Apple Introduces New 'Creator Studio' Bundle of Apps for $129 Per Year

[svish]

Good to know. Not a fan of subscriptions. Would prefer one-time payment option. Definitely a way for Apple to get more revenue in ‘Services’.

 

[akbarali.ch]

they should've bundled the development as well, xcode, why leave that.

 

[KSB]

Sad to see Apple taking the Pro route into subs, for now standalone licenses are a possibility, but feature locks will grow in the future making the sub the more feature rich version, and in the end, they might just launch Creator Studio 2, and call the "old" version for classic, forcing a sub only approach.

I've been a happy user of the Pro applications for years, and sadly this makes me consider other options, since I already have enough subscriptions based apps for Pro use, and don't need another one for a player late to the market. Also iWorks being sub locked with features is quite sad, it was already a "free" solution, since all mac's got it free when buying your first machine. Also placing Freeform into the "PRO" category is an annoyance, since I liked the app, and started to see how it could be used for work and personal projects, but having features going into subscription lock in the future, is quite sad and wonder how effective the "plain" version will be.

 

[johnalan]

Everything will be subscription eventually. We won't even own hardware, or if we do it will just be a dumb terminal.

This is the way.

Will never happen.

Simple reason being that it would require them to constantly refresh the hardware for you over the lifetime of the sub. They don’t want to keep giving you new hardware like that. They want you to buy it and age it out.

 

[johnalan]

This is bad. This is catastrophically bad.
Splitting the iWork apps into free and paid tiers. That essentially means it will be the end of the free versions a few years from now.

This basically heralds the beginning of a new era of Apple greed. 😢

Just use Google docs it’s better and free.

 

[johnalan]

I dislike subs. But it isn’t 1994. You don’t get 5 disks in a box and call it a day. We expect updates, patches, features, and software not to be abandoned. That has a real cost. Is what it is.

 

[johnalan]

2 years from now:

macOS Pro: $12.99/month, or $99/year.

Covered in hardware cost.

 

[johnalan]

they should've bundled the development as well, xcode, why leave that.

And add friction to those making the ecosystem? Nope.

 

[Wx_Man]

Iconography sure has gone downhill over in Cupertino.

These new icons are made by those Liquid Glassholes at Apple.

 

[BillyJoeJimBob]

Ahh, I guess it's time to air-gap my editing machine.

 

[RossHenning]

For $12.99 / month - it's a bargain. With all the updates that have been free over the years, you can't expect them to just give it away forever. They have to pay employees to write the code to build these apps. It's a better deal than Adobe as I suspect you can use it on multiple devices on your apple account vs Adobe you need a license for each computer. If you are already paying for logic/final cut for iPad, it's only a couple bucks more for access to everything.

At some point they were going to charge for a new version of Logic and Final Cut anyway, so that's what $5-600 ish... so really you are just splitting that cost over 6/7 ( 🙂 ) years, plus the other apps like mainstage and pixelmator bring the value up to what $1K ?, so really you are just splitting your payments over 10 years....

For me, the premium I pay for their machines is what has been covering the cost of these apps. Like many others here, I’m sick and tired of the “subscription for everything” model the world has shifted to. No more subs!

 

[GuilleA]

So, as I understand it the basic apps (Pages, Numbers, Keynote, Freeform) are all still free. The subscription only gives you access to more templates and some AI features I'll never use.

What bothers me is that I already have Pixelmator Pro. Will I get the new version? I don't need any of the other apps, and I certainly don't need yet another subscription.

Everything is getting so ******tified. Never expected this from Apple.

 

[rizzo41999]

If Apple tries to force a subscription for something I already bought, it is back to windows for me.

I get it. If they pull that, I’m just going to use local, legacy programs.

 

[Ploki]

Im switching **** this noise

 

[Ploki]

I dislike subs. But it isn’t 1994. You don’t get 5 disks in a box and call it a day. We expect updates, patches, features, and software not to be abandoned. That has a real cost. Is what it is.

Logic has had some bugs lingering for 10+ years and i paid apple through the nose for hardware. They cant slap chatgpt on and rip 130€ from me because they locked me in their ecosystem, dont be silly

 

[Lone Deranger]

Just use Google docs it’s better and free.

I have to use it at work. I hate it.

Covered in hardware cost.

 

[RedWing512]

6

It looks like a lot, but really, it isn't for pro apps. If the subscription makes Apple work on updates and features then this seems ok. I'm all in on Adobe and I'm paying a lot more. Too bad I haven't found good replacements yet, I'm stuck on habits and specific features.

This, exactly. Again, I’m not entirely thrilled about the move to a subscription model either, BUT if it allows to churn out regular features and updates, then this very well could be a viable and less expensive alternative to Adobe for some. And Adobe seriously needs some competition.

 

[ArisaemaDracont]

Bring back Aperture and I'm in.

 

[-BigMac-]

Subscriptions only exist to squeeze ever more money from customers.

Wow thats so insightful thank you. Here I was thinking Apple is doing it so they can earn less money

 

[jouster]

Good to know. Not a fan of subscriptions. Would prefer one-time payment option. Definitely a way for Apple to get more revenue in ‘Services’.

Per Apple, quoted in Daring Fireball, that option remains for the Mac versions of each app:

“One-time-purchase versions of Final Cut Pro ($299.99 U.S.), Logic Pro ($199.99 U.S.), Pixelmator Pro ($49.99 U.S.), Motion ($49.99 U.S.), Compressor ($49.99 U.S.), and MainStage ($29.99 U.S.) are available on the Mac App Store.”

 

[RedWeasel]

I dislike subs. But it isn’t 1994. You don’t get 5 disks in a box and call it a day. We expect updates, patches, features, and software not to be abandoned. That has a real cost. Is what it is.

The point is, in 1994, when you had to ship software on 5 disks - or 10 laters when you had to ship CD-ROMs or DVDs - you had to make pretty damn sure that your software is stable and working out of the box (literally).

All these updates today are not so much a service to the customer, but a sign of unfinished products and sloppy QA.

 

[turbineseaplane]

The point is, in 1994, when you had to ship software on 5 disks - or 10 laters when you had to ship CD-ROMs or DVDs - you had to make pretty damn sure that your software is stable and working out of the box (literally).

All these updates today are not so much a service to the customer, but a sign of unfinished products and sloppy QA.

"Updates" today often change things in ways users don't even like, or that aren't to the users benefit.

 

[neuropsychguy]

I know a lot of people don't like subscriptions and I'm not a fan of them either. However, this does allow someone to subscribe for a short time to learn software or use it on an as-needed basis without having to pay a larger up-front cost. This is hugely beneficial to people who are just starting out and who do not have the resources to pay the larger fee up front.

I bought Pixelmator Pro years ago (I use it several times a week) and previously bought the FCP, LP, etc. bundle but I use those applications so infrequently that a short-time subscription makes way more sense for me for the times I do need to use the applications.

I'm not defending the subscription, just suggesting that there are some benefits to this model. Do the benefits outweigh the negatives? That's a matter of opinion and not something I'll comment on.

 

[turbineseaplane]

I'm not defending the subscription, just suggesting that there are some benefits to this model. Do the benefits outweigh the negatives? That's a matter of opinion and not something I'll comment on.

You kind of already did comment.

I know a lot of people don't like subscriptions and I'm not a fan of them either.

May as well expand upon your thoughts.

 

[neuropsychguy]

The point is, in 1994, when you had to ship software on 5 disks - or 10 laters when you had to ship CD-ROMs or DVDs - you had to make pretty damn sure that your software is stable and working out of the box (literally).

All these updates today are not so much a service to the customer, but a sign of unfinished products and sloppy QA.

While that's true, to be fair, OSes and software back then were much less complex than they are now, as a whole. Software was also generally much more expensive (inflation-adjusted) and less widely used.

For example, Photoshop 1.0 was generally written in Pascal and Assembly. It was 128,000 lines of code. Versions 3.0/4.0 in the mid 1990s had maybe 300,000 lines of code. Today Photoshop is somewhere in the range of 10 million lines of code.

Some of that could be inefficiency (certainly is) and the use of various languages, but it also means the process of getting software 'out of the box' ready is a monumentally more complex task than it was 30 years ago. There are extra languages needed, a huge set of features, etc. to engineer and program and support.

The approach to software development and distribution has changed so much -- possibly for the worse, although distribution is much better now -- that direct comparisons are hard to do without acknowledging the drastically different sizes and complexities of software over time.