Apple Creator Studio
Apple (Hacker News, ArsTechnica, MacRumors, 9To5Mac, MacStories, Reddit, Mac Power Users):
Apple today unveiled Apple Creator Studio, a groundbreaking collection of powerful creative apps designed to put studio-grade power into the hands of everyone, building on the essential role Mac, iPad, and iPhone play in the lives of millions of creators around the world. The apps included with Apple Creator Studio for video editing, music making, creative imaging, and visual productivity give modern creators the features and capabilities they need to experience the joy of editing and tailoring their content while realizing their artistic vision. Exciting new intelligent features and premium content build on familiar experiences of Final Cut Pro, Logic Pro, Pixelmator Pro, Keynote, Pages, Numbers, and later Freeform to make Apple Creator Studio an exciting subscription suite to empower creators of all disciplines while protecting their privacy.
Apple Creator Studio will be available on the App Store beginning Wednesday, January 28, for $12.99 per month or $129 per year, with a one-month free trial, and includes access to Final Cut Pro, Logic Pro, and Pixelmator Pro on Mac and iPad; Motion, Compressor, and MainStage on Mac; and intelligent features and premium content for Keynote, Pages, Numbers, and later Freeform for iPhone, iPad, and Mac. College students and educators can subscribe for $2.99 per month or $29.99 per year. 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.
[…]
For the first time, Pixelmator Pro is coming to iPad, bringing an all-new touch-optimized workspace, full Apple Pencil support, the ability to work between iPad and Mac, and all of the powerful editing tools users have come to appreciate on Mac.
[…]
In addition to Image Playground, advanced image creation and editing tools let users create high-quality images from text, or transform existing images, using generative models from OpenAI.
It does not seem to include Photomator. I don’t really use any of these apps—preferring Microsoft Office and Acorn—and nothing announced here sounds like it would change that.
As for the productivity apps, the Apple Creator Studio adds a Content Hub for what Apple describes as “curated, high-quality photos, graphics, and illustrations.” There are also new premium templates and themes for Keynote, Pages, and Numbers and integration with image-generation tools from OpenAI. Apple is also, in an unusual move, including beta features as part of the bundle: the company mentions one that can create a draft of a Keynote presentation from a text outline and one called “Magic Fill” for Numbers with lets you “generate formulas and fill in tables based on pattern recognition.” Freeform’s premium features aren’t yet ready to roll out but will come later this year.
This means that if you bought Final Cut Pro or Pixelmator Pro via one-time purchase, which will still be an option going forward, you will no longer have access to all new features. However, Apple promises the apps will continue to receive updates.
Apple is becoming Adobe. There are two types of apps in this suite: pro media apps and office apps. Pages, Numbers, and Keynote are not used by the same people as Logic and Final Cut. There should be a separate iWork subscription.
On the one hand, I fully understand why Apple is finally going Adobe and doing a subscription for the creative apps. On the other hand, I don’t know if I can see this as having enough value for me to want to pay $130 a year when I use these apps almost entirely on the Mac.
My hope is that the UI shown today for Final Cut Pro, Logic Pro, Motion, and MainStage is a flat-out rejection of Liquid Glass for “serious” apps. My fear is that it’s only a result of their continued support for MacOS 15 Sequoia. (But I think they need to continue supporting MacOS 15 Sequoia because so many pro users are rejecting MacOS 26 Tahoe.)
But… how viable is it, really? I have my doubts, especially given that I recently tried Final Cut Pro and found it lacking in several areas compared to freemium competitors like DaVinci Resolve. And I have been using Logic Pro for years. It’s a solid DAW, but it faces stiff competition from Ableton Live and an increasing number of free or low-cost alternatives. But that’s my personal experience; I wonder how this will play out for the broader market, where there’s stuff like Affinity Suite, which has recently surfaced after the Canva acquisition as a free alternative Pixelmator Pro (with paid add-ons).
Icon History
The Logic Pro app icon, before and after being part of Apple Creator Studio.
Look at how they massacred my boy...😭
We lost something here
the ultimate icon downgrade
Previously:
- Tahoe’s Terrible Icons
- Canva Acquires Affinity/Serif
- Apple Tends to Do Right by Apps It Acquires
- Does Apple Smell Blood in the Water?
- Apple Acquires Pixelmator
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These icons are a fever dream on LSD. And I still wish Apple would let a subsidiary like Claris handle these apps, because I feel like if they lose interest because some new shiny thing appears, they'll go years without updates.
My history on running a personal budget...
-- AppleWorks on an Apple ][c, started in 1985.
-- Moved to Lotus123 on a Windows 3.1 PC in 1993.
-- Quickly moved to Excel on a Windows 95 PC in 1995.
-- OpenOffice in 2003. (First on a Windows XP, then my first MacBook Pro (or was it an iBook?).
-- iWorks (or Numbers) in 2007.
Where do I go now? Unsure. I will not pay subscription. (At least not until Apple quits taking 15% of my app income.) But - for me - the real question is when does Apple stop supporting Numbers 14.4? Already looking for a "good enough" substitute.
Dave, they will keep updating them. The only thing missing for you would be “AI” features and some library of content. Not sure it’s worth it at the moment, we will see
