If I read this correctly and you are user of Pages, Numbers and Keynote only, it is $3 a month MORE expensive than a MS 365 subscription which also includes up to 4 more family members with their own MS IDs and a 1TB One Drive subscription per user. Only seems to work if you are a FCP user and for no one else. Let me know if I am wrong here. Looks like a definite no for me, but then I don’t use Pages, Numbers or Keynote. If I am right then this is a major miss by Apple and indicative of where they are going.
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Some Apple Apps Will No Longer Receive Every New Feature Without a Subscription
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It’s a terrible UI. Needs to be completely redone. Especially search.
The 'one more thing' with cookie-boy - we have more subscriptions for you!
I would differ somewhat on item 3, since current iWork apps have synchronization, collaboration, and some basic AI writing tools and proofreading. I would guess that those features would remain because people bought their devices with those included over the last year or two….so it would be a major take away from something people already purchased. However, future AI features and other collaborations enhancements probably won’t be included in the free apps.
Also, removing synchronization from an Apple app (even a free app) would be a huge step away from Apple's major marketing advantage, which is that their devices all work together seamlessly. They would be blowing-up the entire Apple brand across all of their devices.
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5?
Lets go for 10!
Then 20!
GALACTIC TAKEOVER!
Soon a subscription for scrolling in Safari maybe?
Apple may decide someday to go full subscription on those apps. I think Apple has a group of employees dedicated to finding ways of “transitioning” us from using free services to subscribing to them. Maybe hardware subscriptions are coming next that unlock “professional” features, the camera for example.
I think Apple knows doing that would push their customers over the edge and the backlash would be immense.
I'm going to go against the general sentiment so far and say, great, I'm happy to get Pixelmator Pro & Final Cut Pro for a $13 monthly subscription. I was looking at other options recently for both these applications.
Yes it sucks that they've made Numbers and Pages part of it, I think that is a mistake, one of the selling points of a Mac I always thought was the free software apps they come with.
Yes it sucks that they've made Numbers and Pages part of it, I think that is a mistake, one of the selling points of a Mac I always thought was the free software apps they come with.
Here we are a little over 12 years after Apple started making iWork free and now they are regressing back to pay-walling it. 🤷🏻♂️ Hopefully they won't, but I feel this is the start of making the full iWork suite pay only again. Seems like everything will be a subscription before long, even our computers. 🤦🏻♂️
Final Cut Pro being $300 is a pain point for people who want to own it but aren't in the industry, but making it $12.99/mo so others can buy it makes it extremely more expensive in the long run.
If someone only wants FCP, Motion & Compressor, it'll take 31 months on the subscription price to equal the 1 time buy price. On the annual subscription price, its a hair over 3 years. But still, they will never own it, and therefore, they will be locked into the subscription model forever.
The World Economic Forum published a paper in 2016 called “ You’ll Own Nothing and Be Happy”
Microsoft, Google, Amazon, Netflix, et al said “Yes” to that.
Today Tim Apple said yes too.
I’m digging out my Linux computer from the closet.
You'll own nothing and be happy - Wikipedia
The name of the game for the owners of all manufacturers and sellers is collecting rent from the masses.
Subscriptions = Rent
“You’ll Own Nothing and Be Happy”.
You'll own nothing and be happy - Wikipedia
Exactly. I've balked at paying for them until now.
I've got an old copy of Affinity Photo which is no longer being updated, the new version is subscription only.
I've been using iMovie on the rare occasions I need videos and it's ok but very very basic.
A little context for the sudden push to subscriptions for everything in the Apple ecosystem.
Apple is spending billions to spin up their own in-house data centers with their own AI chips for a rollout in 2027. The Google partnership is a desperate short term fix until they get the data centers in place and their own Apple LLM fixed.
Apple is looking, as I suspected, to infuse even the operating system with AI therefore you will soon no longer have the option to turn off either Siri or Apple Intelligence once they “perfect” it.
This way, in Apple’s thinking, you all will choose to stay in this new AI Apple Utopia rather than join Microsoft 365 with Copilot or Google.
Or worse yet….ChatGPT with their Jony Ive thing-a-ma-bob.
The AI Lock-In Race is now joined. Apple is in it to win it. And we all just lost:
Apple is spending billions to spin up their own in-house data centers with their own AI chips for a rollout in 2027. The Google partnership is a desperate short term fix until they get the data centers in place and their own Apple LLM fixed.
Apple is looking, as I suspected, to infuse even the operating system with AI therefore you will soon no longer have the option to turn off either Siri or Apple Intelligence once they “perfect” it.
This way, in Apple’s thinking, you all will choose to stay in this new AI Apple Utopia rather than join Microsoft 365 with Copilot or Google.
Or worse yet….ChatGPT with their Jony Ive thing-a-ma-bob.
The AI Lock-In Race is now joined. Apple is in it to win it. And we all just lost:
then what does the premium for the hardware pay for then?Well, it had to happen eventually…
I do understand some services cost money, but Keynote, Pages, Numbers?… These were the Apple’s flagship apps coming by default….
Kind of curious if Apple will now kill off iMovie (been over a year since its last update) and force people to get a subscription to use Final Cut Pro. Haven't heard or seen much on that app.
I see you Apple. It’s a slippery slope.
We should’ve seen the writing on the wall when Final Cut Pro started letting you sign up with a subscription. It’s obvious thats where they wanted to go. And they aren’t going to wrap all this into apple one. They want more income. Theyre only a 4 trillion dollar company. How do you expect them to pay the light bill?!?!
Just another reason not to use Numbers, Pages etc. Installed but never used
Well Apple have said on a number of occcasions that they don't want to be a hardware company: they want to be a services company that sells some hardware?
I'm sure they're looking enviously at the £66 per month that Adobe charges and they want some of that plus
The hardware sales plus
The monthly extended warranty fees,
iCloud storage fees plus
Some kind of extended Siri capability fee, plus
Some other fee that I've yet to think of.
...and that is how you make a $5 trillion company into a $10 trillion company and pay for Donald Trump's ballroom all at the same time.
Magical.
Big.
Beautiful.
Fees.
I'm sure they're looking enviously at the £66 per month that Adobe charges and they want some of that plus
The hardware sales plus
The monthly extended warranty fees,
iCloud storage fees plus
Some kind of extended Siri capability fee, plus
Some other fee that I've yet to think of.
...and that is how you make a $5 trillion company into a $10 trillion company and pay for Donald Trump's ballroom all at the same time.
Magical.
Big.
Beautiful.
Fees.