Apple Creator Studio • Hacker News Board

Re: Apple Creator Studio

#261

Post by tarentel » Tue, Jan 13, 2026, 5:16 PM UTC

steve1977 wrote: post #145

torben-friis wrote: post #54

I don’t get why they think “professional” is a generic tier. 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/hobbyi…

I think that's why they call it "Creator" studio. Creators - in the way the term is usually used today - indeed do use many of these tools. Maybe you produce music, create a video about you producing music and also need an engaging thumbnail for YouTube. 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 l…

Tons of professionals use logic. Really, you will find money making musicians using any of the major daws. Pro tools might still be the standard for recording studios but that's likely it.

Re: Apple Creator Studio

#262

Post by pentagrama » Tue, Jan 13, 2026, 5:16 PM UTC

Here is a quick side by side comparison between Apple Creator Studio and the Adobe Creative Cloud suite. Each app may be stronger or weaker depending on the use case, workflow, and specific user needs, so this is only a rough equivalence.

    Function            | Apple                | Adobe               | Adobe price / month
    --------------------|----------------------|---------------------|--------------------
    Image editing       | Pixelmator Pro       | Photoshop           | ~USD 20
    Video editing       | Final Cut Pro        | Premiere Pro        | ~USD 23
    Motion graphics     | Motion               | After Effects       | ~USD 23
    Audio production    | Logic Pro            | Audition            | ~USD 23
    Video encoding      | Compressor           | Media Encoder       | Included with Premiere Pro
    Live audio          | MainStage            | No direct equivalent| N/A
    Docs/presentations  | Keynote/Pages/Numbers| Express/Acrobat     | ~USD 10 to 24
    --------------------|----------------------|---------------------|--------------------
    TOTAL               | USD 12.99 / month    | ~USD 100+ / month   |
                        | (7 apps bundle)      | (5 apps separately)|
                        |                      | USD 69.99 / month  |
                        |                      | (bundle 20+ apps)  |

Disclaimer: table formatting assisted by ChatGPT (hope it works on HN).

Re: Apple Creator Studio

#263

Post by albedoa » Tue, Jan 13, 2026, 5:17 PM UTC

BeetleB wrote: post #257

Plasmoid2000ad wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes - but perpetual purchases have an interesting gotcha that Microsoft didn't realise at first. To encourage subscription over perpetual, ongoing or evergreen updates are limited to subscription version. 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 percept…

> To encourage subscription over perpetual, ongoing or evergreen updates are limited to subscription version. Of course ... ? Before the subscription model, you wouldn't get free Office upgrades.

Yes. That sentence is setup for the speculation in the third paragraph. Folks in this sub-thread are wondering how the one-time price option plays out with Apple Creator Studio.

Re: Apple Creator Studio

#264

Post by aobdev » Tue, Jan 13, 2026, 5:17 PM UTC

simjnd wrote: post #127

jasongill wrote: post #9

It's $12.99/mo or $129/yr for a subscription that includes Final Cut Pro, Logic Pro, Pixelmator Pro, Motion, Compressor, MainStage, Keynote, Pages, and Numbers 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)…

But Keynote, Pages and Numbers are already free

From the subheading: “plus new AI features and premium content in Keynote, Pages, and Numbers”

Re: Apple Creator Studio

#265

Post by kolanos » Tue, Jan 13, 2026, 5:19 PM UTC

jasongill wrote: post #9

It's $12.99/mo or $129/yr for a subscription that includes Final Cut Pro, Logic Pro, Pixelmator Pro, Motion, Compressor, MainStage, Keynote, Pages, and Numbers 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)…

Does this mean Keynote and Pages are now paid products? Aren't they included with Mac OS?

Re: Apple Creator Studio

#266

Post by canbus » Tue, Jan 13, 2026, 5:21 PM UTC

geerlingguy wrote: post #109

I still miss Aperture. Photos is a far cry still, many years later. Lightroom never matched Aperture's organizational abilities for libraries with tens of thousands of RAW photos.

Tried Darktable?

Re: Apple Creator Studio

#267

Post by anticorporate » Tue, Jan 13, 2026, 5:22 PM UTC

rstupek wrote: post #242

anticorporate wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's the problem that the whole industry is facing - the current generation of hardware is sufficient that hardware refreshes will continue to decline, and companies that want to keep milking us for money regularly need to find a new way to do it.

I hate subscriptions as much as the next person but how would you pay for continued development of software? Do you say a person can continue to run version X forever but if they want a new version they pay for it?

> Do you say a person can continue to run version X forever but if they want a new version they pay for it?

I'm not particularly interested in sustaining the financial growth of software companies. I did that for years and I'm done.

But, what you suggest is literally what the software industry did for decades before subscriptions became the norm.

Re: Apple Creator Studio

#268

Post by anticorporate » Tue, Jan 13, 2026, 5:22 PM UTC

alwillis wrote: post #213

anticorporate wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's the problem that the whole industry is facing - the current generation of hardware is sufficient that hardware refreshes will continue to decline, and companies that want to keep milking us for money regularly need to find a new way to do it.

> the current generation of hardware is sufficient that hardware refreshes will continue to decline If anything, Apple is refreshing their hardware much faster now compared to the Intel days. There's literally a new MacBook Pro and MacBook Air every year. And of course there are 3-4 new iPhones every year.

By declining hardware refreshes, I meant on the consumer side, not the producer side.

Re: Apple Creator Studio

#269

Post by andrei_says_ » Tue, Jan 13, 2026, 5:23 PM UTC

bayindirh wrote: post #22

andsoitis wrote: post #2

> Final Cut Pro, Logic Pro, Pixelmator Pro, Motion, Compressor, and MainStage — plus new AI features and premium content in Keynote, Pages, and Numbers — come together in a single subscription So Apple is copying Adobe's business model?

No, all apps are available for purchase for a one time payment. 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.

Pixelmator is great and integrates well with Apple's tooling for batch processing.

For video, the free version of DavinciResolve goes a very long way, and their Studio is a single-payment-life-time license.

Re: Apple Creator Studio

#270

Post by jmsgwd » Tue, Jan 13, 2026, 5:25 PM UTC

btown wrote: post #187

jasongill wrote: post #9

It's $12.99/mo or $129/yr for a subscription that includes Final Cut Pro, Logic Pro, Pixelmator Pro, Motion, Compressor, MainStage, Keynote, Pages, and Numbers 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)…

As someone who's loved Logic Pro since the days before Apple bought Emagic, this is amazing that it will be accessible to a broader audience. 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) t…

How else could you represent piano roll data than as a stream of events? I thought that was ubiquitous since the invention of MIDI.

Are you saying other sequencers are unable to render the same data as piano roll and score?