Will Final Cut Pro on Mac Get Every New Feature Without a Subscription? Here's What Apple Says

[Alan Wynn]

It seems like charging $299 for FCP right now without a complete understanding on what you won't get next year is misleading. At least drop it back to $199 and put some language in there about the future of features and updates.

This makes no sense either. Just explain what they are actually planning and then people can make decisions. Without know what will or will not happen with future versions, any price makes no sense.

 

[maxoakland]

Maybe this will encourage Apple to finally invest a bunch to make pages, numbers, and keynote a tier one office software to directly compete with MS

Cue Apple executives bursting into hysterical laughter

I wish they cared

 

[maxoakland]

They've reached market saturation for people willing to pay those prices and get trapped in a walled garden.

The only way for the business to 'grow' is to extract more money from the people that have already bought in - either because they think they can afford it, or because of sunk-cost. Apple can do that through accessories like watches and airpods, or through software and services. Only Software and services attract ongoing revenue.

Spent $3000 on a macbook pro? Better pay another $13 a month to get the most value out of it, otherwise it was a waste.

This is what every company does and they're all doing it at the same time. It's getting exhausting and expensive.

They could innovate, break down their walls, compete with themselves, and get more people, but they've become reliant on doing things in one very user-hostile way and it's pushing people out

 

[eskr]

Honestly FinalCut was too great value for one time purchase, but I always thought they kinda use it to lure people into their ecosystem, sorta 'see, what we've got, yeah, paid, but compared to Premiere it's like nothing'

 

[btbeme]

Complicated messes like this are, unfortunately, becoming an Apple hallmark. Sigh.

 

[lilkwarrior]

I agree with you for the most part but there are a lot of apps that are very overpriced under the subscription model and this rubs people the wrong way.

Parcel is a great example of an app that charges a (more than, in my opinion) fair subscription price. Parcel's developer gets it. Then we have apps like Fantastical that feel overpriced. I'm not going to pay $5/month for my calendar forever, especially when there's a pretty decent one included with my device for free. And then there are entire categories of apps that have ridiculous pricing. Prime example: habit trackers. Habitify costs an eye-watering $7.50/month for a habit tracker. It's absurd.

Pre-subscription, you bought an app, used it for around 2 years before a major update was released, and only upgraded if that upgrade had value. Now you are often expected to pay more for less. The kind of app that might have cost $50 for a perpetual license is now $5 or more per month. Forever. Furthermore, as a user, I'm forced to pay for future features I may not want. Under the perpetual license model, I only paid for an upgrade if that upgrade was compelling. Plenty of people I know, myself included, upgraded every other Photoshop version, for example.

The SaaS model makes a lot of sense for business, short-term, or intermittent use. It's more problematic in the long-term use consumer space because it often feels overpriced.

In any market, it’s inevitable there will be overpriced software for the target audience it was originally intended for in addition to other audiences in the open market that end up buying being relevant about it over time.

Pricing things at a “good” price is an imperfect science and subjective meaning two different things to customers vs the software provider(s).

Sometimes a very valid reason for a subscription-based approach is that a software provider/publisher only has a limited amount of users they can afford supporting with the variable costs involved.

Again those variable costs would be the opportunity costs for the dev(s), the costs they are charged providing cloud services, and so on.

If their consumer/marketing behavior
analyses were sound, they would charge a subscription charge while high for most would be just enough to meet their max quota!

 

[amartinez1660]

It was clear Apple pricing Final Cut Pro X to $300 from $1000 back in 2011 as a move to basically give away software in order to sell Mac hardware which is what they have been doing for a while now(no one is paying for MacOS updates anymore and Logic is a steal). Anyone who bought Final Cut X years ago got a steal.

Looks like they changing this which is fine if the hardware is cheap enough and to be fair Macs are cheaper now than anytime in history given the performance. I can drive to my local MicroCenter and pickup a Mini for $400 which is pretty sufficient at video editing unless you really are pushing things compare that back in the terrible Intel days on a Mini and you were in trouble.

Well said, and not feeling too fuzzy about the reactions over here.
If we paid for a software, that we got, works without issues at the time of purchase and forever, why should we get updates and features forever into the future?
The mindset of “I should get all the subscription-only features for free because I already bought the software” rubs me wrong.
It’s almost like “I should get the next M5 Mac Studio because I got the M4”.

The fact that we have had over a decade of updates and features (albeit in slow drips) without having to pay was quite the generous approach.

The most I could get behind for those anti subscription (totally understandable stance) is to choose to pay for new versions whenever they come out (and lock those features in).

 

[Virinprew]

So rename it to Final Cut Amateur.

 

[xyz01]

That’s not really a hypothesis; it’s a reality. Before subscriptions became common, upgrade pricing required developers to actually create new features to justify an upgrade to a new version with an additional purchase. Subscriptions are essentially passive income for developers; they don’t need to do much, since most people, unfortunately, don’t cancel their subscriptions. Apple was a major driving force behind this development, as they don’t allow upgrade pricing in the App Store. There are countless subscription-based apps out there that receive only a "bug fixes and improvements" update once a year, yet people still pay for them.

The other side of the coin: Apple doesn't allow paid upgrades in their app stores.

Thus, to get revenue to fund continued development you either need to sell ads, sell user data, launch a new app and abandon the old one, use paid subscriptions, or continually add in-app purchases for more and more features.

 

[dumastudetto]

I think subscription-only features are fair IF a certain feature requires calling out to a server (ie. image generation consuming server bandwidth and/or CPU resources). Anything else is just a blatant cash-grab.

This is about making incredible technologies more affordable for creators who will benefit from the industry-leading toolset. Subscriptions also allow Apple to add more value in terms of licensed creative content that can be used in your projects to generate more immersive experiences for consumers.

The introductory pricing is insanely great and people should take advantage of it. At $129 for the first year, Apple are practically giving these tools away.

 

[MikeSmoke]

As long as Apple respects and supports those of us who purchased Pro apps outright there really is no issue with them making changes going forward.

 

[Derived]

Absolutely disgusting, what's happening to this company. Soon it will be impossible to tell the difference between Apple, Google and Microsoft.

 

[garranhado]

User should subscribe content, not software. Software should be free or payed (one time and for major updates).

 

[svish]

I think future releases will have some differences between one time and subscription versions. Apple will want new customers to opt for subscription only and that will guarantee Apple a continuous revenue stream. Would like both versions to be exactly the same. Don't know whether that will be the case for sure.

 

[il_teo77]

Give me an iLife and iWork subscription. I am NOT a creator but why on earth should I miss the added features if I am not a creator?

 

[JoeSilver]

Exactly. People seem to forget, or we’re not around when it cost money (as did OS updates)

And all the people that keep reminding that those apps used to cost $79 conveniently forget that the cost was one time only.

I would pay that sum (adjusted for inflation) for a perpetual license of iWorks. (Well, in its current state, I wouldn’t, because there are free, better and open source alternatives).

But here we’re asked to pay a substantial fee *every year* for features still to be seen. Yes, it includes more than iWorks, with LP and FCP together priced at 500$, but most of us don’t need those apps, so we’ll be forced to subsidise the development of software which we never use, paying more than we actually should.

Apple could at least create 2 bundles, one for audio/video creation and one for office.

Again, imagine the situation where Apple decides suddenly that you can’t subscribe to individual services (iCloud, Music, TV, …) and you *must* buy the Apple One bundle. It’s a bargain if you actively use all of them, if you need only one or two, it’s a cash grab.

 

[bluecoast]

Ugh. As a user of numbers and pages, I hope I’m not prompted for a purchase, or that ads are prominent. I already subscribe to Apple One, I don’t need another.

Yeah … if you have the temerity to use the music app with out an Apple one or Apple Music subscription be prepared to see lots of nagging advertising pop ups (services revenue > good ux).

Let’s hope we don’t have similar with these now ‘freemium’ iWork apps.

 

[bluecoast]

What’s the problem with the Mail app? It’s already very good !

The new windows outlook app - which is an edge webview of a bumped up outlook.com - is loathed by windows fans (how you can be a fan of windows I don’t know).

So Apple mail is a lot better believe me.

 

[bluecoast]

Exactly and this is weakening the one of the main reasons I went to the Mac in the first place. Windows had too many nags and required paid software to do things the Mac did for free. Linux can do everything but you have to be your own advanced IT support.

The Mac was supposed to be the middle ground. No nags, feature rich, better if you know what you’re doing but it’s not as important as on Windows and Linux.

But so much of that has is gone now. Now it’s a lot more like Windows in that it nags me and doesn’t seem to be focused on making me efficient, it seems focused on making me see what they want me to see. I get neither the freedom of Linux nor the attention to user experience Windows lacks.

This.

Try using your iPhone without an active iCloud subscription or a bank card in Apple Pay.

The amount of nags you get is insane. It makes windows look classy.

 

[AppliedMicro]

Try using your iPhone without an active iCloud subscription or a bank card in Apple Pay.

…or Apple TV+ or iTunes Music.

 

[LFO8]

Yet another reason to like Apple less. Maybe I'm entitled, but I have given them tens of thousands of dollars over the decades and they are now a $4TN company. Reasonable one-time prices for pro apps was a nice way to show appreciation to their customers. If every last cranny of the business must be a cash grab, zero exceptions, fine, but I don't have to like it and I don't have to like them.

That’s what grinds me. Image Line can offer lifetime free updates when you purchase FL studio. But some how a $4TN company can not.

 

[Blue Nova]

Enough with the subscriptions already. Apple is effectively making the same moves as some third-party developers have done, Deliveries being one that comes to mind. It’s insanely user-hostile, and the lack of transparency around why this is happening now out of nowhere doesn’t help. This simply serves to dilute the Apple brand and the product line, especially when terms like “premium content” are being thrown around, as though Apple doesn’t already make premium devices with premium user experiences. What is happening to this company?

DaVinci Resolve from BMD, is the to go, I did that 7 years ago and never looked back.

 

[MacHeritage]

Jumping ship….This is so confusing. Another reason to use Davinci Resolve -AI features, free updates, and loyal customer service. No subscriptions.

This helped sort out the confusion. Basically, how I understood it, nothing changes and features are the same for the app regardless (AI included) and only "content" is being added with subscription. We don't know what this extra "content" is yet but after the 28th we will understand more.

I edit so much faster on FCP than DaVinci Resolve, so I stick to it. I also had nothing but issues trying to work DaVinci on older systems that I gave up on it. FCP always works, regardless of version or OS combination. Older versions of DaVinci won't start and crashes for no reason, even though they are supposed to run on that macOS version etc.

 

[MacHeritage]

Cue Apple executives bursting into hysterical laughter

I wish they cared

It isn't that. Apple does care, that is why they don't. Apple wants/needs MS Office on the Mac and doesn't want to take away from it. Apple could, if they wanted to, build and dominate, even more than AppleWorks and iWorks ever have. But they need MS Office to be on the Mac to show they have the same tools and can do business. This has been the case for decades.

People actually make purchase decisions based on that one app factor alone. I've seen it. It is a requirement for jobs etc. You must have Office or no job. Then they can use their Mac for work and get the job. If they couldn't, they wouldn't buy the Mac. It is a big thing in business.

 

[Wieslawo]

This one line makes almost zero sense and/or may be the most confusing line Apple has ever put out there. So if you take it as face value you would assume it means anyone who paid for a one-time subscription before this Jan 28 launch date will get the same features as those who subscribe, but those who purchase the one time after Jan. 28 will not get the same features. But that wouldn't even be possible. Unless everything will become an in-app purchase and those of us who purchased before Jan. 28 are tiered as Legacy users or something more dumb.

In reality I expect all of us who purchased the apps in the past to get shafted somehow and be forced onto the subscription to get new features. Apple is in the game to make money. The fact they are facing this subscription for the iPad versions alone is terrible. (no way to get the iPad apps without the subscription from what I understand).

It’s is possible. Every app bought before 28 will be updated to new “subscription level app”. Every app bought after 28 will be FCP Light. Tricky and confusing, but hey it’s nowadays Apple and they think we will gonna love it.