Apple Creator Studio: Will only subscribers get all new features in the future?

After the introduction of the creative software subscription package Apple Creator Studio, open questions remain about the extent to which buyers of the software can rely on participating in future new features. Apple only provides partial information on its website but leaves the long-term strategy for its Pro apps completely open, for example. Users who reject constant subscription payments are reacting critically to the new offer in user forums, which is to be introduced with software updates from the end of January.

Initially, Apple will offer the subscription and the previously common one-time purchase for the Mac software in parallel. On the iPad, Apple's creative apps Final Cut Pro and Logic Pro are only offered as subscriptions anyway; however, they only appeared there in May 2023. The new subscription bundle includes Final Cut Pro (Mac and iPad), Logic Pro (Mac and iPad), Pixelmator Pro, Motion, Compressor, and MainStage, as well as additional content for the iWork apps Keynote, Numbers, and Pages. It is apparently aimed at influencers who use multiple creative apps simultaneously, among others.

Premium content for subscribers

At least at the beginning, the offer for subscribers will likely differ from the one-time purchase, primarily in that subscribers will receive access to additional premium content such as templates and photos. However, the extent to which Apple precisely defines the term premium remains unclear. The new AI functions Visual Search and Transcript Search (both initially only available in US English) as well as Beat Detection will be available in both versions of Final Cut Pro. This was confirmed by Apple marketing manager Bryan O'Neil Hughes in an interview with the filmmaker trade magazine CineD. However, Apple does not explicitly confirm that the one-time purchase version of the video editing software Final Cut Pro will receive all features of the subscription version in the future.

The situation is different for Logic Pro and MainStage. Apple's website indicates that both the subscription and one-time purchase versions will receive all features.

New iPad users pay more

For the image editing software Pixelmator Pro, which Apple acquired some time ago, only subscribers will receive the new Warp tool. However, according to Apple, basic functions and updates will continue to be provided for buyers as well.

From the perspective of iPad users, the new bundle will be pricier. In the future, they will no longer be able to subscribe to the tablet version alone, but as new customers, they will have to take the more expensive large bundle with the iPad and Mac versions.

Good news for iPad users, however, is that the background rendering in Final Cut Pro on iPad, which was announced for summer 2025, is finally coming. Apple confirmed in the interview that they are still working on using the new Background Tasks API. This means users will no longer have to keep the app actively in the foreground during rendering. iPad users had long awaited this but were disappointed that Apple did not release the function with the release of iPadOS 26 in September.

(mki)