Photography Missing in Action in Apple’s New Creator Studio Service

K
icking off the new year with a flourish, Apple rolled out a surprise launch of a new subscription service called Creator Studio, but there’s precious little of interest for photographers in this suite.

The new service includes full versions of Final Cut Pro, Logic Pro, Pixelmator Pro, Keynote, Pages, Numbers, Freeform, Motion, Compressor and MainStage for $12.99USD.

Importantly, Apple have said that you’ll still be able to purchase the standalone versions of these apps, which will remain for sale in the App Store.

In addition to the new subscription pricing, the main apps have also been updated with a range of (mainly AI-based) tools which will also be added to the standalone versions of the software.

Photographers have been questioning Apple’s plans for Pixelmator Pro and Photomator since acquiring them 14 months ago, given the minimal development activity since. And while there’s still no news on Photomator, Pixelmator Pro has been updated for this launch.

Pixelmator Pro is now effectively Apple’s consumer-friendly version of Photoshop and available for the first time on iPad. If you’re a photographer that owns this app, then don’t hold your breath for any new features for you – the most notable addition in this Creator Studio release of the app is a Warp tool.

The launch also raises serious questions about Photomator’s future, conspicuously absent from the Creator Studio suite. Since acquiring this highly-regarded RAW editor, Apple has remained silent on its plans and released no updates whatsoever.

I can’t help wondering if Apple’s plan was to simply acquire Pixelmator Pro for its Photoshop-like toolset and Photomator was just a ‘spare’ that they coincidentally purchased at the same time. Given how little effort (literally none) they’ve expended on this much-loved app, it makes its future now seem a lot bleaker.

Apple were once at the forefront of the digital photography revolution with the much loved and much-missed Aperture RAW editor, but they pretty much abandoned photographers when they ended development on the app back in 2014

The company’s approach these days is centred entirely on smartphone photography and the good-but-limited Apple Photos app, which is more of an asset manager than an editor.

We can only hope that they have actually got a longterm game-plan for Photomator and for the millions of photographers who use Macs, but at the moment it seems like you’re only a ‘creator’ in Apple’s eyes if you shoot video or make music.