Creator Studio gets off to a rocky start, Pro app bundle for students only available to a limited extent | News

The Apple Creator Studio released on January 28th was no surprise: Cupertino announced the new subscription model in advance and invited selected influencers to an event to test the new suite. However, the actual rollout was not very elegant – especially in the Mac App Store: there were moderately useful updates for the old iWork apps as well as new versions of them, which caused confusion for many users. Six Colors’ Jason Snell took a closer look at Apple’s approach. Another innovation concerns the app bundle of five pro apps from the education store: This has largely disappeared.

Confusing Creator Studio rollout
The fact that Apple’s backend systems come with some restrictions for developers is nothing new, says Snell. However, he was surprised at how bound Apple itself was to the restrictions. The company decided to combine Mac applications from apps such as Numbers, Keynote and Pages with their iPad counterparts. However, this led to the strange situation that the existing iWork applications could be updated to version 14.5 in order to point to a newer version after opening (see here). Apple also gave the new app versions longer titles because the design of the App Store made this practice socially acceptable. For example, “Pages” has now become “Pages: Create Documents”.

Two app versions, advertising on the home screen
What is also curious is the fact that two versions of several applications can now be seen in the Mac App Store:

Above: the traditional version of Final Cut Pro, below: the app for the Creator Studio – with a longer title

Snell has a mixed opinion about the app icons: he doesn’t like many of them, but the clear colors often make it clear at first glance which software it is. Far more annoying is the advertising for the Creator Studio on the start screen of many apps:

Pro app bundle only available when ordering a new Mac
Students previously had a bundle of Final Cut Pro, Logic Pro, Motion, Compressor and MainStage available for the reduced price of 229.99 euros. It still does, but only when purchasing a new Mac through the education store. Subsequent acquisition is therefore no longer possible. It was a comparatively inexpensive option to buy the Pro apps cheaply, especially since in some countries such as the USA and Austria no proof of student status was required. The software for students can also be obtained via the Creator Studio at a reduced price (2.99 euros per month or 29 euros per year).