“Apple offers new option for subscription in addition to existing one-time purchase optinos” might be an alternative though, and reduce the number of cynically inane comments from people that apparently didn’t RTFA before commenting.
EDIT: I know you can still buy the software... but for how long?
> Alternatively, users can also choose to purchase the Mac versions of Final Cut Pro, Pixelmator Pro, Logic Pro, Motion, Compressor, and MainStage individually as a one-time purchase on the Mac App Store.
Back in the day I was considered a 'MultiMedia' creative. I don't even know what to call myself these days.
Educational discount with verification required drops the price to $2.99/mo / $29.99/yr.
The regular-price subscription includes family sharing, education price does not.
One-time purchase versions remain available: Final Cut Pro ($299.99), Logic Pro ($199.99), Pixelmator Pro ($49.99), Motion ($49.99), Compressor ($49.99), and MainStage ($29.99).
Comes out January 28th
Ah, yes - cross finance your loses by selling compute in your own data centres / hosting service because you can.
They want marketshare to enhance their other market positions and give them optionality for future strategy.
They'd love the whole market, but they don't need it and they won't employ too many resources chasing that.
They're a powerful giant with hands in so many places. Each enforcing other endeavors.
This encourages people to stay in the Apple hardware ecosystem, for instance. It dog foods their silicon. It keeps people thinking of Apple as the creative brand and operating system. More creatives buying Apple -> more being produced and consumed for and on Apple.
Also the strategy of getting kids young has always been genius. They started that in the eighties, I think.
Also so many people are paying for Canva, Capcut etc that taking a piece of that cake is quite a low hanging fruit if you have a distribution platform.
It’s even a similar pricing model, though technically with Pages / Numbers / Keynote covers a little more ground but I think the main intent is to get creatives using Apple’s creative software again
Pixelmator being the only 3rd party software because Apple never made a competitor to Photoshop
Though since Canva went full on toward more robust tools I imagine they have started capturing the entire editing chain more than they did 2-3 years ago, hence the Affinity acquisition
Pixelmator isn’t third party. https://www.pixelmator.com/blog/2024/11/01/a-new-home-for-pi...:
“November 1, 2024
A new home for Pixelmator
Today we have some important news to share: the Pixelmator Team plans to join Apple”
That deal completed almost a year ago.
Apple absolutely has data centres. Where do you think Apple TV, Apple Music, iCloud, Maps, etc compute happens?
Here's a press release straight from the horse's mouth about one in Denmark, in late 2020: https://www.apple.com/uk/newsroom/2020/09/apple-expands-rene...
> Can people purchase compute on Apple's data centers?
Not to my knowledge, but that's not saying much.
We're all (mostly/some) software people here, you don't need to use terms established by the "anti-piracy" firms to make your point, no one is "stealing" anything here, even if they were getting it for free from TPB or whatever.
Microsoft still offers a one time purchase of Office. There is precedent for Bigcorp keeping a one time purchase version and offer a prescription.
Office 2024 has every feature that was added since Office 2021 to the subscription version - while a chunk of loyal customers are unaware of them. Back when Google was competing hard with Google Suite, a big perception problem formed with the perpetual customers believing and convincing others that Google were far ahead, with collab editing and other features - after Office had added equivalent.
So for me, If there's a subscription and one-time option - I wonder if the one-time gets all updates going forward. If it doesn't, I realise that they'll regret that if competition picks up, and try to fix it later. If it does include updates... I worry it will be like many other lifetime updates one-time purchases - when competition is low they'll renege on that promise.
They're doing it because it makes them more money. Corporations are not your friend.
Probably not. Those customers are almost completely irrelevant and not people who Apple or anybody else cares about. They won't mind if you kick and scream.
Seriously? This is incredibly reasonable.
Apple wants its customers to buy/subscribe to these tools so that you’re in the Apple ecosystem and buy more hardware and services.
Unlike Adobe, they have profit-maximizing incentives to let you stay on the buy/rent model that you prefer.
This is like saying that it's clever for Mars to keep Mars Bars while launching a new bar, as it "shuts down" complaints that Mars Bars will no longer exist.
There's no indication Apple is planning to end the option of paying once for these apps.
Apple introduced subscriptions for Final Cut and Logic nearly three years ago [1]; this isn't new by any means. Pages, Numbers and Keynote remain available at no cost.
[1]: https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2023/05/apple-brings-final-cu...
Adobe also started out as a choice between subscription or buying. The only thing maybe keeping Apple honest is that their stuff isn't as popular.
As someone who defended FCPX and used it professionally for years even when it was at its most hated (2011 or so), it’s been woefully supported the last few years and no one should be on it anymore. Resolve Studio outclasses it top to bottom for the same one-time cost and runs great on both MacOS and Windows. Linux it’s bumpy unfortunately but it does technically run lol
Best 200-300 EUR I spent some years ago, and still receives free updates, Blackmagic Design is a really nice company. And, not only does Resolve run great on macOS and Windows, they have Linux native builds that run even better than it does with the same hardware using Windows, which is REALLY nice.
It lacks some flashy social media features and modern conveniences for sure, but it's still a very good and widely used editor.
good on them
Even if I had to purchase an occasional update (assuming they were reasonably priced), I'd still be coming out ahead.
I hate "renting" software.
> plus new AI features and premium content in Keynote, Pages, and Numbers
I wonder why? Why not today but 28th of Jan?
Part of me thinks M5 MacBook Air and M5 Pro MacBook Pro will also be released on January 28th.
There are many discussions e.g. https://gearspace.com/board/music-computers/1433515-why-does... about the reasons for its popularity, but one stands out to me - its event data model.
There are far too many tools out there (from FL Studio on one end, to MuseScore on the other) that present piano-roll-based rapid prototyping and traditional western score notation as diametric opposites. From day 1, Logic challenged itself "what if we can use the same event-based data model to render both."
None of this complexity is hidden - you can edit the raw event stream directly. If you're a developer familiar with, say, React, it makes music creation quite intuitive - everything from visual to audio output is a function of a transparently formatted data store.
And while that has its challenges, and some of the UX innovations of e.g. MuseScore have been slower to arrive in Logic, because of this "dual life" it's unmatched as a pedogogical tool, and a professional creative tool as well.
My old job dealt with this quite a lot as they were our target market, so I got some up close views of how for example, creators like MrBeast go about their editing (well the employees anyway)
Though I did note a lot of creators that do graduate to more robust software basically go from lightweight editor via Canva -> iMovie or equivalent -> professional software e.g. FCPX or Premiere
To them what Apple just announced is trash.
The apps themselves are fine IMO.
Why would someone need to buy them, they only run on macOS and macOS hardware comes with it by default, doesn't it?
Not sure why tbh, my other invoices are done in LibreOffice.
It looks so much better than the grid enforced by Excel.
Are the Apple people really this oblivious, or is someone in PR trolling us?
/S
An idiotic aesthetic system that ignores all the human interface guidelines that the Apple of 30+ years ago helped start.
the beatings with liquid glass will continue till morale improves
I’m sure there is approved marketing copy.
So in desperation I read the manual. It was seriously well written and I understood the program, what needed to be done and how to do it.
I don't want yet another subscription.
I see that they can still be bought (for now) but I wonder how long that will last.
You'll still be able to buy it if you want. All apps are still can be bought. It's in the text.
Apple surprised me nicely there.
I'll say this loud for the people in the back: YOU CAN STILL BUY IT OUTRIGHT
They are still offering one-time purchases, calm down.
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/01/08/technology/apple-ceo-tim-...
If I’m a music producer, what’s the value of being given a digital art drawing program? If I’m an illustrator, why do I need a cinema post production suite?
Some people might happen to do both, but overlap is largely accidental, right? The fact that they think of all professions as a bundle is even insulting as it signals the products are mostly toys/hobbyist stuff.
Are you talking about Adobe here?
In a feature film production, these would certainly be separate roles. But apart from maybe Logic Pro for composers, Apple's tools are not really relevant at those levels of the entertainment business anymore. Post-pro would be Pro Tools for audio, something like Avid Media Composer for editing etc.
I think Apple has realized they are not playing on that level anymore and target their marketing to where they are still in the game. That's not necessarily a bad move.
Not available for one time purchase are the AI features and templates available for the free apps (Keynote, Pages, Numbers, Freeform).
Personally, I'm glad that one time purchases are still options for the core pro suite: long term they do hold value compared to paying Adobe a subscription (or dealing with the high seas on macOS). However, I don't see things like the education bundle sticking around much longer, so purchase it sooner rather than later.
[1]: https://www.apple.com/us-edu/shop/product/bmge2z/a/pro-apps-...
[2]: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/pixelmator-pro/id1289583905
I think they view Photos as a viable replacement for Lightroom and equivalents.
I hope I can still use the non subscription version of Pixelmator pro I bought
More seriously, the subscription probably comes out cheaper than buying several (even if not all) of the apps that come in the bundle.
Lightroom never matched Aperture's organizational abilities for libraries with tens of thousands of RAW photos.
Like Adobe CC
I love Logic and all but really?
I can’t help but notice Apple in the last decade has kind of been spinning in circles software wise while their hardware division makes breakthroughs with M-series chips.
2026, the year of the Linux Desktop…
But having one simple opex line item for "software I buy for the creative types" is appealing for a lot of orgs.
Photohsop, Illustrator and After Effects are pretty much industry standards.
They look AWEFUL.
It’s a good value for some, especially if you want to use FCP, but seems like a bad value for most users who are expecting more value from their Mac purchase.
I wonder if new Macs will offer a three-month trial for this suite, or if the standard apps will be pre-installed and the AI features are unlocked through a subscription.
If bundled versions of iWork go away, we may see a renaissance for G Suite.
Ummm ... no, thank you.
If not, then this would likely go the way of others before where it will eventually be removed.
I tried it out when it was first announced and found it painfully limited --- did I miss something? Has it gotten better?
(For what it's worth, the iWorks apps – Pages/Keynote/Numbers are free and bundled with macOS.)
andsoitis•1h ago
So Apple is copying Adobe's business model?
boringg•1h ago
Its actually like taking on MS and Adobe together... but they aren't really taking on MS office.
jpalomaki•1h ago
bambax•1h ago
pjmlp•1h ago
It is also the only way to convince developers to pay for software.
Having a part hosted on some server is so much better than whatever anti-piracy schemes one can think of, and provides the continuous growth curve for printing money.
Thus subscriptions aren't going away in the modern software world.
bayindirh•1h ago
I don't care about video, so I'll be buying Pixelmator now, and maybe music stuff later, and Video part never.
So it works like before, if you want.
bearjaws•1h ago
bayindirh•1h ago
...and they integrated some of the Aperture to new Photos app, which is again was a transition to free.
Name me something a product, not a service which you can only subscribe in Apple's ecosystem.
arvinsim•41m ago
ascagnel_•36m ago
The shows on Apple TV are only available via a subscription; there's no way to have a perpetual purchase (at least as far as that a la carte style of purchase is perpetual).
tapoxi•1h ago
whywhywhywhy•1h ago
anticorporate•1h ago
no_wizard•50m ago
Not quite “buying on release week” basis but some % of employees always getting new hardware at max specs in the design org
Makes even engineering jealous sometimes
vile_wretch•38m ago
pier25•47m ago
acomjean•1h ago
Wonder what Adobe thinks of this. Their support for Mac was pretty important in getting OS X off the ground, now they’re competing with a unified stack.
When I was a Mac user I remember buying Logic express 9 (I still have the disk). The price is a good deal, but you really are all in forever..
Someone•1h ago
mirzap•1h ago
F7F7F7•1h ago