 Creator Bundle - Subscription hell has come for FCPX

[casperes1996]

So here we are. The Final Cut suite and Logic, MainStage - heck even some "premium AI features for iWork" are now tied to a subscription. You can, for now, still buy perpetual licenses for FCPX and Logic (Mac only, I believe iPad has always been subscription based), but who knows how long that'll last, and some features will be held back for subscribers regardless.

iWork, Final Cut Studio, Logic Pro - they're becoming Adobefied and turning into just another Creative Cloud. Or Office365; Sorry; Microsoft Copilot365 Apps...
This also includes Pixelmator Pro.

I am very happy you can still buy FCP and Logic outright as things are right now, but I also fear that the purchase option feels less and less enticing knowing they're going the subscription route. I bought FCPX many many years ago, and got my money's worth. If you buy it today, will you get updates next year? Or will that only be for subscribers? How many macOS updates till your purchase no longer works with the latest OS?

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

Apple today introduced a new Apple Creator Studio bundle that offers access to six creative apps, as well as exclusive AI features and content, as part of a single subscription. In the U.S., pricing is set at $12.99 per month or $129 per year.

www.macrumors.com

 

[Cmaier]

well, just maybe this will encourage Apple to put more effort into these apps.

 

[casperes1996]

well, just maybe this will encourage Apple to put more effort into these apps.

One can hope. Final Cut is very popular among YouTubers and the higher end of "influencers", less so big production and broadcasting than it used to be, but still quite big in its areas, Logic is an extremely popular DAW in the professional music world, but you're right that both can still seem a smidge neglected at times. iWork as well, the collective term "iWork" barely being used anymore also is a little sad to me; I like it. Though you do still see it here and there, and App Store gets you if you search for it. But yeah, it's been a while since iWork had major work done to it, and really looking at any iWork app today compared to the version that came right after iWork '09; I think that update was around 2012? It doesn't really seem any different. I also think Pages '09 still has features unrivalled in newer versions and the writing experience in Pages '09 was fantastic.

Thing is though, so far this Creator Studio bundle has promised "exclusive AI features", and I don't really think that's much of a value add to any of the iWork apps. I can see the value add in a big collection of stock photos being included and potentially ML powered tools in Final Cut or Logic to do super good noise reduction, upscaling, keying without a green screen, cleaning up recordings and so forth - Plenty of opportunity in that space, but don't see it being much of a value add in the iWork suite personally.

Who knows where it'll go - But for now I'm not thrilled about the trajectory at least

 

[Jimmyjames]

So here we are. The Final Cut suite and Logic, MainStage - heck even some "premium AI features for iWork" are now tied to a subscription. You can, for now, still buy perpetual licenses for FCPX and Logic (Mac only, I believe iPad has always been subscription based), but who knows how long that'll last, and some features will be held back for subscribers regardless.

iWork, Final Cut Studio, Logic Pro - they're becoming Adobefied and turning into just another Creative Cloud. Or Office365; Sorry; Microsoft Copilot365 Apps...
This also includes Pixelmator Pro.

I am very happy you can still buy FCP and Logic outright as things are right now, but I also fear that the purchase option feels less and less enticing knowing they're going the subscription route. I bought FCPX many many years ago, and got my money's worth. If you buy it today, will you get updates next year? Or will that only be for subscribers? How many macOS updates till your purchase no longer works with the latest OS?

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

Apple today introduced a new Apple Creator Studio bundle that offers access to six creative apps, as well as exclusive AI features and content, as part of a single subscription. In the U.S., pricing is set at $12.99 per month or $129 per year.

www.macrumors.com

I have mixed feelings regarding this announcement.

Pro: I think this may be a good thing if it signals a refreshed interest in these apps. I know many worried about the future of FCP. I happen to think Logic and MainStage are great and I’ve been happy with their progress.
Pro: I think it’s great that outright purchases are still available for the Mac. I share your concern that owning may go away, but my feeling is that this may not happen for many years. Adobe can get away with subscription only because it’s the industry standard for Premiere and Photoshop etc. That is not true of FCP although Logic is very popular.

Con: If you already own some of the apps, this subscription isn’t great value, unless you can get the education pricing which is fantastic.
Con: Disappointing to see some features of Pixelmator Pro exclusive to the subscription. The warp tool I believe.

 

[casperes1996]

I have mixed feelings regarding this announcement.

Pro: I think this may be a good thing if it signals a refreshed interest in these apps. I know many worried about the future of FCP. I happen to think Logic and MainStage are great and I’ve been happy with their progress.
Pro: I think it’s great that outright purchases are still available for the Mac. I share your concern that owning may go away, but my feeling is that this may not happen for many years. Adobe can get away with subscription only because it’s the industry standard for Premiere and Photoshop etc. That is not true of FCP although Logic is very popular.

Con: If you already own some of the apps, this subscription isn’t great value, unless you can get the education pricing which is fantastic.
Con: Disappointing to see some features of Pixelmator Pro exclusive to the subscription. The warp tool I believe.

I fully agree. I just find the cons outweigh the pros enough that my feelings aren't all that mixed.
Warp tool and premium paid templates for your slideshows as part of a subscription just doesn't sit right with me.

 

[Jimmyjames]

I fully agree. I just find the cons outweigh the pros enough that my feelings aren't all that mixed.
Warp tool and premium paid templates for your slideshows as part of a subscription just doesn't sit right with me.

That’s fair. I can understand that feeling. My saving grace is although I dislike subscriptions for this kind of software, I’m hoping it brings renewed focus from Apple on FCP.

 

[casperes1996]

That’s fair. I can understand that feeling. My saving grace is although I dislike subscriptions for this kind of software, I’m hoping it brings renewed focus from Apple on FCP.

That'd be nice. Although with the Creator Studio announcement there still isn't an FCP update yet (on Mac at least) and the new icon they used in the announcement made me thing "Are there news for iLife and iWork?" Not news on the Pro Apps side. But we'll see

 

[Cmaier]

I’m hoping at some point they discount this thing if you have it as part of the all-encompassing “apple” subscription (whatever they call it). I don’t use most of the software in the bundle, but I am curious about pixelmator pro.

 

[Roller]

I don't have a reflexive abhorrence of subscriptions as long as they provide real value. For example, I've subscribed to Quicken for years, and it's been updated with new features and bug fixes regularly. I doubt if that would have happened with a one-time purchase/licensing model.

I use Final Cut Pro often. If I can get the educator discount ($29.99/year), it'll be well worth it to me to also have other apps like Motion and Logic Pro, which I haven't used.

But I have mixed feelings about the iWork apps. I always viewed them as a good way to attract new users to the Mac, since they were capable, no-cost equivalents to their Microsoft counterparts. I feel that it would be better for Apple to offer the most capable versions of these apps for free.

 

[Katbel]

I’m hoping at some point they discount this thing if you have it as part of the all-encompassing “apple” subscription (whatever they call it). I don’t use most of the software in the bundle, but I am curious about pixelmator pro.

I own Pixelmator Pro since a while, still works. I read you can still buy it as an app on the Apple store.
I can’t see how much Apple is asking for it or if it’s only for subscription: could someone tell me?

I figured it out myself. But the price has not been updated neither the subscription part

 

[Cmaier]

I own Pixelmator Pro since a while, still works. I read you can still buy it as an app on the Apple store.
I can’t see how much Apple is asking for it or if it’s only for subscription: could someone tell me?

I figured it out myself. But the price has not been updated neither the subscription part

To me the interesting part is the iPad version.

 

[tomO2013]

Photomator and Pixelmator have both relied on Apples raw formats, provided with iOS / Mac OS and iPad OS.

A welcomed area for improvement, would be quicker (and higher quality) camera raw support. I've found Apple raw to pull less detail from my Sony, Fuji and Lumix files than ACR.
I waited long after the Z8 and S5IIX announcements to be able to open the corresponding .NET and .RW2 files (I don't shoot the Nikon system, but a buddy was helping with a wedding and I had fun opening his files in Photomator).
It's possible to use ACR to convert to TIFF, but that just eats storage and is a very clunky workaround.
I'm particularly hoping that this move signals greater investment in camera raw format support going forward