Apple’s new Creator Studio subscription bundle officially launches today, offering access to a wide range of updated professional apps for an all-or-nothing price of $13 a month or $130 a year. Teachers and students can get the same apps for $3 a month, or $30 a year.
The bundle includes either access to or enhanced features for a total of 10 Apple apps, though the base versions of several of these are available for free to all Mac and iPad owners:
Final Cut Pro
Logic Pro
Pixelmator Pro
Keynote, Pages, and Numbers
Freeform
Motion, Compressor, and MainStage (Mac only)
When companies introduce a subscription-based model for long-standing apps with an established user base, they often shift exclusively to a subscription model, offering continuous updates in return for a more consistent revenue stream. But these aren’t always popular with subscription-fatigued users, who have seen virtually all major paid software shift to a subscription model in the last 10 or 15 years, and who in recent years have had to deal with prices that are continuously being ratcheted upward.
Apple’s subscription shift looks a little less like Adobe’s approach to Photoshop and a little more like Microsoft’s approach to Office: many of these apps, particularly the Mac versions, will remain available for free or as standalone one-time purchases from the App Store.
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