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).
The most important benefits in my opinion are choice and price - people like me who prefer to buy software outright can still do so at a reasonable cost, while others who opt for a subscription can also do so (again, at a reasonable cost).
It's pretty clever that they keep the "pay one time" option still alive while announcing the availability of subscription, so anyone who says "Boo, not you too Apple" can easily be shut down with "You still have the option to buy it!" instead of leaving those critics without answers. Of course, they'll eventually remove the option to buy the software by paying once, I think everyone can see the writing on the wall, but still clever of them to choose to do it later for PR purposes. 1-0 to Apple :)
The one-time purchase version of Microsoft Office is not available worldwide. Where offered, it is reduced to Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and OneNote, with Outlook as a Business edition extra. Individual apps can sometimes be bought separately, but pricing usually makes this impractical. This is to push buyers to Microsoft 365 subscriptions which is the primary product.
Yes - but perpetual purchases have an interesting gotcha that Microsoft didn't realise at first. To encourage subscription over perpetual, ongoing or evergreen updates are limited to subscription version.
Office 2024 has every feature that was added since Office 2021 to the subscription version - while a chunk of loyal customers are unaware of them.
Back when Google was competing hard with Google Suite, a big perception problem formed with the perpetual customers believing and convincing others that Google were far ahead, with collab editing and other features - after Office had added equivalent.
So for me, If there's a subscription and one-time option - I wonder if the one-time gets all updates going forward. If it doesn't, I realise that they'll regret that if competition picks up, and try to fix it later.
If it does include updates... I worry it will be like many other lifetime updates one-time purchases - when competition is low they'll renege on that promise.
> so 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.
> 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.
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.
Yea I've already purchased some of these apps so I was not going to thrilled if they pulled an Adobe and made me pay for an overpriced subscription on top of it >:(
It's not outrageous, for sure, specially if you happen to have a use case for all the bundled apps. But things change if you consider that the one time payment for Logic Pro equals about 18 months of the subscription. In my case, I bought Logic Pro in 2013 for 180€. Obviously a subscription seems expensive no matter what the price is.
> 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.
Yes, of course, ultimately every choice they ever do is for money, because they're a for-profit company. But maybe we can be slightly more granular about exactly how that choice makes them more money, which is because it gives them good PR. I was just being more specific, but we're saying the same thing :)
Parent isn’t insinuating otherwise. They’re saying the subscription model is more lucrative, so eventually they’ll remove the one time payment option, but keeping it as an option for the announcement keeps the bad PR at bay.
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.
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.
I would assume it's because younger generations of creatives are using their software less and less, increasing the risk of losing the market completely on the software side. At this pricing, more of them will turn to paying Apple rather than paying for multiple services, keeping them tied into the ecosystem.
Also so many people are paying for Canva, Capcut etc that taking a piece of that cake is quite a low hanging fruit if you have a distribution platform.
The acquisition of the Affinity software by Canva I imagine motivated this.
It’s even a similar pricing model, though technically with Pages / Numbers / Keynote covers a little more ground but I think the main intent is to get creatives using Apple’s creative software again
Pixelmator being the only 3rd party software because Apple never made a competitor to Photoshop
Though since Canva went full on toward more robust tools I imagine they have started capturing the entire editing chain more than they did 2-3 years ago, hence the Affinity acquisition
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.
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.
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.
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)
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.
Not related to your comment exactly but I feel like I need to get this out in this thread somewhere:
As someone who defended FCPX and used it professionally for years even when it was at its most hated (2011 or so), it’s been woefully supported the last few years and no one should be on it anymore. Resolve Studio outclasses it top to bottom for the same one-time cost and runs great on both MacOS and Windows. Linux it’s bumpy unfortunately but it does technically run lol
> Resolve Studio outclasses it top to bottom for the same one-time cost and runs great on both MacOS and Windows
Best 200-300 EUR I spent some years ago, and still receives free updates, Blackmagic Design is a really nice company. And, not only does Resolve run great on macOS and Windows, they have Linux native builds that run even better than it does with the same hardware using Windows, which is REALLY nice.
Runs like a dream for me, albeit on workstation-hardware so YMMV. It runs better under X than Wayland, at least the version I'm still stuck on, but otherwise the performance is top notch and easily worth a try :)
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.
If you are planning anyway to break the terms of the license and effectively steal the software, why even bother paying something for the privilege? Just get it for free, surely it has to be available cracked
> break the terms of the license and effectively steal the software
We're all (mostly/some) software people here, you don't need to use terms established by the "anti-piracy" firms to make your point, no one is "stealing" anything here, even if they were getting it for free from TPB or whatever.
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?
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.
The individual one time purchase versions are still available for all the apps. Final Cut, Logic, Motion, Compressor, and MainStage are offered in a bundle for education by Apple as a $199.99 one time purchase (no education status is verified) [1]. Pixelmator Pro is available as a one time purchase as well for $49.99 [2]. Not included in the Creator Studio is the Lightroom alternative Photomator, which is available as a one time purchase of $119.99. You could recreate just the Creator Studio as a one time $250 purchase, or the entire suite (including Photomator) for $370.
Not available for one time purchase are the AI features and templates available for the free apps (Keynote, Pages, Numbers, Freeform).
Personally, I'm glad that one time purchases are still options for the core pro suite: long term they do hold value compared to paying Adobe a subscription (or dealing with the high seas on macOS). However, I don't see things like the education bundle sticking around much longer, so purchase it sooner rather than later.
The inclusion of Pixelmator Pro is simply so they no longer have a hole in the software lineup as a competitor vs Affinity (I think the real competitor to this bundle) and Adobe
I think they view Photos as a viable replacement for Lightroom and equivalents.
> These apps will continue receiving updates, with the latest versions adopting the beautiful new visual design language with Liquid Glass on all platforms
Are the Apple people really this oblivious, or is someone in PR trolling us?
I read it less as obliviousness and more as internal language leaking into marketing. What’s “Liquid Glass” to Apple reads like an aesthetic system though but to outsiders it sounds like jargon inflation. I feel the gap between internal coherence and external clarity shows up in these releases a lot.
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 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.
I’ve been waiting to see what happens with Photomator, and the fact that it’s not being included in anyway here makes me think it might not survive? Either that, or it’s gonna be heavily integrated into Photos…
I think this is a huge mistake at least as far as the office software goes. One of the key advantages to Pages.app and friends is that they are pre-installed and free on MacOS. This will just drive people to M365 and Google Docs.
Pages and other iWork apps will remain free. The premium features are for curated images and templates, and AI assisted document creation. If you don't care for those features, you will not be affected by the change.
Seems like a pretty solid deal, if you need everything. I don't know who that person is though. The intersection between Final Cut Pro and Logic users is pretty small, I'd imagine.
I'm that kind of user but I would rather not use Logic, Final Cut, or PixelMator unless Apple really improves those. On top of that there's also the platform lock-in concern.
> 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
> 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).
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.
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..
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.)
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.”
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.
$129/year is surely better than $300 once, 15 years ago. Though I'm guessing not offering it for free is to keep it distinct from iMovie and to maintain some semblance of "Pro"-ness (which I'm gathering is up for debate either way.. the last time I did any actual video editing it was on Final Cut Pro 5 so I'm out of the loop)
It's 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.
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.
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
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!
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.
This seems like an Apple AI subscription under the guise of a software bundle.
It’s a good value for some, especially if you want to use FCP, but seems like a bad value for most users who are expecting more value from their Mac purchase.
I wonder if new Macs will offer a three-month trial for this suite, or if the standard apps will be pre-installed and the AI features are unlocked through a subscription.
If bundled versions of iWork go away, we may see a renaissance for G Suite.
Sounds plausible. Someone internally likely has AI sales numbers to meet, so creating new subscriptions and adding "AI" to them can help juice AI-related numbers toward that quota.
I 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.
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.
TikTokers ("influencers" in general) don't do their editing or any part of their "production pipeline" on computers, kids are doing the full thing via smartphones nowadays. Blew my mind initially too, as I always did "serious work" at a computer and never the phone, but seems they're managing it somehow.
They often start there, some stay there, some graduate to an iPad, but a a lot of the higher end creators absolutely edit in desktops or laptops (usually MacBooks)
My old job dealt with this quite a lot as they were our target market, so I got some up close views of how for example, creators like MrBeast go about their editing (well the employees anyway)
Though I did note a lot of creators that do graduate to more robust software basically go from lightweight editor via Canva -> iMovie or equivalent -> professional software e.g. FCPX or Premiere
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.
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.
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.
> 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
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.
Yeah! They were courageous enough to take the step that Microsoft did with the Office suite (announced 1988, launched 1990) and with Microsoft 365 as subscription in 2011.
I'm curious how many people actually use all this stuff themselves. It seems like an extreme niche, and more often than not will have people paying for apps they will never use.
Maybe I'm old skool... but for the last 30+ years I've been using a combination of photoshop, illustrator, FCP, after effects (back when it was CoSA...), some audio editing and mixing in quite a bit of code as well. While others on my team specialize in one or two domains, I've managed to keep my skills in many.
Back in the day I was considered a 'MultiMedia' creative. I don't even know what to call myself these days.
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.
Doesn't sound like it
> Alternatively, users can also choose to purchase the Mac versions of Final Cut Pro, Pixelmator Pro, Logic Pro, Motion, Compressor, and MainStage individually as a one-time purchase on the Mac App Store.5
> Alternatively, users can also choose to purchase the Mac versions of Final Cut Pro, Pixelmator Pro, Logic Pro, Motion, Compressor, and MainStage individually as a one-time purchase on the Mac App Store.
I'm 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.
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.
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?
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.
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
The most important benefits in my opinion are choice and price - people like me who prefer to buy software outright can still do so at a reasonable cost, while others who opt for a subscription can also do so (again, at a reasonable cost).
It's pretty clever that they keep the "pay one time" option still alive while announcing the availability of subscription, so anyone who says "Boo, not you too Apple" can easily be shut down with "You still have the option to buy it!" instead of leaving those critics without answers. Of course, they'll eventually remove the option to buy the software by paying once, I think everyone can see the writing on the wall, but still clever of them to choose to do it later for PR purposes. 1-0 to Apple :)
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.
The one-time purchase version of Microsoft Office is not available worldwide. Where offered, it is reduced to Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and OneNote, with Outlook as a Business edition extra. Individual apps can sometimes be bought separately, but pricing usually makes this impractical. This is to push buyers to Microsoft 365 subscriptions which is the primary product.
Yes - 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.
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.
*Microsoft 365 Copilot
Please note that you need Microsoft 365 Copilot Live Essentials for Business Premium if you want InsightDeck (formally PowerPoint) included.
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.
> 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.
> 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...
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.
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 >:(
> overpriced
Seriously? This is incredibly reasonable.
It's not outrageous, for sure, specially if you happen to have a use case for all the bundled apps. But things change if you consider that the one time payment for Logic Pro equals about 18 months of the subscription. In my case, I bought Logic Pro in 2013 for 180€. Obviously a subscription seems expensive no matter what the price is.
> 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.
> 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.
Yes, of course, ultimately every choice they ever do is for money, because they're a for-profit company. But maybe we can be slightly more granular about exactly how that choice makes them more money, which is because it gives them good PR. I was just being more specific, but we're saying the same thing :)
Parent isn’t insinuating otherwise. They’re saying the subscription model is more lucrative, so eventually they’ll remove the one time payment option, but keeping it as an option for the announcement keeps the bad PR at bay.
"PR purposes" IS doing it for money
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.
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.
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.
That's actually surprisingly cheap compared to other subscriptions in the industry, especially for such a high powered suite.
As long as you buy a macbook to use it on, they are happy
Get them in the door now and jack up the price later.
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.
I would assume it's because younger generations of creatives are using their software less and less, increasing the risk of losing the market completely on the software side. At this pricing, more of them will turn to paying Apple rather than paying for multiple services, keeping them tied into the ecosystem.
Also so many people are paying for Canva, Capcut etc that taking a piece of that cake is quite a low hanging fruit if you have a distribution platform.
The acquisition of the Affinity software by Canva I imagine motivated this.
It’s even a similar pricing model, though technically with Pages / Numbers / Keynote covers a little more ground but I think the main intent is to get creatives using Apple’s creative software again
Pixelmator being the only 3rd party software because Apple never made a competitor to Photoshop
Though since Canva went full on toward more robust tools I imagine they have started capturing the entire editing chain more than they did 2-3 years ago, hence the Affinity acquisition
> 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.
Apple doesn't ever need to make much money on this software, when they make money on hardware needed to use it.
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.
What data centers? Does Apple even have data centers? Can people purchase compute on Apple's data centers?
> 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.
Somehow I don't think Apple is going to put Adobe out of business.
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.
Not an Apple fan at all, but damn, in the views of some of the HN community, one can only do wrong. Pathetic.
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.
I thought they basically gave away Keynote/Pages etc to anyone with an Apple device?
It's literally in the introduction of the page.
> plus new AI features and premium content in Keynote, Pages, and Numbers
Potentially AI slop features coming to both that they'll charge for?
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
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.
>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.
Could be related to billing cycles
I would like this to be very true. Can’t wait to get the new Air.
Not related to your comment exactly but I feel like I need to get this out in this thread somewhere:
As someone who defended FCPX and used it professionally for years even when it was at its most hated (2011 or so), it’s been woefully supported the last few years and no one should be on it anymore. Resolve Studio outclasses it top to bottom for the same one-time cost and runs great on both MacOS and Windows. Linux it’s bumpy unfortunately but it does technically run lol
> Resolve Studio outclasses it top to bottom for the same one-time cost and runs great on both MacOS and Windows
Best 200-300 EUR I spent some years ago, and still receives free updates, Blackmagic Design is a really nice company. And, not only does Resolve run great on macOS and Windows, they have Linux native builds that run even better than it does with the same hardware using Windows, which is REALLY nice.
Oh interesting re: Linux. My understanding was it was rougher but maybe I should try myself!
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 :)
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.
But Keynote, Pages and Numbers are already free
time to dust off that 20 year old edu email address. with these discounts, college has paid for itself!
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.
That almost never works for me, they usually use a service that verifies current student enrollment like SheerID.
If you are planning anyway to break the terms of the license and effectively steal the software, why even bother paying something for the privilege? Just get it for free, surely it has to be available cracked
> break the terms of the license and effectively steal the software
We're all (mostly/some) software people here, you don't need to use terms established by the "anti-piracy" firms to make your point, no one is "stealing" anything here, even if they were getting it for free from TPB or whatever.
Cracked software has risks attached to it, such as malware.
Spare me the morality play. Apple gifted Donald Trump a 24k gold statue! They will gift me an educational discount to Final Cut Pro.
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?
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.
won't somebody think of the poor trillion dollar company!
That's actually a hell of a deal considering I already pay $5 a month just for Logic on the iPad.
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.
Oh yeah, my Logic for Mac is probably about that age too, but there's no choice to buy it outright on iPad sadly.
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.
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
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.
Photomator would be a more level Lightroom alternative, odd it's not included in the new Creator Studio package.
> 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?
They don't have much of a choice. They bet the house on liquid glass and need to keep up appearances.
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.
> like an aesthetic system
An idiotic aesthetic system that ignores all the human interface guidelines that the Apple of 30+ years ago helped start.
Pretty sure these marketing speak was decided half-an-year before. Sales and marketing just do their job
/S
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.
It sounds like internally it’s a checklist item they have to mention everywhere.
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
someone in PR is trolling
the beatings with liquid glass will continue till morale improves
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.
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.
Have you never had to toe a company line before?
Apple no longer supports GL, so Liquid Glass - GL = Liquid Ass.
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.
I’ve been waiting to see what happens with Photomator, and the fact that it’s not being included in anyway here makes me think it might not survive? Either that, or it’s gonna be heavily integrated into Photos…
I think this is a huge mistake at least as far as the office software goes. One of the key advantages to Pages.app and friends is that they are pre-installed and free on MacOS. This will just drive people to M365 and Google Docs.
Pages and other iWork apps will remain free. The premium features are for curated images and templates, and AI assisted document creation. If you don't care for those features, you will not be affected by the change.
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.
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.
Yes, re: opex. The product is “renewals,” not software really.
But the CC subscriptions offers a lot more.
Photohsop, Illustrator and After Effects are pretty much industry standards.
Subs like this are great for people who can’t afford the full versions yet
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.
> 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?
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.
Available for purchase... for now.
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.
> 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).
Logic Pro in iPad is subscription only.
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.
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..
Depends on if you are stuck with the subscription for life, or if there's actually a reasonable way to unsubscribe.
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.)
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.”
Yeah but this is $129/yr, that's significantly cheaper
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.
$129/year is surely better than $300 once, 15 years ago. Though I'm guessing not offering it for free is to keep it distinct from iMovie and to maintain some semblance of "Pro"-ness (which I'm gathering is up for debate either way.. the last time I did any actual video editing it was on Final Cut Pro 5 so I'm out of the loop)
It's 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.
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
One might argue it offers significantly less value too.
How so? Apple's subscription cancellation is one click away, and you don't get overcharged when canceling.
Adobe invented subscription bundles? In that sense did the Creative Cloud copy iCloud?
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.
I am still waiting for "XCode for iPadOS", where we can have a Smalltalk like approach to development, beyond what Swift Playgrounds allows for.
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
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!
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.
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.)
This seems like an Apple AI subscription under the guise of a software bundle.
It’s a good value for some, especially if you want to use FCP, but seems like a bad value for most users who are expecting more value from their Mac purchase.
I wonder if new Macs will offer a three-month trial for this suite, or if the standard apps will be pre-installed and the AI features are unlocked through a subscription.
If bundled versions of iWork go away, we may see a renaissance for G Suite.
Sounds plausible. Someone internally likely has AI sales numbers to meet, so creating new subscriptions and adding "AI" to them can help juice AI-related numbers toward that quota.
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.
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-...
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…
Wow, RIP the icons I guess :/
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.
I don’t think they look awful, and they’re more interesting and opinionated than most boring icons you see these days.
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?
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.
Too bad they killed Aperture.
Now they acquired Photomator with Pixelmator, but it's still an independent subscription... not even included in this bundle. Maybe they just forgot.
When was the last time Apple made some significant update to its professional desktop apps?
Forget that. TikTokers are the revenue stream now.
TikTokers ("influencers" in general) don't do their editing or any part of their "production pipeline" on computers, kids are doing the full thing via smartphones nowadays. Blew my mind initially too, as I always did "serious work" at a computer and never the phone, but seems they're managing it somehow.
They often start there, some stay there, some graduate to an iPad, but a a lot of the higher end creators absolutely edit in desktops or laptops (usually MacBooks)
My old job dealt with this quite a lot as they were our target market, so I got some up close views of how for example, creators like MrBeast go about their editing (well the employees anyway)
Though I did note a lot of creators that do graduate to more robust software basically go from lightweight editor via Canva -> iMovie or equivalent -> professional software e.g. FCPX or Premiere
They use CapCut which is free and on the web and Google Docs.
To them what Apple just announced is trash.
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.
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.
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.
> 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?
That Synth Player and Chord ID seem to be killer features on Logic Pro. Are they recent additions? Do they work well?
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
apple can pry my one-time final cut pro purchase from my cold, dead hands.
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.
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.
Innovation!
More seriously, the subscription probably comes out cheaper than buying several (even if not all) of the apps that come in the bundle.
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.
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.
But for how long?
Are they planning to discontinue Garage band?
That’s a great deal
That's great if you need everything. If you need one of them, not so much.
You can buy the individual tools, if you want.
I'm curious how many people actually use all this stuff themselves. It seems like an extreme niche, and more often than not will have people paying for apps they will never use.
Maybe I'm old skool... but for the last 30+ years I've been using a combination of photoshop, illustrator, FCP, after effects (back when it was CoSA...), some audio editing and mixing in quite a bit of code as well. While others on my team specialize in one or two domains, I've managed to keep my skills in many.
Back in the day I was considered a 'MultiMedia' creative. I don't even know what to call myself these days.
> "come together in a single SUBSCRIPTION"
Ummm ... no, thank you.
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?
I'd forgotten Pages and Numbers existed, but Keynote is worth paying for if it means that I don't have to use PowerPoint.
Numbers is brilliant simply because of independent freely-movable tables
It looks so much better than the grid enforced by Excel.
I use Pages once a month for an invoice :)
Not sure why tbh, my other invoices are done in LibreOffice.
> 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?
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.
They want you to pay money for premium AI features in those apps, which is worse.
The apps themselves are fine IMO.
lol, what a money grab.
Pixelmator Pro is fantastic. I've forgotten about Photoshop for many years. Just buy it.
Is this replacing the one-time purchase of these apps on macOS?
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
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.
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.
Another subscription slop?
Alternative title: "Apple slaps subscription model on existing apps"
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.
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?
RTFA, you can still buy them for a one-time purchase on the App Store
For now...
You can. They are offering both options.
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.
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.
One-time purchase versions are still available. For Pixelmator Pro it's $49.99 on the App Store
That's not very reassuring.
For now.
How long until the option to buy-once for this software goes away? I am not a fan of this trend.
You will (soon) own nothing and be happy.