[HN Gopher] Apple Creator Studio
___________________________________________________________________
Apple Creator Studio
Author : lemonlime227
Score : 456 points
Date : 2026-01-13 14:14 UTC (8 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.apple.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.apple.com)
| andsoitis wrote:
| > 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
|
| So Apple is copying Adobe's business model?
| boringg wrote:
| 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.
| jpalomaki wrote:
| Depends on if you are stuck with the subscription for life, or
| if there's actually a reasonable way to unsubscribe.
| bambax wrote:
| 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.)
| pjmlp wrote:
| 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.
| bayindirh wrote:
| No, all apps are available for purchase for a one time payment.
|
| 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 wrote:
| Available for purchase... for now.
| bayindirh wrote:
| The only "...for now" event I have seen in last 20 years of
| Apple software is iWorks and Mac OS X become _free_.
|
| ...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 wrote:
| Logic Pro in iPad is subscription only.
| asimpletune wrote:
| They didn't take away a one-time purchase option for it
| though. It just never existed to begin with so the op's
| point remains.
| ascagnel_ wrote:
| > 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).
| dagmx wrote:
| They specifically said "not a service" and you brought up
| a service.
| ascagnel_ wrote:
| I would argue a season or episode of television is a
| product, and Apple TV gates them behind a subscription.
|
| I used to buy the season passes so I could return to
| shows later; that's not an option for ATV stuff.
| andrei_says_ wrote:
| Pixelmator is great and integrates well with Apple's tooling
| for batch processing.
|
| For video, the free version of DavinciResolve goes a very
| long way, and their Studio is a single-payment-life-time
| license.
| lynndotpy wrote:
| DaVinci Resolve also runs on Linux, so you won't be locked
| to staying on MacOS if you want to switch OSes but maintain
| your skillset.
| tapoxi wrote:
| Yeah but this is $129/yr, that's significantly cheaper
| whywhywhywhy wrote:
| 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.
| anticorporate wrote:
| 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.
| no_wizard wrote:
| Sufficient for whom? At my job they're still refreshing
| workstations regularly. They buy and churn hardware on a
| regular basis.
|
| 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 wrote:
| > 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.
| anticorporate wrote:
| By declining hardware refreshes, I meant on the consumer
| side, not the producer side.
| rstupek wrote:
| 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?
| anticorporate wrote:
| > Do you say a person can continue to run version X
| forever but if they want a new version they pay for it?
|
| 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 wrote:
| $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)
| alwillis wrote:
| > 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.
| pier25 wrote:
| One might argue it offers significantly less value too.
| acomjean wrote:
| 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..
| Someone wrote:
| 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."_
| mirzap wrote:
| How so? Apple's subscription cancellation is one click away,
| and you don't get overcharged when canceling.
| F7F7F7 wrote:
| Adobe invented subscription bundles? In that sense did the
| Creative Cloud copy iCloud?
| Fraaaank wrote:
| Alternative title: "Apple slaps subscription model on existing
| apps"
| jen20 wrote:
| 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.
| pjmlp wrote:
| I am still waiting for "XCode for iPadOS", where we can have a
| Smalltalk like approach to development, beyond what Swift
| Playgrounds allows for.
| eurekin wrote:
| 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
| qn9n wrote:
| 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.
| ajcp wrote:
| 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!
| kmeisthax wrote:
| 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(tm) 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 wrote:
| Everyone that argues about this misses the point.
|
| 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 wrote:
| 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?
| spott wrote:
| You can. They are offering both options.
| joshstrange wrote:
| RTFA, you can still buy them for a one-time purchase on the App
| Store
| moolcool wrote:
| For now...
| xd1936 wrote:
| Is this replacing the one-time purchase of these apps on macOS?
| shmoogy wrote:
| 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
| artimaeis wrote:
| No, 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.
| cupofjoakim wrote:
| That's great if you need everything. If you need one of them, not
| so much.
| al_borland wrote:
| 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.
| d_runs_far wrote:
| 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.
| bayindirh wrote:
| You can buy the individual tools, if you want.
| jasongill wrote:
| 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).
|
| Comes out January 28th
| thecupisblue wrote:
| That's actually surprisingly cheap compared to other
| subscriptions in the industry, especially for such a high
| powered suite.
| Towaway69 wrote:
| Undercut the competition until there is no competition, then
| raise prices or have I missed something?
|
| Ah, yes - cross finance your loses by selling compute in your
| own data centres / hosting service because you can.
| beernet wrote:
| Not an Apple fan at all, but damn, in the views of some of
| the HN community, one can only do wrong. Pathetic.
| embedding-shape wrote:
| 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.
| crazygringo wrote:
| Somehow I don't think Apple is going to put Adobe out of
| business.
| echelon wrote:
| They don't need to.
|
| 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 wrote:
| Well put.
|
| Best framing I've seen of the answer to, "Why is Apple in
| the streaming service business?"
| sleepybrett wrote:
| 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.
| exitb wrote:
| Apple doesn't ever need to make much money on this
| software, when they make money on hardware needed to use
| it.
| sofixa wrote:
| 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.
| bombcar wrote:
| A huge portion of that margin is from the 33% App Store
| cut which is infinite margin for them, effectively.
|
| "software and services" really should be broken out from
| the App Store cut.
| bee_rider wrote:
| Is margin profit/revenue or profit/costs? I think it is
| the former, so it should be "effectively 100%" right?
|
| Anyway, this isn't really a meaningful quibble argument-
| wise, it is obvious what you mean!
| thecupisblue wrote:
| 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.
| no_wizard wrote:
| 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
| Someone wrote:
| > Pixelmator being the only 3rd party software because
| Apple never made a competitor to Photoshop
|
| 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 wrote:
| What data centers? Does Apple even have data centers? Can
| people purchase compute on Apple's data centers?
| darrenf wrote:
| > _What data centers? Does Apple even have data centers?_
|
| 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 wrote:
| > Not to my knowledge, but that's not saying much.
|
| But that's the entire crux of their comment: undercut the
| competition, and make them pay for compute on Apple's
| data centers.
| rchaud wrote:
| Get them in the door now and jack up the price later.
| jonwinstanley wrote:
| As long as you buy a macbook to use it on, they are happy
| dylan604 wrote:
| They'd be even happier if you bought one of the Mac Studios
| or Mac Pro. Please, someone, anyone.
| kergonath wrote:
| I don't think they have any trouble selling Studios.
| Pros, on the other hand...
| sleepybrett wrote:
| Yeah studios are pretty boss machines, I know at least
| two companies that offer studios instead of macbooks to
| WFH employees if they want.
| brk wrote:
| That was my thinking. I already use several of these apps,
| the $130/mo. is a no brainer to pick up the others.
| philistine wrote:
| 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.
| tln wrote:
| 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.
|
| 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 wrote:
| 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.
| prodigycorp wrote:
| time to dust off that 20 year old edu email address. with these
| discounts, college has paid for itself!
| yardie wrote:
| 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.
| qingcharles wrote:
| 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...
| bookofjoe wrote:
| 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....
| yardie wrote:
| 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.
| WmWsjA6B29B4nfk wrote:
| 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
| embedding-shape wrote:
| > 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.
| renewiltord wrote:
| 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.
| embedding-shape wrote:
| > But people are stuck on these archaic unrelated terms
| for now
|
| 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 wrote:
| Spare me the morality play. Apple gifted Donald Trump a 24k
| gold statue! They _will_ gift me an educational discount to
| Final Cut Pro.
| WmWsjA6B29B4nfk wrote:
| 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?
| prodigycorp wrote:
| I mean, why not? I barely use FCP, sometimes to trim a
| movie in places. I'm still going to be subsiding other
| users. I'd rather not pirate.
| Forgeties79 wrote:
| 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?
| lifetimerubyist wrote:
| won't somebody think of the poor trillion dollar company!
| Fnoord wrote:
| Cracked software has risks attached to it, such as malware.
| qingcharles wrote:
| 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."
|
| So now I'm getting an education too.
| SirMaster wrote:
| That almost never works for me, they usually use a service
| that verifies current student enrollment like SheerID.
| jasoneckert wrote:
| 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).
| embedding-shape wrote:
| 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 :)
| raw_anon_1111 wrote:
| Office 365 - the subscription version of Office - was
| released in 2011.
|
| 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 wrote:
| 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.
| raw_anon_1111 wrote:
| 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.
| chrisandchris wrote:
| 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.
| BeetleB wrote:
| > To encourage subscription over perpetual, ongoing or
| evergreen updates are limited to subscription version.
|
| Of course ... ? Before the subscription model, you
| wouldn't get free Office upgrades.
| albedoa wrote:
| 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.
| raw_anon_1111 wrote:
| 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.
| PinguTS wrote:
| Actually, you can buy only the 2024 version of MS Office
| for Mac, while the subscription is more up to date. You
| cannot buy a packaged 2025 version.
| einr wrote:
| 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.
| nialse wrote:
| 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.
| Obscurity4340 wrote:
| What else is there/have they thats not?
| addandsubtract wrote:
| *Microsoft 365 Copilot
| systemtest wrote:
| Please note that you need Microsoft 365 Copilot Live
| Essentials for Business Premium if you want InsightDeck
| (formally PowerPoint) included.
| patapong wrote:
| I had to google this to see if it was satire... What have
| we come to
| benterix wrote:
| > Microsoft still offers a one time purchase of Office.
|
| he writing is on the wall, they will remove it sooner or
| later.
| 0x457 wrote:
| It's been available for something like 15 years since
| subscription purchase was introduced. Why so negative?
| TheCraiggers wrote:
| > but still clever of them to choose to do it later for PR
| purposes. 1-0 to Apple :)
|
| They're doing it because it makes them more money.
| Corporations are not your friend.
| embedding-shape wrote:
| 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 :)
| TheCraiggers wrote:
| Fair enough. I was just trying to point out / remind
| everyone that they're not doing it out of benevolence.
| Your post just read a bit like that to me.
|
| Obviously you're right that PR ultimately translates into
| money.
| stanmancan wrote:
| 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.
| virgil_disgr4ce wrote:
| "PR purposes" IS doing it for money
| carlosjobim wrote:
| > 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.
| SunshineTheCat wrote:
| 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 >:(
| james-bcn wrote:
| > overpriced
|
| Seriously? This is incredibly reasonable.
| pantulis wrote:
| 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 180EUR. Obviously
| a subscription seems expensive no matter what the price
| is.
| dylan604 wrote:
| So you bought Logic Pro vX for 180EUR. Did you receive
| Logic Pro vX++ for free?
| wrs wrote:
| Yes, Logic updates have been free for many years. FCP as
| well.
| pantulis wrote:
| Well what I didn't receive for free is the 3 macs that
| have been running the same licensed product ;)
| wrs wrote:
| 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.)
| smith7018 wrote:
| 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.
| kergonath wrote:
| 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.
| smugma wrote:
| Many years ago Apple reduced their pricing on many of these
| apps. They also made their OS updates free.
|
| 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 wrote:
| 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.
| philipallstar wrote:
| > 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.
| hnlmorg wrote:
| 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.
| hexasquid wrote:
| They're running a conspiracy to trick people into not
| shutting them down by offering two ways to pay, the
| devious foxes.
| alwillis wrote:
| > 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.
|
| [1]: https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2023/05/apple-brings-
| final-cu...
| groundzeros2015 wrote:
| You are complaining about a problem that hasn't happened
| yet and there is no inherent reason it will happen.
| handsclean wrote:
| 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".
| smith7018 wrote:
| > 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".
|
| 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 wrote:
| 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.
| alwa wrote:
| 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!
| weinzierl wrote:
| 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).
| bredren wrote:
| I had thought a main problem for professional video
| editors w FC had to do with video editor UX philosophy.
| Something difficult to pivot away from.
|
| 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 wrote:
| 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.)
| weinzierl wrote:
| This, plus:
|
| - The studio version of DaVinci is still affordable
| should you need it.
|
| - DaVinci has many good tutorials
| dbspin wrote:
| The 'cut' page in DaVinci specifically exists to
| replicate the FC editing UX.
|
| It's an optional way of editing separate from the 'edit'
| tab.
| derefr wrote:
| > 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.)
| akd wrote:
| 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.
|
| The company
| dabinat wrote:
| 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.
|
| https://www.macrumors.com/2026/01/13/apple-creator-studio-
| ex...
| tshaddox wrote:
| Yes, shame on them for only making good decisions now,
| instead of in the future.
| wilg wrote:
| 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.
| Someone1234 wrote:
| For *now.
|
| 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 wrote:
| 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.
| dylan604 wrote:
| 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.
| dylan604 wrote:
| 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
| wrs wrote:
| These apps have provided free updates after initial
| purchase for many years already. It would be big news if
| that stopped.
| dylan604 wrote:
| That is definitely a break from the old Adobe model
| pests wrote:
| You know this is a thread about Apple and not Adobe,
| right?
| larkost wrote:
| 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.
| iAMkenough wrote:
| Except certain features in the software will be reserved for
| subscribers only.
| NBJack wrote:
| For now. Let's not forget MS Office had a period like that as
| well. I give it five years max.
| schappim wrote:
| This isn't the whole story as one-time purchases will no
| longer have access to all new features without a subscription
| [1].
|
| 1. https://www.macrumors.com/2026/01/13/apple-creator-studio-
| ex...
| Forgeties79 wrote:
| 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
| embedding-shape wrote:
| > 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.
| Forgeties79 wrote:
| Oh interesting re: Linux. My understanding was it was
| rougher but maybe I should try myself!
| embedding-shape wrote:
| 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 :)
| geerlingguy wrote:
| Not arguing against Resolve, but FCP is still great for
| edits.
|
| It lacks some flashy social media features and modern
| conveniences for sure, but it's still a very good and widely
| used editor.
| Forgeties79 wrote:
| 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.
| bombcar wrote:
| Based on revenue estimates, if Apple _wanted_ to be
| competitive here, they could _buy_ Blackmagic for a
| billion or so ...
| qingcharles wrote:
| 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.
| steve1977 wrote:
| Also in their behind the scenes for their "Shot on
| iPhone" videos, usually they show Resolve, Premier or
| Media Composer, but rarely Final Cut.
| dangoodmanUT wrote:
| 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)
|
| good on them
| bombcar wrote:
| 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.
| tarentel wrote:
| 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.
| drcongo wrote:
| That's actually a hell of a deal considering I already pay $5 a
| month just for Logic on the iPad.
| apercu wrote:
| I bought Logic maybe 8-9 years ago, and get free upgrades....
| If I had paid $5/mo it would already have cost me ~$280.00
| more than I paid.
|
| 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 wrote:
| Oh yeah, my Logic for Mac is probably about that age too,
| but there's no choice to buy it outright on iPad sadly.
| Fnoord wrote:
| 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.
| apercu wrote:
| Oh, didn't know that. That's lame.
|
| 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 wrote:
| I thought they basically gave away Keynote/Pages etc to anyone
| with an Apple device?
| hmbakhsh wrote:
| Potentially AI slop features coming to both that they'll
| charge for?
| yohannparis wrote:
| It's literally in the introduction of the page.
|
| > plus new AI features and premium content in Keynote, Pages,
| and Numbers
| g947o wrote:
| So it's the GP comment that is inaccurate.
| ksec wrote:
| >Comes out January 28th
|
| 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 wrote:
| I would like this to be very true. Can't wait to get the new
| Air.
| systemtest wrote:
| Could be related to billing cycles
| simjnd wrote:
| But Keynote, Pages and Numbers are already free
| Rebelgecko wrote:
| Seems like a great "opportunity" for Apple to pump up their
| Services revenue
| aobdev wrote:
| From the subheading: "plus new AI features and premium
| content in Keynote, Pages, and Numbers"
| cultofmetatron wrote:
| 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.
| tarentel wrote:
| They offer a 3 month trial already.
| btown wrote:
| As someone who's loved Logic Pro since the days before Apple
| bought Emagic, this is amazing that it will be accessible to a
| broader audience.
|
| 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 wrote:
| How else could you represent piano roll data than as a stream
| of events? I thought that was ubiquitous since the invention
| of MIDI.
|
| Are you saying other sequencers are unable to render the same
| data as piano roll and score?
| btown wrote:
| 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.
| einr wrote:
| _Among professional-ready DAWs, as far as I know, it 's
| unique in its approach._
|
| Cubase, surely? I'm pretty sure it has done this for
| _decades_ unless I am misunderstanding what you 're
| saying.
| PaulDavisThe1st wrote:
| 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.
| deafpolygon wrote:
| 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?
| mrkstu wrote:
| I'm assuming that they're going to (fairly) lock AI
| generative features behind the subscription since they'll be
| incurring ongoing costs.
| apparent wrote:
| 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.
| deafpolygon wrote:
| 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.
| kolanos wrote:
| Does this mean Keynote and Pages are now paid products? Aren't
| they included with Mac OS?
| aobdev wrote:
| From the subheading: "plus new AI features and premium
| content in Keynote, Pages, and Numbers"
| xattt wrote:
| > Educational discount with verification required drops the
| price to $2.99/mo / $29.99/yr.
|
| Guess it's time to take some online self-paced courses at a
| university for no reason in particular ...
| benterix wrote:
| 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.
| sleepybrett wrote:
| Meanwhile the subscription for Adobe Premiere ALONE is 22.99/mo
| FireBeyond wrote:
| Yeah, I'm pissed that the Photography plan
| (Lightroom/Photoshop) has gone from 9.99/mo to 24.99/mo in
| the last 18 months.
| al_borland wrote:
| Too bad they killed Aperture.
| hbbio wrote:
| Now they acquired Photomator with Pixelmator, but it's still an
| independent subscription... not even included in this bundle.
| Maybe they just forgot.
| dormento wrote:
| Wow, RIP the icons I guess :/
| kurishutofu wrote:
| When was the last time Apple made some significant update to its
| professional desktop apps?
| joezydeco wrote:
| Forget that. TikTokers are the revenue stream now.
| embedding-shape wrote:
| 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.
| no_wizard wrote:
| 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
| embedding-shape wrote:
| 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.
| rvz wrote:
| They use CapCut which is free and on the web and Google Docs.
|
| To them what Apple just announced is trash.
| tarentel wrote:
| 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.
|
| https://support.apple.com/en-afri/109503
| tjpnz wrote:
| Pages, Numbers and Keynote are the first apps I bin whenever I'm
| setting up a new Mac. Would people actually pay money for them?
| troupo wrote:
| They want you to pay money for premium AI features in those
| apps, which is worse.
|
| The apps themselves are fine IMO.
| piersroberts wrote:
| I'd forgotten Pages and Numbers existed, but Keynote is worth
| paying for if it means that I don't have to use PowerPoint.
| embedding-shape wrote:
| > Would people actually pay money for them?
|
| Why would someone need to buy them, they only run on macOS and
| macOS hardware comes with it by default, doesn't it?
| nottorp wrote:
| I use Pages once a month for an invoice :)
|
| Not sure why tbh, my other invoices are done in LibreOffice.
| insane_dreamer wrote:
| 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.
| void-pointer wrote:
| Numbers is brilliant simply because of independent freely-
| movable tables
|
| It looks so much better than the grid enforced by Excel.
| bromuro wrote:
| Yeah Numbers wins, when going back to Excel I miss it. It's
| not as powerful though.
| pico303 wrote:
| 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?
| quitit wrote:
| 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.
| data-ottawa wrote:
| 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.
| PlunderBunny wrote:
| 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).
| fidotron wrote:
| > 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?
| DonHopkins wrote:
| Apple no longer supports GL, so Liquid Glass - GL = Liquid Ass.
| codebyaditya wrote:
| 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.
| faust201 wrote:
| Pretty sure these marketing speak was decided half-an-year
| before. Sales and marketing just do their job
|
| /S
| nottorp wrote:
| > like an aesthetic system
|
| An idiotic aesthetic system that ignores all the human
| interface guidelines that the Apple of 30+ years ago helped
| start.
| storus wrote:
| 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.
| Fnoord wrote:
| Sonoma won't receive updates for long any more. Better off
| switching to Sequoia. It'll give you 20 months to switch
| away, instead of 8 months.
| storus wrote:
| 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.
| einr wrote:
| 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)
| baggachipz wrote:
| Have you never had to toe a company line before?
| guestbest wrote:
| It sounds like internally it's a checklist item they have to
| mention everywhere.
| cons0le wrote:
| Yep, it's not trolling, it's just them doing the job. A well
| paid lawyer will defend a client even if they're guilty
| 12345hn6789 wrote:
| A well paid lawyer defending a guilty client is upholding
| the Justice system. Every man has a right to a fair trial.
|
| Apple wasting years of everyones time on bad faith UX
| design
| blitzar wrote:
| someone in PR is trolling
|
| the beatings with liquid glass will continue till morale
| improves
| pier25 wrote:
| They don't have much of a choice. They bet the house on liquid
| glass and need to keep up appearances.
| reddalo wrote:
| I think they just need to wait a bit and then present
| something more sensible as the new hot design.
| msabalau wrote:
| When you are in a hole you can at least stop digging.
| mh2266 wrote:
| > They bet the house on liquid glass
|
| How? If they reverted to the previous iOS and macOS designs,
| Apple would go out of business?
| pier25 wrote:
| God only knows how much money they invested into the new
| GUI engine for all their platforms. It was a super
| expensive bet.
| lII1lIlI11ll wrote:
| > God only knows how much money they invested into the
| new GUI engine for all their platforms. It was a super
| expensive bet.
|
| What are you basing these claims on?
| raw_anon_1111 wrote:
| 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".
|
| I'm sure there is approved marketing copy.
| matthoiland wrote:
| Dear Apple, Please do not add liquid glass to your professional
| applications. Keep it simple, gray, performant, and functional.
| Thank you.
| sneak wrote:
| 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.
| bromuro wrote:
| I like the Liquid Glass design so this is a point for me.
| sgustard wrote:
| At least in the screenshots I did not notice absurdly large
| window corner radii.
| lynndotpy wrote:
| Because every app is presented in fullscreen. Showing the
| windowing system would make sense if this was announced pre-
| LG.
| me_online wrote:
| apple can pry my one-time final cut pro purchase from my cold,
| dead hands.
| acomjean wrote:
| 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.
| sirwhinesalot wrote:
| 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.
| joshstrange wrote:
| One-time purchase versions are still available. For Pixelmator
| Pro it's $49.99 on the App Store
| sirwhinesalot wrote:
| For now.
| dsego wrote:
| That's not very reassuring.
| bayindirh wrote:
| Pixelmator Pro is upgraded a couple of times under Apple's
| wings, and this thing is not being ruined.
|
| 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 wrote:
| How long until the option to buy-once for this software goes
| away? I am not a fan of this trend.
| rvz wrote:
| You will (soon) own nothing and be happy.
| joshstrange wrote:
| In this thread: No one who has even skimmed the article
|
| 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 wrote:
| But for how long?
| andsoitis wrote:
| Excited to see whether the new Apple boss will lead to software
| innovation, which has been pretty stagnant the last few years.
|
| https://www.nytimes.com/2026/01/08/technology/apple-ceo-tim-...
| EagnaIonat wrote:
| Are they planning to discontinue Garage band?
| kace91 wrote:
| 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.
| jen20 wrote:
| > 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
|
| Are you talking about Adobe here?
| bigyabai wrote:
| Probably not, seeing as Creative Cloud has bundles focused on
| specific mediums.
| jen20 wrote:
| Their default is the "All" plan which includes many of the
| same categories as the Apple bundle.
| Forgeties79 wrote:
| 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.
| steve1977 wrote:
| 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.
| tarentel wrote:
| 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.
| bigyabai wrote:
| Most musicians I know use Ableton or Bitwig on macOS. Logic
| Pro is really a hassle for collaboration and touring from
| what I've heard.
| steve1977 wrote:
| 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.
| acuozzo wrote:
| > I don't get why they think "professional" is a generic tier.
|
| The target market is prosumer, not true professional.
| vehemenz wrote:
| I don't think there's that much of a distinction.
|
| 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 wrote:
| 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.
| steve1977 wrote:
| Also in professional circles, there's usually one or two
| industry standards and you just use what everyone else is
| using.
| vehemenz wrote:
| Many people that use professional tools are genuinely doing
| hobbyist stuff. Especially if they haven't already bought their
| tools outright.
|
| But besides, this subscription works with Family Sharing and is
| only $12, so it looks easy to get your money's worth.
| lemonlime227 wrote:
| 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.
|
| [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 wrote:
| 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.
| admp wrote:
| Photomator would be a more level Lightroom alternative, odd
| it's not included in the new Creator Studio package.
| AlanYx wrote:
| 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.
| silveira wrote:
| Thanks for the info, I was looking for this. I have the "Pro
| Apps Bundle for Education" that I bought years ago and it is an
| fantastic deal.
| lemonlime227 wrote:
| 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].
|
| [1]: https://www.apple.com/final-cut-
| pro/#:~:text=A%20one%2Dtime%...
| throwaway85825 wrote:
| Another subscription slop?
| samgranieri wrote:
| I wondered when Apple was going to do this. Seemed inevitable
| when Final Cut Pro on the iPad had a subscription, I think.
|
| I hope I can still use the non subscription version of Pixelmator
| pro I bought
| aosaigh wrote:
| It's odd not to see Photomator in this bundle. Feels even more
| likely that they're going to kill it off in place of the regular
| Photos app.
| andsoitis wrote:
| Innovation!
|
| More seriously, the subscription probably comes out cheaper than
| buying several (even if not all) of the apps that come in the
| bundle.
| lysace wrote:
| 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.
| Kye wrote:
| 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.
| geerlingguy wrote:
| I still miss Aperture. Photos is a far cry still, many years
| later.
|
| Lightroom never matched Aperture's organizational abilities for
| libraries with tens of thousands of RAW photos.
| apgwoz wrote:
| 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...
| herrherrmann wrote:
| 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 ...
| apgwoz wrote:
| 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.
| herrherrmann wrote:
| 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.
| apgwoz wrote:
| 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.
| jeffbee wrote:
| 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.
| haunter wrote:
| I wish there was something like GOG but for old general
| software
| canbus wrote:
| Tried Darktable?
| data-ottawa wrote:
| For me it didn't work with Fuji RAW, so I couldn't really use
| it.
| squidsoup wrote:
| 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.
| reactordev wrote:
| Apple CC
|
| 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 wrote:
| Pixelmator Pro is fantastic. I've forgotten about Photoshop for
| many years. Just buy it.
| felineflock wrote:
| That Synth Player and Chord ID seem to be killer features on
| Logic Pro. Are they recent additions? Do they work well?
| steve1977 wrote:
| It's not released yet.
| H1Supreme wrote:
| 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.
| pier25 wrote:
| 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.
| 542458 wrote:
| TBF, you can say the same thing for adobe creative cloud - the
| intersection between After Effects and Indesign users is also
| effectively nil!
|
| But having one simple opex line item for "software I buy for
| the creative types" is appealing for a lot of orgs.
| pier25 wrote:
| But the CC subscriptions offers a lot more.
|
| Photohsop, Illustrator and After Effects are pretty much
| industry standards.
| srik wrote:
| Apple really should've grabbed Affinity before canva.
| Would've rounded out this suite much better.
| pier25 wrote:
| Yeah. The Affinity team with Apple's resources could have
| made an amazing Adobe CC alternative for Mac users.
| doctorpangloss wrote:
| Yes, re: opex. The product is "renewals," not software
| really.
| cush wrote:
| Subs like this are great for people who can't afford the full
| versions yet
| dagmx wrote:
| There's quite a few creative hobbyists and freelancers.
|
| 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 wrote:
| This is Off Topic, but the first thing I notice on that page were
| those icons for apps with Apple Creator Studio.
|
| They look _AWEFUL_.
| MattRix wrote:
| I don't think they look awful, and they're more interesting and
| opinionated than most boring icons you see these days.
| simjnd wrote:
| They're definitely awful compared to the icons they're
| replacing. Losing so much identity and detail.
| lexoj wrote:
| It has that new slop aesthetics.
| steve1977 wrote:
| Yup, looks like they have been created by some intern with
| Image Playground.
| toddmorey wrote:
| TERRIBLE! Can't believe Apple is using these.
| concinds wrote:
| 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.
|
| [0]:
| https://www.reddit.com/r/MacOS/comments/1qbz6g8/whos_excited...
| speak_plainly wrote:
| 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.
| TimTheTinker wrote:
| 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.
| NoSalt wrote:
| > _" come together in a single SUBSCRIPTION"_
|
| Ummm ... no, thank you.
| arvinsim wrote:
| Is the one-time purchase versions guaranteed for life?
|
| If not, then this would likely go the way of others before where
| it will eventually be removed.
| prmoustache wrote:
| Nothing is ever guaranteed for life...except the promise of
| death.
| WillAdams wrote:
| Is anyone finding Freeform useful?
|
| I tried it out when it was first announced and found it painfully
| limited --- did I miss something? Has it gotten better?
| jonpurdy wrote:
| 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.
| Toutouxc wrote:
| 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.
| cush wrote:
| That's a great deal
| nxobject wrote:
| When you're not plowing money into putting AI everywhere, it's
| easier to be cheaper than Adobe I guess...
|
| (For what it's worth, the iWorks apps - Pages/Keynote/Numbers are
| free and bundled with macOS.)
| noodlesUK wrote:
| 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.
| zffr wrote:
| 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.
| dagmx wrote:
| Good thing they remain free and pre installed. As per the
| article.
| wildredkraut wrote:
| lol, what a money grab.
| tomovo wrote:
| 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..
| philistine wrote:
| Affinity never made mac-assed Mac apps. Pixelmator is more a
| Mac app than Messages or Music. That's why they bought them
| instead of Affinity.
| tomovo wrote:
| Maybe. Form over function, not a surprise.
| handsclean wrote:
| 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.
| tomovo wrote:
| 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.
| Petersipoi wrote:
| 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.
| brcmthrowaway wrote:
| Does anyone use these apps?
| pentagrama wrote:
| 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).
| Svoka wrote:
| Pixelmator probably is Lightroom. And adobe has "Photography
| Bundle" with Lightroom and Photoshop for $20/mo.
| ezfe wrote:
| No, Photomator (and Photos) is Lightroom. Pixelmator is
| Photoshop.
| mesh wrote:
| No, Lightroom is a dedicated photo editor and DAM.
|
| Pixelmator is closer to Photoshop, you can do some photo
| editing, but its not focused on it, and does not have asset
| management.
| mesh wrote:
| 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...).
|
| (I work for Adobe)
| jwr wrote:
| 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.
| incanus77 wrote:
| Me too, with Aperture. Huge misstep and insult to the user
| base.
|
| 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 wrote:
| Not only Aperture. The FCP7-FCPX transition was a disaster as
| well.
| redundantly wrote:
| It's been a decade and it still hurts that it was discontinued.
| steve1977 wrote:
| Logic users on Windows also weren't too happy when Apple bought
| Emagic and dropped Windows support shortly after.
| dgxyz wrote:
| 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".
| movedx wrote:
| 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.
| f_allwein wrote:
| Power tip: replace the Word docs with Markdown.
| m463 wrote:
| 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.
|
| (am I recalling correctly?)
| dgxyz wrote:
| 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.
| karmakaze wrote:
| OT: ...protecting their privacy. LOL _(wrong playbook triggered
| writing this)_
|
| > [...] to make Apple Creator Studio an exciting subscription
| suite to empower creators of all disciplines while protecting
| their privacy.
| krm01 wrote:
| 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?
| mrkstu wrote:
| Because Adobe would have gone Windows only, which would have
| been a potentially fatal blow to Apple at the time. Same reason
| Claris was spun out.
| timeon wrote:
| At least Acrobat reader is not relevant on macOS.
| opengrass wrote:
| Cool, just don't send me your project files in email attachments.
| JeremyJaydan wrote:
| 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!
| zuInnp wrote:
| Last thing I did when I was a student was to buy the Apple pro
| apps bundle for education. It still haven't regretted it :D
|
| So, if you are a student, you can get logic, final cut, motion,
| compressor and mainStage for $199.99 for ever.
| qubex wrote:
| 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.
| user3939382 wrote:
| Fuck Apple I'm done with all their rent seeking and shit lock-in.
| Broken CLI tools. Hello Asahi Linux and x64 FreeBSD.
| imagetic wrote:
| Bad move Apple. Bad move.
| spankalee wrote:
| 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.
| bob1029 wrote:
| > Final Cut Pro, Logic Pro, Pixelmator Pro, Keynote, Pages,
| Numbers
|
| https://i.imgflip.com/2siu6l.jpg
| nipperkinfeet wrote:
| All these companies can go to hell with their subscription traps.
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