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Apple Acquires Photo Editing App Maker Pixelmator

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Comfortably Numb said:
Apple should have never ended Aperture. I have yet to find a professional photo app that has such an elegant workflow as Aperture had.
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It's really awkward that for video they have light (iMovie) version and Pro (FCP) version. For photography, there is only a light version.

Strange.
 
Hank001 said:
It's really awkward that for video they have light (iMovie) version and Pro (FCP) version. For photography, there is only a light version.

Strange.
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And the "light version" utterly sucks. Its entirely and totally infuriating that the Photos app hands freaking JPEGs to external editors for roundtrip editing. JPEGS. FFFS.

What on God’s earth are these people smoking?
 
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Comfortably Numb said:
And the "light version" utterly sucks. Its entirely and totally infuriating that the Photos app hands freaking JPEGs to external editors for roundtrip editing. JPEGS. FFFS.

What on God’s earth are these people smoking?
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Also I will mention that unbelievably right around the time they said they would no longer support Aperture, about a Week later The iPad Pro was introduced and first out of the gate comes Adobe with a Mobile Vs of P.Shop for the iPad!!

There should have been an iOS Vs. of Aperture for F#$%^ Sake!! Especially as the Pro had a USB-C port allowing Hard Drives and Cameras to connect directly to iPad.

 suceded all that screen real estate to Adobe!!
 
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Coming up on the 1 year mark, anyone still waiting for "exciting news to come"?

For pixelmator there was a version with some new things 3 months ago, but Photomator seems to have been abandoned?

Skärmavbild 2025-10-23 kl. 09.36.33.png
 
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bice said:
Coming up on the 1 year mark, anyone still waiting for "exciting news to come"?

For pixelmator there was a version with some new things 3 months ago, but Photomator seems to have been abandoned?

View attachment 2571622
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Guess we will see a new Apple product and Pixelmator will be canceled - while everyone would love to see Pixelmator staying alive.
 
AndiG said:
Guess we will see a new Apple product and Pixelmator will be canceled - while everyone would love to see Pixelmator staying alive.
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I would imagine Photomator is being either folded into the Photos app or used to create a seperate fork for any device with a 'Pro' moniker.
 
Is it a sign of death when Apple buys stuff?

They’ve done nothing with it
 
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This wonderful silence has fully commuted me to be eternally Adobe.
 
Apple Knowledge Navigator said:
My guess is that they (Apple) were more interested in specific technologies relating to the software rather than introducing a new app itself.
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Maybe. There just doesn't seem to be any strategy here, from what I can see at least.

If Apple invested here they could have the best creative pro suite going with a bleeding edge image editor, movie editor and music editor, they also need to partner with an AI company and get them to closely integrate with these apps, imagine if OpenAI Sora exclusively integrated with Final Cut for instance. They're all exclusive to Apple and could really drive Mac sales.

Instead Final Cut and Logic have been left to languish, and Pixelmator just sort of exists in limbo now with no indication as to it's future.

Apple really need a separate CEO style figure for their professional products. As a market it's a different beast than consumers and always seems to be ignored.
 
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tomtad said:
If Apple invested here they could have the best creative pro suite going with a bleeding edge image editor,
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This would make little sense, given they have abandoned Aperture - which used to be their bleeding edge photo pro app.

I suppose it's more like what Apple Knowledge Navigator said.

Maybe we'll get something out of Pixelmator, but Photomator is probably going to be folded into Apple Photos in one form or fashion.
 
There will be no material changes to the Pixelmator Pro, Pixelmator for iOS, and Photomator apps at this time. Stay tuned for exciting updates to come.
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Famous Last Words, still prominently published on the website.

With hindsight, "no material changes" sounds like exactly what we got, but in the context it surely read to most people that the software would not change from the path it was on, right?

Also, using the "stay tuned" expression surely meant they anticipated an announcement in the near future, like weeks or possibly a couple of months later. And not an announcement that "apple has used out technology in new product X" and pixelmator/photomator lives on just like it always have". Those quoted sentences together make it sound like a major development for these specific products are coming and sooner than later.

One year of radio-silence is not in line with that verbiage. Something must have changed or maybe the pixelmator team read something into the deal that wasn't there. Regardless, the dissonance between communication and reality is the worst I've ever seen.
 
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And the last know official words from Pixelmator tops it off
As we step into this exciting new chapter, we can’t wait to share what’s next.


– Pixelmator Team
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Amazing that not even a rumour has been heard since.
 
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Pixelmator is a fine program. Damn shame they didn't take the DAM aspect of Aperture and add it to the code.
 
Seems Apple buys a company with a better product and vanishes that superior product and continues with their mediocre product.

The fiasco with orange iPhones discoloring is another major lack of due diligence by Apple. If there is an Achilles heel in a process, it will show up and is doing so now.

Apple's ancient BOD probably sleep through their meetings after lunch because they sure are not telling Cook what to do which is their responsibility to earn their astronomical monthly Director's fee.

Chasing down a story leaker seems to be more important than fixing the bugs in their software that have been issues for years.

The best they can do is put in a newer processor and expect folks to be all excited about the nothing burger.

Sadly, it seems the real talent is being poached by the competitors leaving Apple with maybe the third level folks trying to save the rudderless ship from running aground. Apple Car anyone?

Apple has sure changed since my first product, a IIsi with 13" color monitor in 1990. Back then, there was really some great innovation happening even though the processors were a challenge as both Power PC and Intel ham strung the development process.

Interesting question, what is the ROI on the recent political donations? As a shareholder, I doubt that having the Apple name on the wall of the ballroom does anything to improve QC at Apple.
 
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