With the new creative subscription “Creator Studio”, Apple is making its tools for video, music and design available in a software bundle as a monthly subscription. In doing so, the US company is specifically attacking top dog Adobe, where the Creative Cloud has been available as a subscription for years. But what does Apple’s offering offer and can it compete with Adobe?
Adobe’s Creative Cloud with apps such as Photoshop, Indesign and Co. has largely replaced classic one-off purchases in the area of creative software with its subscription model. The Creative Cloud now represents a large portion of the company’s total revenue.
In the 2024 fiscal year alone, Adobe generated net sales of around $12.6 billion with its Creative Cloud offering. This means that net sales have almost doubled within five years, as in 2019 the number was still at 6.48 billion US dollars.
With the new Creator Studio, Apple is now also following this lucrative model and is bundling its creative tools in a monthly subscription for the first time. We have put together what will now change for users.
Creator Studio: What does Apple’s creative subscription offer?
Apple has combined all of its own creative apps in its new subscription. In the future, the following apps will be available in a subscription bundle:
- Final Cut Pro for Mac 12.0
- Final Cut Pro for iPad 3.0
- Logic Pro for Mac 12.0
- Logic Pro for iPad 3.0
- Pixelmator Pro for Mac 4.0
- Pixelmator Pro for iPad 4.0
- Motion 6.0 (Mac)
- Compressor 5.0 (Mac)
- MainStage 4.0 (Mac)
- Pages 15.1 (Mac, iPad and iPhone)
- Numbers 15.1 (Mac, iPad and iPhone)
- Keynote 15.1 (Mac, iPad and iPhone)
While Keynote, Pages, Numbers and Freeform remain free for all Mac users, the apps receive additional functions as part of a subscription. According to Apple, these include premium templates, a library of high-quality royalty-free photos and graphics, and AI features.
As usual, the apps can be downloaded via the App Store. You can choose whether you want to download all apps in the package at once or apps individually.
In contrast to Adobe, Apple still offers the option of purchasing licenses for individual apps despite the subscription. For example, if you only want to use Final Cut Pro, you can continue to purchase this app with a one-time purchase.
However, this does not apply to the iPad apps. Pixelmator Pro for iPadOS, for example, is only available as part of Apple’s new Creative subscription. However, nothing changes for users who have already purchased licenses for apps such as Logic Pro, Pixelmator Pro or MainStage. You can continue to use their versions and do not need to take out a subscription.
Apple’s Creative subscription offers these AI functions
Apple says it has integrated “powerful AI features” into its apps. According to Apple, these are “based on Apple Intelligence”, but are supported by OpenAI.
The intelligence features in the new Creative subscription are also subject to some usage restrictions. However, according to Apple, these depend on “the complexity of the queries, server availability and network availability”.
According to Apple, users can generate at least 50 images, create 50 presentations (with around eight to ten slides each) and generate presenter notes for 700 slides per month. The status can be viewed at any time via the menu of the respective programs.
Apple points out that content sent in the apps is “never used to train intelligence models.” The functions cannot be integrated into your own ChatGPT account.
How much does Apple’s Creative subscription cost?
Apple offers three months of its Creator Studio free with the purchase of a new iPad or Mac. There are also two different subscription models.
After a free trial month, the subscription for new users costs either 12.99 euros per month or 129 euros per year. In this variant, it is possible to share a subscription with up to five other family members via family sharing.
Although family release is not available for students and teachers, they do receive significantly more favorable conditions. After the free trial month has expired, this subscription only costs 2.99 euros per month or 29 euros per year.
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