Really? Google charges exactly the same prices for Google Drive as Apple charges for iCloud storage.
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Final Cut Pro Trademark Update Suggests Apple Eyeing Future Subscription Model
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Adobe’s software was always unstable and always had erratic updates. Now it is just cheaper. My BF has an Adobe CC license, but has auto updating turned off for exactly this reason.
Adobe Creative Suite Master Collection was $2,500. The collection bellow that was $1,300. Upgrades from Creative Suite 5 were $899. In contrast, their current pricing is $600 a year. That is less than 1/4 the price for the original package and about 2/3 of the roughly annual upgrade pricing.
That their software is unstable is not a result of their new model.
As long as they don’t do the same as with Aperture, which at some point after being discontinued, you could’t install it anymore. It would be a pain to get FCP now, and not being able to install it on macOS 14.
Again, I am not sure what to do, whether to buy it now, or wait to see what happens...
To be fair, if Apple released a sub-model for all creative apps combined (LPX, FCP, Motion, Compressor etc.), that could be a sweet deal for some. It may even be that a subscription model would be an option in order to gain access to all the apps under one pricing structure, alongside other perks.
I LOVE subscription software - but then I'm a developer...
Pay once just doesn't work if you are expecting continued support, fixes, updates and new features.
You don't go out and buy a chair and expect the manufacturer to keep updating it's design, fix its flaws, patch holes and change the fabric annually.
It's simple economics really. You get what you pay for....
Pay once just doesn't work if you are expecting continued support, fixes, updates and new features.
You don't go out and buy a chair and expect the manufacturer to keep updating it's design, fix its flaws, patch holes and change the fabric annually.
It's simple economics really. You get what you pay for....
No, the current version cost $300. They have done upgrades over the last 10 years. Two alternatives are (purely hypothetical as examples):
- Every two to three years there is a major release that costs $200.
- Every year there is a subscription that costs $50.
The down side to the developer is smaller revenue chunks and for some users less revenue overall. The disadvantage to the user is that one has to continue paying even if one is uses the software only occasionally.
If one does not upgrade, one can continue using the version one purchased with whatever updates it got on whatever the last OS version that supported it forever, but no new updates past that.
Yup and their upgrades of the software have not been consistent. Sometimes they seem to do a lot and sometimes not as much.
If you maybe edit a few videos per year, $120 per year sounds reasonable?
LOL. No, it doesn't. Google Drive gives you 15GB while iCloud gives you 5GB. Come on.
It's only a TM update right now that could literally amount to nothing but I'll go against the popular opinion and say that I see it as reasonable and possibly even attractive if the price is right. I use subscription services in my small business with Microsoft, AutoDesk and Intuit and the fees are a similar cost compared to upgrading every 3 years and there are benefits as I get to enjoy new features year to year, sometimes sooner, rather than waiting for my next purchase 3 years down the road. To me, it's just the cost of operating a business as well as a write-off and worthy of their pricing as long as they continue development and support.
With FCP in mind, if you purchased it 3 years ago and they stopped adding new features (not to be confused with fixes) you probably would have moved onto a product that does add new features year over year. This is how most software was priced in yester-year and if you are a year over year buyer, you're given an upgrade price rather than the whole price again and when you add up total costs, subscription starts to look reasonable. I applaud Apple for keeping new feature updates free but I am a realist, that type of business model is not sustainable.
I recently downloaded a trial version of FCP to compare it to the cheaper alternatives. I have to admit, I really like it. Will I pay $300 for it, no way! I am not a professional generating money from my videos that I can expense it towards so I'll stick with the old methods that still get the job done for hobbyist purposes. If Apple changed to a non-commitment price of say around $10-$15 per month, hmmm, I might change my mind.
. Coincidentally, Apple would turn a non-buyer in their current sales model to a buyer if they changed to a reasonable new sales model. Pretty smart.
With FCP in mind, if you purchased it 3 years ago and they stopped adding new features (not to be confused with fixes) you probably would have moved onto a product that does add new features year over year. This is how most software was priced in yester-year and if you are a year over year buyer, you're given an upgrade price rather than the whole price again and when you add up total costs, subscription starts to look reasonable. I applaud Apple for keeping new feature updates free but I am a realist, that type of business model is not sustainable.
I recently downloaded a trial version of FCP to compare it to the cheaper alternatives. I have to admit, I really like it. Will I pay $300 for it, no way! I am not a professional generating money from my videos that I can expense it towards so I'll stick with the old methods that still get the job done for hobbyist purposes. If Apple changed to a non-commitment price of say around $10-$15 per month, hmmm, I might change my mind.
. Coincidentally, Apple would turn a non-buyer in their current sales model to a buyer if they changed to a reasonable new sales model. Pretty smart. If you edit a few videos a year, and one can pay monthly, then it would likely work out to $10 or less a video at that pricing, not $120 a year. If one is only editing in 2-3 short projects, one can do each one within a month. In addition, iMovie is fine for easy projects.
Point taken, but for hobbyists like me who have already shelled out for the pro software, asking me to go back to iMovie or start having to pay each time I want to access the software I've already purchased is really frustrating.
EDIT: (Also as a hobbyist I have often started a project and left it alone for awhile, taking up working on it whenever I have free time, so if I have to rush the job to get it done within the month or risk paying for an additional month, this would ruin the fun, which is the point of a hobby)
That is for the free tier. For the paid services:
Apple charges $0.99 for 50GB, $2.99 for 200GB and $9.99 for 2TB.
Google charge $1.99 for 100GB, $2.99 for 200GB and $9.99 for 2TB.
Basically the same.
That's ridiculous logic. I still use my CS5.5 and CS6 Master Suite. STILL. There is complete compatibility with every production house I work with and there's very little added to most of their programs to justify upgrading to a subscription. What few tools have been added can easily be rented for the month, used, and then unsubscribed.
So, I'm on *fifteen years* of CS5.5 and eight years of CS6. I'm running around $80 a year in cost. THAT is CHEAP.
The thing is, your argument is the same load that every numbskull used to defend Adobe's move to subscription. I don't know anybody in the professional sphere who's happy about that model, or the pricing, or the insanely unstable updates. Apple moving to a subscription model is such a monumentally bad idea, and a complete surrender of the spirit of the company, that it boggles my mind when I see people bleating like sheep in support *of getting gouged.* So, respectfully, this is my Will McAvoy, "I don't know what the **** you're talking about."
As was he:
One cannot argue that anything free is over priced. Above the free tier they are basically the same (Apple‘s 2TB pricing was half of Google’s causing them to lower their price to match).
It’s the same as the person above saying office 365 is good value because it would take 10 years to recoup the costs. I’d expect a piece of office software to last much longer than 10 years!
And that's would be the end of FCP X for me. Would stick to Adobe which I'm subscribing anyway for the photoshop and Lightroom and Illustrator
I mean maybe.... I, for one, would hate that model, and I know a lot of people who hate it as well. Buying your software and owning it is such a nice thing. With something Apple Music, we're renting a nearly infinite library. Apple Music is a worthwhile trade because the amount of money it cost to buy every album I want to listen to would be greater than a monthly subscription cost. But software? Unless there's a near-infinite library of stock footage, and plugins, and extensions, I'd be against it. But hey, it's more profit for Apple.
I have it in my backups so assume i could always grab it from there in future if need be.....
I can see them stopping updates etc to entice people to move to the newer version with the newer payment model, but surely if Ive paid for a previous full version they cant just stop me from using it any further (even though its an older version)??
Totally! It's 5x the price of Logic. But it's definitely not the cost for me. I spend $2-3k per year on new sample libraries and audio plugins, updates, etc. Being a composer and audio professional is expensive. C'est la vie.
It's the principle. It would be a cash grab, as everyone's pointing out. It would likely be marketed in typical Apple fashion toward newcomers and hobbyists: now all the professional tools for only $10/mo. My schtick is that my tool of choice, which I've used for 20+ years, is always taking a back seat to Garageband-like "innovation", and not keeping it a solid leader in the audio industry with regards to technical under-the-hood stuff. If you ask plugin developers striving for compatibility with all DAWs many would agree. See my last post.
I'd really like to have hope that a subscription would mean that Apple starts magically pushing more professional features. But my intuition says to expect more "Garageband Pro" features. I'd buy Logic at full price once every 6 months if they pushed features that made is as powerful as Nuendo.