Apple Creator Studio Announced →

Back in the day, Apple had three suites of applications:

• iWork, which started with Keynote and Pages, then Numbers
• iLife, which included iTunes, iPhoto, iMovie, iDVD, GarageBand, and for a short time, iWeb.
• Final Cut Studio, which was home to Final Cut Pro, Motion, Soundtrack Pro, DVD Studio Pro, Color, Compressor, Cinema Tools, and Qmaster.

Apps like Aperture and Final Cut Express were also around for a while. Meanwhile, Logic and MainStage are just out there doing their own things. I don’t even know what’s going on with Freeform, as it’s updated with OS releases, not as a standalone app like the others.

Over the years, this slowly broken down. iTunes became it’s own thing. The only iLife apps left are iMovie and GarageBand, even if Photos is the successor to iPhoto. The iWork apps all moved out to their own places years ago.

Starting on January 28,¹ the bundle is back. Here’s a bit from the press release announcing Apple Creator Studio:

Apple today unveiled Apple Creator Studio, a groundbreaking collection of powerful creative apps designed to put studio-grade power into the hands of everyone, building on the essential role Mac, iPad, and iPhone play in the lives of millions of creators around the world. The apps included with Apple Creator Studio for video editing, music making, creative imaging, and visual productivity give modern creators the features and capabilities they need to experience the joy of editing and tailoring their content while realizing their artistic vision. Exciting new intelligent features and premium content build on familiar experiences of Final Cut Pro, Logic Pro, Pixelmator Pro, Keynote, Pages, Numbers, and later Freeform to make Apple Creator Studio an exciting subscription suite to empower creators of all disciplines while protecting their privacy.

The new bundle also brings new branding to these apps:

(I love the icons.)

This bundle is clearly designed for prosumers and professionals, as these apps are going to be included in Apple Creator Studio:

• Final Cut Pro (macOS and iPadOS)
• Logic Pro (macOS and iPadOS)
• Pixelmator Pro (macOS and iPadOS)
• Motion (macOS)
• Compressor (macOS)
• MainStage (macOS)

Apple Creator Studio will cost $12.99/month or $129/year, with a one-month free trial. News Macs and “qualifying” iPad purchase will come with a three-month trial. (Family Sharing is supported.)

According to Joe Rossignol at MacRumors, Apple Creator Studio isn’t eating all of Apple’s creative apps:

Final Cut Pro, Logic Pro, Pixelmator Pro, Motion, Compressor, and MainStage will each remain available for one-time purchase, and free versions of the Numbers, Pages, Keynote, and Freeform apps will continue to exist. However, only Apple Creator Studio subscribers will receive access to some of the premium new AI features and content.

Ah yes… premium content and AI features… back to the press release:

With Apple Creator Studio, productivity gets supercharged with all-new features that bring more intelligence and premium content to creators’ fingertips so they can take their projects to the next level. The Content Hub is a new space where users can find curated, high-quality photos, graphics, and illustrations. A subscription also unlocks new premium templates and themes in Keynote, Pages, and Numbers.

In addition to Image Playground, advanced image creation and editing tools let users create high-quality images from text, or transform existing images, using generative models from OpenAI.12 On-device AI models enable Super Resolution to upscale images while keeping them sharp and detailed, and Auto Crop provides intelligent crop suggestions, helping users find eye-catching compositions for photos.

To help users prepare presentations even more quickly in Keynote, Apple Creator Studio includes access to features in beta, such as the ability to generate a first draft of a presentation from a text outline, or create presenter notes from existing slides. Subscribers can also quickly clean up slides to fix layout and object placement. And in Numbers, subscribers can generate formulas and fill in tables based on pattern recognition with Magic Fill.

I don’t love features in apps like Keynote, Numbers, Pages, and Freeform being put behind a paywall. These apps are used by millions of people every day, and make Apple’s ecosystem better for each of them.

However, I totally understand that professional apps have moved to a subscription model. Heck, I pay Adobe over $60/month for access to its suite of creative applications that I rely on almost every day.² Compared to that cost, Apple Creator Studio at $12.99/month or $129.99/year looks like a deal. If you’re a college student, it’s even better: just $2.99/month or $29.99/year.