloud build workflow if I ever would like to actually publish it.
Just like I use several other coding on the go environments.
isoprophlex | 13 hours ago
EDIT: I know you can still buy the software... but for how long?
spott | 13 hours ago
joshstrange | 13 hours ago
moolcool | 13 hours ago
xd1936 | 13 hours ago
shmoogy | 13 hours ago
artimaeis | 13 hours ago
> Alternatively, users can also choose to purchase the Mac versions of Final Cut Pro, Pixelmator Pro, Logic Pro, Motion, Compressor, and MainStage individually as a one-time purchase on the Mac App Store.
cupofjoakim | 13 hours ago
al_borland | 13 hours ago
d_runs_far | 12 hours ago
Back in the day I was considered a 'MultiMedia' creative. I don't even know what to call myself these days.
bayindirh | 13 hours ago
jasongill | 13 hours ago
Educational discount with verification required drops the price to $2.99/mo / $29.99/yr.
The regular-price subscription includes family sharing, education price does not.
One-time purchase versions remain available: Final Cut Pro ($299.99), Logic Pro ($199.99), Pixelmator Pro ($49.99), Motion ($49.99), Compressor ($49.99), and MainStage ($29.99).
Comes out January 28th
thecupisblue | 13 hours ago
Towaway69 | 13 hours ago
Ah, yes - cross finance your loses by selling compute in your own data centres / hosting service because you can.
beernet | 13 hours ago
embedding-shape | 13 hours ago
crazygringo | 13 hours ago
echelon | 12 hours ago
They want marketshare to enhance their other market positions and give them optionality for future strategy.
They'd love the whole market, but they don't need it and they won't employ too many resources chasing that.
They're a powerful giant with hands in so many places. Each enforcing other endeavors.
This encourages people to stay in the Apple hardware ecosystem, for instance. It dog foods their silicon. It keeps people thinking of Apple as the creative brand and operating system. More creatives buying Apple -> more being produced and consumed for and on Apple.
Also the strategy of getting kids young has always been genius. They started that in the eighties, I think.
twoodfin | 9 hours ago
Best framing I’ve seen of the answer to, “Why is Apple in the streaming service business?”
sleepybrett | 6 hours ago
As someone who came up along side adobe, the only reason photoshop is as entrenched as it is is simply because of piracy. Ditto for premiere. It created the market that they then locked down with subscriptions.
I think you are going to see shops that are smaller, doing their own design stuff internally, increasingly moving away from adobe subscriptions.
exitb | 13 hours ago
sofixa | 12 hours ago
bombcar | 12 hours ago
"software and services" really should be broken out from the App Store cut.
bee_rider | 11 hours ago
Anyway, this isn’t really a meaningful quibble argument-wise, it is obvious what you mean!
thecupisblue | 13 hours ago
Also so many people are paying for Canva, Capcut etc that taking a piece of that cake is quite a low hanging fruit if you have a distribution platform.
no_wizard | 13 hours ago
It’s even a similar pricing model, though technically with Pages / Numbers / Keynote covers a little more ground but I think the main intent is to get creatives using Apple’s creative software again
Pixelmator being the only 3rd party software because Apple never made a competitor to Photoshop
Though since Canva went full on toward more robust tools I imagine they have started capturing the entire editing chain more than they did 2-3 years ago, hence the Affinity acquisition
Someone | 12 hours ago
Pixelmator isn’t third party. https://www.pixelmator.com/blog/2024/11/01/a-new-home-for-pi...:
“November 1, 2024
A new home for Pixelmator
Today we have some important news to share: the Pixelmator Team plans to join Apple”
That deal completed almost a year ago.
nozzlegear | 12 hours ago
darrenf | 12 hours ago
Apple absolutely has data centres. Where do you think Apple TV, Apple Music, iCloud, Maps, etc compute happens?
Here's a press release straight from the horse's mouth about one in Denmark, in late 2020: https://www.apple.com/uk/newsroom/2020/09/apple-expands-rene...
> Can people purchase compute on Apple's data centers?
Not to my knowledge, but that's not saying much.
nozzlegear | 11 hours ago
But that's the entire crux of their comment: undercut the competition, and make them pay for compute on Apple's data centers.
rchaud | 13 hours ago
jonwinstanley | 13 hours ago
dylan604 | 11 hours ago
kergonath | 9 hours ago
sleepybrett | 6 hours ago
brk | 11 hours ago
philistine | 11 hours ago
The real competition in this market in 2026 is Canva.
tln | 8 hours ago
I see the rise of and have to deal with Canva-generated PDFs instead of Adobe Illustrator. So the low end market of video / animation, I could absolutely see Canva dominating. Doubt we'll see audio tools though.
Final Cut Pro -- Professional non-linear video editing * Canva? Partial: Best for social clips; lacks FCP’s RAW, multicam, and AI transcript tools.
Logic Pro -- Professional music production and MIDI sequencing * Canva? No: No DAW capabilities, plugin hosting, or live mixing.
Pixelmator Pro -- Advanced image editing and graphic design * Canva? Partial: Good for templates; lacks Pixelmator’s precision layers and AI retouching.
Motion -- 2D/3D motion graphics and cinematic effects * Canva? No: Canva uses presets; Motion offers granular keyframing and VFX creation.
Compressor -- Advanced media encoding and batch exporting * Canva? No: No control over specific codecs, bitrates, or pro output formats.
MainStage -- Live performance audio rig for stage use * Canva? No: No live audio processing or MIDI instrument hosting.
Keynote -- Cinematic presentations and slide decks * Canva? Yes: Canva’s primary competitor for collaborative, template-based slides.
Pages -- Word processing and page layout * Canva? Yes: Canva Docs is a direct alternative for visual/marketing documents.
Numbers -- Spreadsheets and data visualization * Canva? Yes: Canva Sheets handles basic data viz, though lacks Numbers' complex formulas.
girvo | 5 hours ago
prodigycorp | 13 hours ago
yardie | 13 hours ago
qingcharles | 11 hours ago
bookofjoe | 9 hours ago
yardie | 8 hours ago
WmWsjA6B29B4nfk | 13 hours ago
embedding-shape | 13 hours ago
We're all (mostly/some) software people here, you don't need to use terms established by the "anti-piracy" firms to make your point, no one is "stealing" anything here, even if they were getting it for free from TPB or whatever.
renewiltord | 11 hours ago
embedding-shape | 11 hours ago
Seen it in media for decades at this point, which makes sense, most people can't tell up from down.
What's sad is hearing those things echoed here of all places, a community for hackers, and people are repeating the words of the MPAA.
prodigycorp | 13 hours ago
WmWsjA6B29B4nfk | 13 hours ago
prodigycorp | 13 hours ago
Forgeties79 | 11 hours ago
lifetimerubyist | 13 hours ago
Fnoord | 12 hours ago
qingcharles | 11 hours ago
So now I'm getting an education too.
SirMaster | 13 hours ago
jasoneckert | 13 hours ago
embedding-shape | 13 hours ago
raw_anon_1111 | 13 hours ago
Microsoft still offers a one time purchase of Office. There is precedent for Bigcorp keeping a one time purchase version and offer a prescription.
Plasmoid2000ad | 13 hours ago
Office 2024 has every feature that was added since Office 2021 to the subscription version - while a chunk of loyal customers are unaware of them. Back when Google was competing hard with Google Suite, a big perception problem formed with the perpetual customers believing and convincing others that Google were far ahead, with collab editing and other features - after Office had added equivalent.
So for me, If there's a subscription and one-time option - I wonder if the one-time gets all updates going forward. If it doesn't, I realise that they'll regret that if competition picks up, and try to fix it later. If it does include updates... I worry it will be like many other lifetime updates one-time purchases - when competition is low they'll renege on that promise.
raw_anon_1111 | 11 hours ago
chrisandchris | 7 hours ago
BeetleB | 11 hours ago
Of course ... ? Before the subscription model, you wouldn't get free Office upgrades.
albedoa | 10 hours ago
raw_anon_1111 | 10 hours ago
- the System 7 transition
- the 040 Macs and to get a “32 bit clean version”
- to get the full speed of running natively on PPC Macs
- to get a native OS X version instead of one that ran in the OS 9 sandbox
- the Intel transition to get native performance.
I would much rather pay $150 (?) a year for a five user license where each user gets 1TB of storage and each user can use Office across Macs, Windows, iPhones and iPads.
It’s the same price as Dropbox’s 2TB plan and all you get for that is storage.
On a related note: Steve Jobs was right - Dropbox is a feature not a product.
PinguTS | 13 hours ago
einr | 6 hours ago
nialse | 13 hours ago
Obscurity4340 | 10 hours ago
addandsubtract | 12 hours ago
systemtest | 12 hours ago
patapong | 12 hours ago
benterix | 9 hours ago
he writing is on the wall, they will remove it sooner or later.
0x457 | 8 hours ago
TheCraiggers | 13 hours ago
They're doing it because it makes them more money. Corporations are not your friend.
embedding-shape | 13 hours ago
TheCraiggers | 10 hours ago
Obviously you're right that PR ultimately translates into money.
stanmancan | 13 hours ago
virgil_disgr4ce | 12 hours ago
carlosjobim | 12 hours ago
Probably not. Those customers are almost completely irrelevant and not people who Apple or anybody else cares about. They won't mind if you kick and scream.
SunshineTheCat | 12 hours ago
james-bcn | 12 hours ago
Seriously? This is incredibly reasonable.
pantulis | 12 hours ago
dylan604 | 11 hours ago
wrs | 11 hours ago
pantulis | 7 hours ago
wrs | 5 hours ago
smith7018 | 11 hours ago
kergonath | 10 hours ago
smugma | 12 hours ago
Apple wants its customers to buy/subscribe to these tools so that you’re in the Apple ecosystem and buy more hardware and services.
Unlike Adobe, they have profit-maximizing incentives to let you stay on the buy/rent model that you prefer.
whycome | 12 hours ago
philipallstar | 12 hours ago
This is like saying that it's clever for Mars to keep Mars Bars while launching a new bar, as it "shuts down" complaints that Mars Bars will no longer exist.
hnlmorg | 10 hours ago
hexasquid | 8 hours ago
alwillis | 12 hours ago
There's no indication Apple is planning to end the option of paying once for these apps.
Apple introduced subscriptions for Final Cut and Logic nearly three years ago [1]; this isn't new by any means. Pages, Numbers and Keynote remain available at no cost.
[1]: https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2023/05/apple-brings-final-cu...
groundzeros2015 | 11 hours ago
handsclean | 11 hours ago
smith7018 | 11 hours ago
You're making up an individual to get mad at for no reason.
> The other thing that’s going to go away is purchasing only what you need
There is no proof of this. So you're making up a situation to get mad at for no reason.
> I want exactly one of these apps
Perfect, Apple lets you buy the one app you want for a reasonable price! So what's the issue?
handsclean | 10 hours ago
It’s not set in stone, but it’s supported by the times this has happened before and by trends in Apple and in tech. “Nothing will ever change” is a prediction, too, and one much less supported by evidence.
alwa | 11 hours ago
At the time, the common wisdom was that they'd go the same route as Adobe: you'd have to buy Final Cut X+1 in a couple years for another $299, and Final Cut X+2 a couple years after that... to their credit, that's not the way it's gone.
So that way, I imagine, all the film folks have a little more money to chuck at their high-powered Mac hardware budgets in the next refresh cycle instead... An evergreen Final Cut Pro license costs almost as much as 1TB of SSD from those guys!
weinzierl | 10 hours ago
I'd argue that it is very likely that Final Cut X+1 was Apple's plan. It just did not pan out and they were busy with other things. Now they made the first step correcting that (or cutting the losses, depending how you want to see it).
bredren | 9 hours ago
I’m hand waving there because I’m not a pro but my neighbor is and I don’t recall the details.
But I’m curious how you see FC also lost in semi pro to Davinci specifically.
josephg | 7 hours ago
I spent last week helping out at a short filmmaking course. The DP running it has used Final Cut for his entire career. But not a single student chose to edit their film using Final Cut. The class was split between resolve and premier pro. (Premier was chosen by a lot of people because it’s what they use at school, and they have a free licence to premier from their school while they’re studying.)
weinzierl | 6 hours ago
- The studio version of DaVinci is still affordable should you need it.
- DaVinci has many good tutorials
dbspin | 6 hours ago
It's an optional way of editing separate from the 'edit' tab.
derefr | 9 hours ago
And that's despite Apple having zero interest in doing things that don't ultimately make them money.
I have a theory for how sales of these one-time-purchase yet indefinitely-updated apps happens to work out positively on Apple's balance sheet, while it doesn't for most other large players right now.
And that's that, due to Apple's vertical integration (they make the hardware, they make the OS that runs on the hardware, they make the apps that run on the OS) — and due to these apps only targeting their own OSes+hardware, with no consideration of portability to other platforms — a lot (like 90+%) of the "enablement" work for these apps ends up time-budgeted as OS work, rather than apps work.
Or, I guess, to be more charitable, you could say that Apple's engineers develop first-party apps not just to sell them, but at least in part to drive the development of the OS as a developer platform. You could even describe the OS frameworks as the product, and the apps themselves as the byproduct. (In that lens, the only reason FCP would cost anything at all is to avoid accusations of anti-competitive behavior.)
akd | 9 hours ago
Now that the iPhone made Apple much more of mainstream company, it's harder to do -- what does it mean to focus on cultural leaders when 90% of American teens have an iPhone? But in the 15 years since Steve Jobs' death they have still been doing a decent job of it.
The company
dabinat | 8 hours ago
https://www.macrumors.com/2026/01/13/apple-creator-studio-ex...
tshaddox | 7 hours ago
wilg | 6 hours ago
drdaeman | 3 hours ago
JetBrains tried something similar a while ago too, and almost screwed it up - but managed to listen to their customers and nailed it with the perpetual fallback licensing. Making me not just pay the subscription but feel respect to the company.
YMMV, of course.
Someone1234 | 13 hours ago
Adobe also started out as a choice between subscription or buying. The only thing maybe keeping Apple honest is that their stuff isn't as popular.
concinds | 12 hours ago
dylan604 | 11 hours ago
dylan604 | 11 hours ago
wrs | 11 hours ago
dylan604 | 11 hours ago
pests | 8 hours ago
larkost | 11 hours ago
The best one to watch at the moment is if Pixelmater Pro license holders from before it was bought by Apple get access to any of the new improvements.
iAMkenough | 11 hours ago
NBJack | 11 hours ago
schappim | 6 hours ago
1. https://www.macrumors.com/2026/01/13/apple-creator-studio-ex...
Forgeties79 | 13 hours ago
As someone who defended FCPX and used it professionally for years even when it was at its most hated (2011 or so), it’s been woefully supported the last few years and no one should be on it anymore. Resolve Studio outclasses it top to bottom for the same one-time cost and runs great on both MacOS and Windows. Linux it’s bumpy unfortunately but it does technically run lol
embedding-shape | 13 hours ago
Best 200-300 EUR I spent some years ago, and still receives free updates, Blackmagic Design is a really nice company. And, not only does Resolve run great on macOS and Windows, they have Linux native builds that run even better than it does with the same hardware using Windows, which is REALLY nice.
Forgeties79 | 13 hours ago
embedding-shape | 13 hours ago
Forgeties79 | 4 hours ago
geerlingguy | 13 hours ago
It lacks some flashy social media features and modern conveniences for sure, but it's still a very good and widely used editor.
Forgeties79 | 11 hours ago
I used it professionally from 2011-2020 or so. Around 2020 the gaps in feature parity became wider and more apparent, it’s clearly not a priority anymore. Once I went to resolve I basically abandoned it. I use maybe every 6mo tops now for quick stuff for friends and family or to open an old project.
The one thing I will say is for speed cutting, it’s probably the best. And that’s no small thing! But that’s about it.
bombcar | 11 hours ago
qingcharles | 11 hours ago
steve1977 | 9 hours ago
dangoodmanUT | 13 hours ago
good on them
bombcar | 11 hours ago
tarentel | 11 hours ago
drcongo | 13 hours ago
apercu | 13 hours ago
Even if I had to purchase an occasional update (assuming they were reasonably priced), I'd still be coming out ahead.
I hate "renting" software.
drcongo | 13 hours ago
Fnoord | 12 hours ago
apercu | 11 hours ago
I could see using an iPad for automation, triggered by midi, but I use an Air for that (and even if I used an my Pro, I still have to use a USB C hub because for some reason Apple things 1 (or 2) USB ports is enough. Sigh.
g947o | 13 hours ago
hmbakhsh | 13 hours ago
yohannparis | 13 hours ago
> plus new AI features and premium content in Keynote, Pages, and Numbers
g947o | 10 hours ago
ksec | 13 hours ago
I wonder why? Why not today but 28th of Jan?
Part of me thinks M5 MacBook Air and M5 Pro MacBook Pro will also be released on January 28th.
ExoticPearTree | 12 hours ago
systemtest | 12 hours ago
fckgw | 4 hours ago
I could see a press release refresh on that day to M5 chips.
simjnd | 13 hours ago
Rebelgecko | 11 hours ago
aobdev | 10 hours ago
cultofmetatron | 12 hours ago
tarentel | 11 hours ago
btown | 12 hours ago
There are many discussions e.g. https://gearspace.com/board/music-computers/1433515-why-does... about the reasons for its popularity, but one stands out to me - its event data model.
There are far too many tools out there (from FL Studio on one end, to MuseScore on the other) that present piano-roll-based rapid prototyping and traditional western score notation as diametric opposites. From day 1, Logic challenged itself "what if we can use the same event-based data model to render both."
None of this complexity is hidden - you can edit the raw event stream directly. If you're a developer familiar with, say, React, it makes music creation quite intuitive - everything from visual to audio output is a function of a transparently formatted data store.
And while that has its challenges, and some of the UX innovations of e.g. MuseScore have been slower to arrive in Logic, because of this "dual life" it's unmatched as a pedogogical tool, and a professional creative tool as well.
jmsgwd | 10 hours ago
Are you saying other sequencers are unable to render the same data as piano roll and score?
btown | 7 hours ago
And on the notation-oriented side, you have things like MuseScore, Finale, etc. where there is an event model, but the UI itself doesn't have mature (or any) support for tracking mixer/knob automation (outside of what can be derived automatically from dynamic symbols).
Years ago, I used Logic in a musical theater context where I could build a constantly-updated demo for pitching/rehearsals/live-iteration and edit the final orchestration to be printed for the pit orchestra, both from the same living document. Could I have duplicated my changes in a DAW and notation software separately, and kept them in sync manually? Absolutely, and many creators do. But there's something special about having that holy grail at your fingertips.
einr | 6 hours ago
Cubase, surely? I'm pretty sure it has done this for decades unless I am misunderstanding what you're saying.
PaulDavisThe1st | 10 hours ago
Considering them as alternate views of the same data model gets problematic when the composer uses the full bag of tricks that score notation allows (notably repeats, but also the problem of representing tuplets correctly when a pianoroll can offer no clues about how to structure them). So for example, the user can create a set of notes in the pianoroll that will never be played correctly by anyone reading the score; the user can create dynamics in the score that cannot be correctly presented in the pianoroll version.
I'm not saying it isn't possible to do an MVC-style system with two different views of the same data model - it clearly is. It's just moving between the two views is not lossless, and moving between the two controllers (i.e. editing) is not equivalent.
deafpolygon | 12 hours ago
mrkstu | 10 hours ago
apparent | 8 hours ago
deafpolygon | 6 hours ago
flenserboy | 3 hours ago
kolanos | 10 hours ago
aobdev | 10 hours ago
xattt | 10 hours ago
Guess it’s time to take some online self-paced courses at a university for no reason in particular …
benterix | 9 hours ago
sleepybrett | 7 hours ago
FireBeyond | 6 hours ago
al_borland | 13 hours ago
hbbio | 13 hours ago
dormento | 13 hours ago
kurishutofu | 13 hours ago
joezydeco | 13 hours ago
embedding-shape | 13 hours ago
no_wizard | 12 hours ago
My old job dealt with this quite a lot as they were our target market, so I got some up close views of how for example, creators like MrBeast go about their editing (well the employees anyway)
Though I did note a lot of creators that do graduate to more robust software basically go from lightweight editor via Canva -> iMovie or equivalent -> professional software e.g. FCPX or Premiere
embedding-shape | 11 hours ago
rvz | 13 hours ago
To them what Apple just announced is trash.
tarentel | 11 hours ago
https://support.apple.com/en-afri/109503
tjpnz | 13 hours ago
troupo | 13 hours ago
The apps themselves are fine IMO.
piersroberts | 13 hours ago
embedding-shape | 13 hours ago
Why would someone need to buy them, they only run on macOS and macOS hardware comes with it by default, doesn't it?
nottorp | 13 hours ago
Not sure why tbh, my other invoices are done in LibreOffice.
insane_dreamer | 13 hours ago
void-pointer | 12 hours ago
It looks so much better than the grid enforced by Excel.
bromuro | 9 hours ago
pico303 | 11 hours ago
quitit | 9 hours ago
So not only is it a far quicker way to make a PPT than using Powerpoint. I also see it used for making presentation videos, interactive PDFs and even animated GIFs/HTML5 animations.
The number of motion graphics marketing videos I see which are actually just Keynote files exported to video is impressive.
pico303 | 3 hours ago
(Sadly, my work laptop is Windows. So I create them on my personal laptop then migrate to PPT and do my best to fix up the fonts on Windows.)
data-ottawa | 10 hours ago
I have a numbers file for my personal finances and it is so nice having some tables at the top with mortgage info and then details below. It makes running what-ifs super easy. Charts in excel and GSheets just kinda float over your content awkwardly.
PlunderBunny | 5 hours ago
fidotron | 13 hours ago
Are the Apple people really this oblivious, or is someone in PR trolling us?
DonHopkins | 13 hours ago
codebyaditya | 13 hours ago
faust201 | 13 hours ago
/S
nottorp | 13 hours ago
An idiotic aesthetic system that ignores all the human interface guidelines that the Apple of 30+ years ago helped start.
storus | 13 hours ago
Fnoord | 12 hours ago
storus | 8 hours ago
einr | 6 hours ago
(And yes, I'm holding off on Sonoma for as long as possible because... yuck)
baggachipz | 13 hours ago
guestbest | 13 hours ago
cons0le | 13 hours ago
12345hn6789 | 11 hours ago
Apple wasting years of everyones time on bad faith UX design
blitzar | 13 hours ago
the beatings with liquid glass will continue till morale improves
pier25 | 12 hours ago
reddalo | 11 hours ago
msabalau | 11 hours ago
mh2266 | 10 hours ago
How? If they reverted to the previous iOS and macOS designs, Apple would go out of business?
pier25 | 7 hours ago
lII1lIlI11ll | 6 hours ago
What are you basing these claims on?
UqWBcuFx6NV4r | 3 hours ago
You can look at Apple’s own published consent regarding Liquid Glass development. It’s very evident that it was thoughtful and involved.
chipotle_coyote | 5 hours ago
I think it's more realistic to expect that they're going to stick with a UI officially called "Liquid Glass" for the next decade, but it's going to go through some serious iterative changes in the next couple of years -- probably much more than it would have were Alan Dye still around.
raw_anon_1111 | 12 hours ago
I’m sure there is approved marketing copy.
matthoiland | 9 hours ago
sneak | 8 hours ago
bromuro | 9 hours ago
sgustard | 8 hours ago
lynndotpy | 8 hours ago
inatreecrown2 | an hour ago
me_online | 13 hours ago
acomjean | 13 hours ago
So in desperation I read the manual. It was seriously well written and I understood the program, what needed to be done and how to do it.
sirwhinesalot | 13 hours ago
I don't want yet another subscription.
I see that they can still be bought (for now) but I wonder how long that will last.
joshstrange | 13 hours ago
sirwhinesalot | 13 hours ago
dsego | 13 hours ago
bayindirh | 13 hours ago
You'll still be able to buy it if you want. All apps are still can be bought. It's in the text.
Apple surprised me nicely there.
moolcool | 13 hours ago
rvz | 13 hours ago
joshstrange | 13 hours ago
I'll say this loud for the people in the back: YOU CAN STILL BUY IT OUTRIGHT
They are still offering one-time purchases, calm down.
dsego | 13 hours ago
andsoitis | 13 hours ago
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/01/08/technology/apple-ceo-tim-...
EagnaIonat | 13 hours ago
kace91 | 13 hours ago
If I’m a music producer, what’s the value of being given a digital art drawing program? If I’m an illustrator, why do I need a cinema post production suite?
Some people might happen to do both, but overlap is largely accidental, right? The fact that they think of all professions as a bundle is even insulting as it signals the products are mostly toys/hobbyist stuff.
jen20 | 13 hours ago
Are you talking about Adobe here?
bigyabai | 10 hours ago
jen20 | 8 hours ago
Forgeties79 | 13 hours ago
steve1977 | 12 hours ago
In a feature film production, these would certainly be separate roles. But apart from maybe Logic Pro for composers, Apple's tools are not really relevant at those levels of the entertainment business anymore. Post-pro would be Pro Tools for audio, something like Avid Media Composer for editing etc.
I think Apple has realized they are not playing on that level anymore and target their marketing to where they are still in the game. That's not necessarily a bad move.
tarentel | 10 hours ago
bigyabai | 10 hours ago
steve1977 | 8 hours ago
I know Logic is widespread amongst beat producers and songwriters, especially in the US. But you will also often see tracks getting produced on Logic but the final mix then happens on Pro Tools (by professional mixing engineers).
But that's why I explicitly mentioned Logic, I think it's the one pro app from Apple that still deserves the moniker, at least in regards to where it is used. The video stuff not so much anymore.
acuozzo | 12 hours ago
The target market is prosumer, not true professional.
vehemenz | 12 hours ago
The real difference is that a "true professional" already has the software—purchased at full price by themselves or by their employer—and doesn't need a subscription in the first place.
acuozzo | 11 hours ago
steve1977 | 8 hours ago
vehemenz | 12 hours ago
But besides, this subscription works with Family Sharing and is only $12, so it looks easy to get your money's worth.
[OP] lemonlime227 | 13 hours ago
Not available for one time purchase are the AI features and templates available for the free apps (Keynote, Pages, Numbers, Freeform).
Personally, I'm glad that one time purchases are still options for the core pro suite: long term they do hold value compared to paying Adobe a subscription (or dealing with the high seas on macOS). However, I don't see things like the education bundle sticking around much longer, so purchase it sooner rather than later.
[1]: https://www.apple.com/us-edu/shop/product/bmge2z/a/pro-apps-...
[2]: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/pixelmator-pro/id1289583905
no_wizard | 13 hours ago
I think they view Photos as a viable replacement for Lightroom and equivalents.
admp | 12 hours ago
AlanYx | 12 hours ago
agos | 5 hours ago
usef- | 4 hours ago
If they're essentially shutting down Photomator development, after doing similar with Aperture many years ago, they do seem very determined to drive people to Lightroom....
silveira | 12 hours ago
[OP] lemonlime227 | 7 hours ago
[1]: https://www.apple.com/final-cut-pro/#:~:text=A%20one%2Dtime%...
throwaway85825 | 13 hours ago
samgranieri | 13 hours ago
I hope I can still use the non subscription version of Pixelmator pro I bought
aosaigh | 13 hours ago
andsoitis | 13 hours ago
More seriously, the subscription probably comes out cheaper than buying several (even if not all) of the apps that come in the bundle.
lysace | 13 hours ago
Kye | 13 hours ago
geerlingguy | 13 hours ago
Lightroom never matched Aperture's organizational abilities for libraries with tens of thousands of RAW photos.
apgwoz | 13 hours ago
herrherrmann | 9 hours ago
apgwoz | 9 hours ago
On the other hand, Final Cut / iMovie will exist side by side because it’s truly a basic vs Pro situation.
Not a product manager at Apple, of course, but this is what logically seems to make sense.
herrherrmann | 8 hours ago
apgwoz | 7 hours ago
jeffbee | 8 hours ago
haunter | 11 hours ago
canbus | 10 hours ago
data-ottawa | 10 hours ago
squidsoup | 6 hours ago
Arubis | 3 hours ago
reactordev | 13 hours ago
Like Adobe CC
I love Logic and all but really?
I can’t help but notice Apple in the last decade has kind of been spinning in circles software wise while their hardware division makes breakthroughs with M-series chips.
2026, the year of the Linux Desktop…
rado | 13 hours ago
felineflock | 13 hours ago
steve1977 | 8 hours ago
H1Supreme | 13 hours ago
pier25 | 12 hours ago
542458 | 12 hours ago
But having one simple opex line item for "software I buy for the creative types" is appealing for a lot of orgs.
pier25 | 12 hours ago
Photohsop, Illustrator and After Effects are pretty much industry standards.
srik | 11 hours ago
pier25 | 11 hours ago
doctorpangloss | 12 hours ago
cush | 12 hours ago
dagmx | 9 hours ago
In a past life, I’d have fallen quite squarely in the latter and I still fall in the former.
Given this also extends to my family, it feels like a no-brainer replacement for creative cloud.
ksec | 13 hours ago
They look AWEFUL.
MattRix | 12 hours ago
simjnd | 11 hours ago
lexoj | 10 hours ago
steve1977 | 9 hours ago
toddmorey | 8 hours ago
concinds | 7 hours ago
And Final Cut Pro looks like Windows 11's garbage free ClipChamp! None of them have the gravitas of the old ones.
It's weird because uniformity and minimalism haven't been "in" in years, outside the Silicon Valley bubble. They're very culturally out of touch.
[0]: https://www.reddit.com/r/MacOS/comments/1qbz6g8/whos_excited...
speak_plainly | 12 hours ago
It’s a good value for some, especially if you want to use FCP, but seems like a bad value for most users who are expecting more value from their Mac purchase.
I wonder if new Macs will offer a three-month trial for this suite, or if the standard apps will be pre-installed and the AI features are unlocked through a subscription.
If bundled versions of iWork go away, we may see a renaissance for G Suite.
TimTheTinker | 12 hours ago
NoSalt | 12 hours ago
Ummm ... no, thank you.
arvinsim | 12 hours ago
If not, then this would likely go the way of others before where it will eventually be removed.
prmoustache | 11 hours ago
WillAdams | 12 hours ago
I tried it out when it was first announced and found it painfully limited --- did I miss something? Has it gotten better?
jonpurdy | 12 hours ago
Toutouxc | 12 hours ago
cush | 12 hours ago
nxobject | 12 hours ago
(For what it's worth, the iWorks apps – Pages/Keynote/Numbers are free and bundled with macOS.)
noodlesUK | 12 hours ago
zffr | 12 hours ago
dagmx | 12 hours ago
wildredkraut | 12 hours ago
tomovo | 12 hours ago
I am glad the standalone purchases are still available and I assume they will stay updated in sync with the subscription-based ones. I would hate my copy of Logic getting slowly obsolete..
philistine | 11 hours ago
tomovo | 8 hours ago
handsclean | 10 hours ago
My experience is that while there’s a feature and community gap for both Pixelmator Pro and Affinity, Affinity just tried to copy Photoshop, positioning it as a worse but cheaper Photoshop, while Pixelmator Pro feels like an attempt to make a better photo editor, losing some familiarity points but also being tangibly better than Photoshop at most use cases it can handle, which is many. It’s also an excellent macOS citizen. Between those two factors, it seems much more up Apple’s alley.
tomovo | 8 hours ago
Petersipoi | 9 hours ago
brcmthrowaway | 11 hours ago
pentagrama | 10 hours ago
Svoka | 10 hours ago
ezfe | 9 hours ago
mesh | 8 hours ago
Pixelmator is closer to Photoshop, you can do some photo editing, but its not focused on it, and does not have asset management.
mesh | 8 hours ago
(I work for Adobe)
DoctorOW | 5 hours ago
mesh | 28 minutes ago
More info here:
https://www.adobe.com/creativecloud.html
jwr | 10 hours ago
I've learned my lesson — all my archives will now be maintained by me, in file structures, with metadata in text files.
incanus77 | 10 hours ago
This is a useful tool: https://github.com/cormiertyshawn895/Retroactive
However, you still need to run an older OS. I've still got on my todo list the process of fixing all of this.
trinix912 | 9 hours ago
redundantly | 9 hours ago
steve1977 | 9 hours ago
dgxyz | 9 hours ago
movedx | 7 hours ago
That’s becoming a recurring theme for me and even some of my corporate clients now. Confluence, for example, is out the window for secure documentation around sensitive environments and Word Docs in One Drive are back in. It’s surprisingly refreshing and gets the job done way better.
f_allwein | 7 hours ago
UqWBcuFx6NV4r | 3 hours ago
wtallis | 2 hours ago
m463 | 6 hours ago
(am I recalling correctly?)
dgxyz | 6 hours ago
Not Apple-specific really that point for sure anyway. Personally I don't think we should ever ever trust any vendor to control our data or act as a proxy for access to it. If it's not on a physical disk in your hands, in a format which is documented and can be opened by more than one application, then you're one step away from being screwed. There are so many tangible risks we love to sweep under the rug from geopolitics, commercial stability, security, bugs to unexpected side effects. And I've seen some real horror stories on all of those fronts.
At the same time I managed to embed myself thoroughly in it and I'm 3 months in to undoing the mess. It's VERY hard to get back to files on disk. No moving away from that is probably the best option I suspect a lot of us never took.
Hardest stuff to get out of is iCloud/Apple and Adobe.
LgWoodenBadger | 4 hours ago
I also bought Final Cut Express. Not sure I'll buy Apple software again either.
karmakaze | 10 hours ago
> [...] to make Apple Creator Studio an exciting subscription suite to empower creators of all disciplines while protecting their privacy.
krm01 | 10 hours ago
Why though isn’t such a significant announcement on the Apple.com homepage?
mrkstu | 10 hours ago
timeon | 7 hours ago
opengrass | 10 hours ago
JeremyJaydan | 9 hours ago
zuInnp | 9 hours ago
So, if you are a student, you can get logic, final cut, motion, compressor and mainStage for $199.99 for ever.
qubex | 8 hours ago
thenaturalist | 4 hours ago
It's in the announcement and look at what Microslop and Google have done to their versions.
user3939382 | 8 hours ago
imagetic | 7 hours ago
spankalee | 7 hours ago
As a keyboard player who mainly plays (and owns) classic electro-mechanical keyboards like Hammonds, Rhodes, Clavinets, and Wurlitzers, Apple's emulators that they brought from Logic are really top-notch - often better than what you get with dedicated hardware.
$30 is an insane price for what it delivers. I just wish it were available for iPad, and I'd use it more for gigging.
bob1029 | 7 hours ago
https://i.imgflip.com/2siu6l.jpg
nipperkinfeet | 5 hours ago
bluesounddirect | 5 hours ago
gilgoomesh | 4 hours ago
oliyoung | 4 hours ago
Photos isn't even close to the genuine Lightroom competitor that Aperture was
UqWBcuFx6NV4r | 3 hours ago
FootballMuse | 4 hours ago
Looks like some new "premium content" features will be only available to those with a subscription
felixding | 3 hours ago