It's $12.99/mo or $129/yr for a subscription that includes Final Cut Pro, Logic Pro, Pixelmator Pro, Motion, Compressor, MainStage, Keynote, Pages, and Numbers
Educational discount with verification required drops the price to $2.99/mo / $29.99/yr.
The regular-price subscription includes family sharing, education price does not.
One-time purchase versions remain available: Final Cut Pro ($299.99), Logic Pro ($199.99), Pixelmator Pro ($49.99), Motion ($49.99), Compressor ($49.99), and MainStage ($29.99).
Comes out January 28th
The most important benefits in my opinion are choice and price - people like me who prefer to buy software outright can still do so at a reasonable cost, while others who opt for a subscription can also do so (again, at a reasonable cost).
It's pretty clever that they keep the "pay one time" option still alive while announcing the availability of subscription, so anyone who says "Boo, not you too Apple" can easily be shut down with "You still have the option to buy it!" instead of leaving those critics without answers. Of course, they'll eventually remove the option to buy the software by paying once, I think everyone can see the writing on the wall, but still clever of them to choose to do it later for PR purposes. 1-0 to Apple :)
Final Cut Pro X has been available for purchase (at the same price, IIRC) for well over a decade now. Pro feathers were ruffled at the time they leapt from FCP7 to FCPX: the $299 price point was something like 1/4 of the going rate for its predecessors, was Apple planning to abandon its pros for the consumer market? Well. Here we are almost 15 years later, and if you paid the one-time price back then, you're still getting free updates today (at least on desktop). And you can still buy in with 299 2025 dollars, rather than 299 2011 dollars.
At the time, the common wisdom was that they'd go the same route as Adobe: you'd have to buy Final Cut X+1 in a couple years for another $299, and Final Cut X+2 a couple years after that... to their credit, that's not the way it's gone.
So that way, I imagine, all the film folks have a little more money to chuck at their high-powered Mac hardware budgets in the next refresh cycle instead... An evergreen Final Cut Pro license costs almost as much as 1TB of SSD from those guys!
That is true, but it is also true that FinalCut lost big time against DaVinci for all semi-professional users which are exactly FinalCut's main target group.
I'd argue that it is very likely that Final Cut X+1 was Apple's plan. It just did not pan out and they were busy with other things. Now they made the first step correcting that (or cutting the losses, depending how you want to see it).
I had thought a main problem for professional video editors w FC had to do with video editor UX philosophy. Something difficult to pivot away from.
I’m hand waving there because I’m not a pro but my neighbor is and I don’t recall the details.
But I’m curious how you see FC also lost in semi pro to Davinci specifically.
Davinci Resolve is free. At least, for the non studio version. (There’s a few studio only features, but almost everything is available in the free version of resolve). And a lot of people want to learn resolve anyway for color grading. Why not just edit in resolve too? Resolve studio is also quite cheap, given you buy it once and own it forever. Including updates.
I spent last week helping out at a short filmmaking course. The DP running it has used Final Cut for his entire career. But not a single student chose to edit their film using Final Cut. The class was split between resolve and premier pro. (Premier was chosen by a lot of people because it’s what they use at school, and they have a free licence to premier from their school while they’re studying.)
This, plus:
- The studio version of DaVinci is still affordable should you need it.
- DaVinci has many good tutorials
+ purchasing any BMD camera and you usually get a "free" license of DaVinci :) That's how I got my license many moons ago.
Now BMD have "prosumer" cameras available too that doesn't cost half a liver, which the second-hand market seems flush with too, so you can grab really good hardware for "cheap", and get excellent software with it too as the license is movable across hosts :)
I'm surprised to hear the software moves with the hardware! This and the other comments help explain the spread.
The 'cut' page in DaVinci specifically exists to replicate the FC editing UX.
It's an optional way of editing separate from the 'edit' tab.
Oh that’s where Cut comes from. I could never get used to edit in Cut screen.
Agreed, I hate it.
> At the time, the common wisdom was that they'd go the same route as Adobe: you'd have to buy Final Cut X+1 in a couple years for another $299, and Final Cut X+2 a couple years after that... to their credit, that's not the way it's gone.
And that's despite Apple having zero interest in doing things that don't ultimately make them money.
I have a theory for how sales of these one-time-purchase yet indefinitely-updated apps happens to work out positively on Apple's balance sheet, while it doesn't for most other large players right now.
And that's that, due to Apple's vertical integration (they make the hardware, they make the OS that runs on the hardware, they make the apps that run on the OS) — and due to these apps only targeting their own OSes+hardware, with no consideration of portability to other platforms — a lot (like 90+%) of the "enablement" work for these apps ends up time-budgeted as OS work, rather than apps work.
Or, I guess, to be more charitable, you could say that Apple's engineers develop first-party apps not just to sell them, but at least in part to drive the development of the OS as a developer platform. You could even describe the OS frameworks as the product, and the apps themselves as the byproduct. (In that lens, the only reason FCP would cost anything at all is to avoid accusations of anti-competitive behavior.)
The core of Apple's success has always been to capture the cultural leaders. Artists, musicians, journalists, etc. have used Apple at much higher percentages than the general public.
Now that the iPhone made Apple much more of mainstream company, it's harder to do -- what does it mean to focus on cultural leaders when 90% of American teens have an iPhone? But in the 15 years since Steve Jobs' death they have still been doing a decent job of it.
The company
Office 365 - the subscription version of Office - was released in 2011.
Microsoft still offers a one time purchase of Office. There is precedent for Bigcorp keeping a one time purchase version and offer a prescription.
The one-time purchase version of Microsoft Office is not available worldwide. Where offered, it is reduced to Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and OneNote, with Outlook as a Business edition extra. Individual apps can sometimes be bought separately, but pricing usually makes this impractical. This is to push buyers to Microsoft 365 subscriptions which is the primary product.
What else is there/have they thats not?
*Microsoft 365 Copilot
Please note that you need Microsoft 365 Copilot Live Essentials for Business Premium if you want InsightDeck (formally PowerPoint) included.
I had to google this to see if it was satire... What have we come to
Microsoft is renaming the company to copilot, all of its software to copilot, and CEO satya nadella is changing his name to copilot copilot copilot which is also his favourite feature, software, operating system, and the names of his dog, cat, children, and spouse.
Soon the company formerly known as Microsoft will turn into a garbage slop Pokémon capable of emoting only with its name, copilot.
Yes - but perpetual purchases have an interesting gotcha that Microsoft didn't realise at first. To encourage subscription over perpetual, ongoing or evergreen updates are limited to subscription version.
Office 2024 has every feature that was added since Office 2021 to the subscription version - while a chunk of loyal customers are unaware of them. Back when Google was competing hard with Google Suite, a big perception problem formed with the perpetual customers believing and convincing others that Google were far ahead, with collab editing and other features - after Office had added equivalent.
So for me, If there's a subscription and one-time option - I wonder if the one-time gets all updates going forward. If it doesn't, I realise that they'll regret that if competition picks up, and try to fix it later. If it does include updates... I worry it will be like many other lifetime updates one-time purchases - when competition is low they'll renege on that promise.
> To encourage subscription over perpetual, ongoing or evergreen updates are limited to subscription version.
Of course ... ? Before the subscription model, you wouldn't get free Office upgrades.
You would definitely not get free upgrades for Office. You would get minor point release updates. You also had to upgrade the Mac version often for:
- the System 7 transition
- the 040 Macs and to get a “32 bit clean version”
- to get the full speed of running natively on PPC Macs
- to get a native OS X version instead of one that ran in the OS 9 sandbox
- the Intel transition to get native performance.
I would much rather pay $150 (?) a year for a five user license where each user gets 1TB of storage and each user can use Office across Macs, Windows, iPhones and iPads.
It’s the same price as Dropbox’s 2TB plan and all you get for that is storage.
On a related note: Steve Jobs was right - Dropbox is a feature not a product.
Yes. That sentence is setup for the speculation in the third paragraph. Folks in this sub-thread are wondering how the one-time price option plays out with Apple Creator Studio.
So far from what I can tell, Final Cut Pro has gotten perpetual updates. Since you can only buy it via the Mac App Store, ther can’t do upgrade pricing.
They could - and some of the 3rd party vendors did: There is a 1Password 7 and a 1Password 8. There was also a Things 1/2, which is now a Things 3. it usually works by creating a new app, and not updating the old one anymore.
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Actually, you can buy only the 2024 version of MS Office for Mac, while the subscription is more up to date. You cannot buy a packaged 2025 version.
Because there is no such product as Office 2025, much like there was no Windows 96. There is Office 2004, 2008, 2011, 2016, 2019, 2021 and 2024. They usually release roughly every three years so there might be an Office 2027. 365 is a separate (but closely related) product.
> Microsoft still offers a one time purchase of Office.
he writing is on the wall, they will remove it sooner or later.
It's been available for something like 15 years since subscription purchase was introduced. Why so negative?
> Of course, they'll eventually remove the option to buy the software by paying once, I think everyone can see the writing on the wall
There's no indication Apple is planning to end the option of paying once for these apps.
Apple introduced subscriptions for Final Cut and Logic nearly three years ago [1]; this isn't new by any means. Pages, Numbers and Keynote remain available at no cost.
[1]: https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2023/05/apple-brings-final-cu...
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Many years ago Apple reduced their pricing on many of these apps. They also made their OS updates free.
Apple wants its customers to buy/subscribe to these tools so that you’re in the Apple ecosystem and buy more hardware and services.
Unlike Adobe, they have profit-maximizing incentives to let you stay on the buy/rent model that you prefer.
Why do you think they will remove the option to buy the software? They’ve kept the model for years. They’re targeting different audiences with the move.
You are complaining about a problem that hasn’t happened yet and there is no inherent reason it will happen.
There are features they are planning to make exclusive to the subscriptions. I don’t know if they’re planning to make the one-time purchase go away completely, but it seems like it’s going to be approached as the “lesser” option.
https://www.macrumors.com/2026/01/13/apple-creator-studio-ex...
This is such a strange way to think about what was done. Rather than just being happy they kept the pay once option and saying that's good you're imagining critics who how Apple can "shut them down."
Not Apple, but iMazing switched to subscription model and they simply lost me as a customer.
JetBrains tried something similar a while ago too, and almost screwed it up - but managed to listen to their customers and nailed it with the perpetual fallback licensing. Making me not just pay the subscription but feel respect to the company.
YMMV, of course.
> so anyone who says "Boo, not you too Apple" can easily be shut down with "You still have the option to buy it!" instead of leaving those critics without answers
This is like saying that it's clever for Mars to keep Mars Bars while launching a new bar, as it "shuts down" complaints that Mars Bars will no longer exist.
I don’t really understand the point you’re trying to get at but your analogy doesn’t really work here because a new chocolate bar would be a new product. Not a different way of buying the same product.
Adding a new option but keeping the old one is not some strategy to counter people criticising them removing the old option.
Every choice a company does is a strategy in some way, for some reason, which has been calculated to make them more money than another choice. This is how 99% of businesses work, and Apple as well.
You have any email I could reach out to you on once Apple finally removes the purchase ability for this, and only lets people subscribe?
> You have any email I could reach out to you on once Apple finally removes the purchase ability for this, and only lets people subscribe?
If they do this, then still no one will ever have to say something as silly as "they only kept the other option so people won't complain about them removing the other option".
They're running a conspiracy to trick people into not shutting them down by offering two ways to pay, the devious foxes.
I think it's okay, or even better probably, if they move to subscription only. All Apple's paid apps have languished for years and if its actually a revenue stream for them maybe they'll actually make them industry-leading again.
The other thing that’s going to go away is purchasing only what you need. I want exactly one of these apps, I bet virtually nobody uses all of them, and yet the suckers are going to be telling us that being made to buy stuff we don’t want or use is “more value”.
> and yet the suckers are going to be telling us that being made to buy stuff we don’t want or use is “more value”.
You're making up an individual to get mad at for no reason.
> The other thing that’s going to go away is purchasing only what you need
There is no proof of this. So you're making up a situation to get mad at for no reason.
> I want exactly one of these apps
Perfect, Apple lets you buy the one app you want for a reasonable price! So what's the issue?
Of course predictions about the future are not present reality.
It’s not set in stone, but it’s supported by the times this has happened before and by trends in Apple and in tech. “Nothing will ever change” is a prediction, too, and one much less supported by evidence.
Yea I've already purchased some of these apps so I was not going to thrilled if they pulled an Adobe and made me pay for an overpriced subscription on top of it >:(
Exactly what I was thinking. I bought Pixelmator Pro 3 days ago… But I am happy, as I have absolutely no need for the others, except for the free ones.
> overpriced
Seriously? This is incredibly reasonable.
It's not outrageous, for sure, specially if you happen to have a use case for all the bundled apps. But things change if you consider that the one time payment for Logic Pro equals about 18 months of the subscription. In my case, I bought Logic Pro in 2013 for 180€. Obviously a subscription seems expensive no matter what the price is.
If a students needs Logic Pro for 3 months for a class then they can get it (with the other apps) for $9 total ($6 if you count the free month). That makes more sense than a one time fee of $200. On the other hand, if you're planning to use the software for over a decade like yourself then $200 is very cheap.
So you bought Logic Pro vX for 180€. Did you receive Logic Pro vX++ for free?
Yes, Logic updates have been free for many years. FCP as well.
Well what I didn't receive for free is the 3 macs that have been running the same licensed product ;)
Indeed, and considering the 14 years of free Logic upgrades I'm surprised they bothered charging the initial $199! (I do remember being a bit miffed that it was $199 regardless of my existing license for the giant $999 box that was Logic Studio.)
> It's pretty clever that they keep the "pay one time" option still alive while announcing the availability of subscription, so anyone who says "Boo, not you too Apple" can easily be shut down with "You still have the option to buy it!"
Probably not. Those customers are almost completely irrelevant and not people who Apple or anybody else cares about. They won't mind if you kick and scream.
Yes, shame on them for only making good decisions now, instead of in the future.
> but still clever of them to choose to do it later for PR purposes. 1-0 to Apple :)
They're doing it because it makes them more money. Corporations are not your friend.
Yes, of course, ultimately every choice they ever do is for money, because they're a for-profit company. But maybe we can be slightly more granular about exactly how that choice makes them more money, which is because it gives them good PR. I was just being more specific, but we're saying the same thing :)
Fair enough. I was just trying to point out / remind everyone that they're not doing it out of benevolence. Your post just read a bit like that to me.
Obviously you're right that PR ultimately translates into money.
Parent isn’t insinuating otherwise. They’re saying the subscription model is more lucrative, so eventually they’ll remove the one time payment option, but keeping it as an option for the announcement keeps the bad PR at bay.
"PR purposes" IS doing it for money
So what about next year when all of the apps receive updates/upgrades? Will the paid-in-full versions receive the upgrade for free, or will they have upgrade prices? I remember the days of Adobe's annual version upgrades, and they were at least $99 per app. Using that as the basis, the Adobe subscription plan is not more expensive that just broken up into 12 payments. People that kept running v4 to avoid the upgrade prices eventually got left out as they could not open files provided to them from others using the most recent version. Let's not forget our history on the one-time purchase pros/cons
These apps have provided free updates after initial purchase for many years already. It would be big news if that stopped.
That is definitely a break from the old Adobe model
You know this is a thread about Apple and not Adobe, right?
These are being sold on Apple's AppStore, and there the model is that you get all of the updates for that App. Of course there is the work-around that some apps use, which is to create a new App (i.e.: MyApp vs MyApp2), which Apple could do at some point in the future.
The best one to watch at the moment is if Pixelmater Pro license holders from before it was bought by Apple get access to any of the new improvements.
All companies should do this. Sometimes I want a one-time purchase. Sometimes I want to try the program for a few months and I prefer a cheap subscription over a big upfront cost. And very, very rarely, I'll prefer the subscription, even though it's more expensive over time, to support a cool indie studio with recurring revenue instead of one-time purchases that may dry up and lead to lack of interest from the devs.
This is my argument for the Adobe subscription. One day, I'm a photographer needing apps like Photoshop and Lightroom and After Effects (because I do a lot of timelapse). One day, I'm a graphic designer, so I need Photoshop and Illustrator. One day, I'm an editor, so Photoshop, Premiere, Illustrator, and After Effects. One day, I'm doing desktop publishing with Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign.
This isn’t the whole story as one-time purchases will no longer have access to all new features without a subscription [1].
1. https://www.macrumors.com/2026/01/13/apple-creator-studio-ex...
For now. Let's not forget MS Office had a period like that as well. I give it five years max.
For *now.
Adobe also started out as a choice between subscription or buying. The only thing maybe keeping Apple honest is that their stuff isn't as popular.
Except certain features in the software will be reserved for subscribers only.
That's actually surprisingly cheap compared to other subscriptions in the industry, especially for such a high powered suite.
As long as you buy a macbook to use it on, they are happy
They'd be even happier if you bought one of the Mac Studios or Mac Pro. Please, someone, anyone.
I don’t think they have any trouble selling Studios. Pros, on the other hand…
Yeah studios are pretty boss machines, I know at least two companies that offer studios instead of macbooks to WFH employees if they want.
The competition for the Creator Studio is not exactly Adobe. Of course Apple will be happy to build on their offerings to be able to really take on Adobe, but this subscription is priced to compete with the online services popping up from nowhere that have stolen the ease of use market away from Adobe.
The real competition in this market in 2026 is Canva.
Canva, really? Is this looking forward at what is coming?
I see the rise of and have to deal with Canva-generated PDFs instead of Adobe Illustrator. So the low end market of video / animation, I could absolutely see Canva dominating. Doubt we'll see audio tools though.
Final Cut Pro -- Professional non-linear video editing * Canva? Partial: Best for social clips; lacks FCP’s RAW, multicam, and AI transcript tools.
Logic Pro -- Professional music production and MIDI sequencing * Canva? No: No DAW capabilities, plugin hosting, or live mixing.
Pixelmator Pro -- Advanced image editing and graphic design * Canva? Partial: Good for templates; lacks Pixelmator’s precision layers and AI retouching.
Motion -- 2D/3D motion graphics and cinematic effects * Canva? No: Canva uses presets; Motion offers granular keyframing and VFX creation.
Compressor -- Advanced media encoding and batch exporting * Canva? No: No control over specific codecs, bitrates, or pro output formats.
MainStage -- Live performance audio rig for stage use * Canva? No: No live audio processing or MIDI instrument hosting.
Keynote -- Cinematic presentations and slide decks * Canva? Yes: Canva’s primary competitor for collaborative, template-based slides.
Pages -- Word processing and page layout * Canva? Yes: Canva Docs is a direct alternative for visual/marketing documents.
Numbers -- Spreadsheets and data visualization * Canva? Yes: Canva Sheets handles basic data viz, though lacks Numbers' complex formulas.
You're making your argument backward. The fact Apple can offer a bundle that includes a ton of features that Canva does not have right now does not mean that Canva is not a competitor! Canva just bought the whole Affinity suite and dumped it on the laps of its subscribers for no extra charge. They're on the warpath against Adobe. They want to dethrone them. Apple sees this battle and saw an opportunity to participate. They bought Pixelmator and bundled all their Pro apps together, making a very versatile bundle that is very different from the image editing heavy bundle of Adobe and Canva.
Apple can't take the market from professionals; they need the easel they learned at school. But they can definitely compete with Canva, whose market are untrained artists who need something done easily.
With Canva’s ownership of Affinity, yeah I see Canva as being a big competitor in parts of this space now. Or will be as those tools become more widespread across Canva’s users.
That was my thinking. I already use several of these apps, the $130/mo. is a no brainer to pick up the others.
Get them in the door now and jack up the price later.
Undercut the competition until there is no competition, then raise prices or have I missed something?
Ah, yes - cross finance your loses by selling compute in your own data centres / hosting service because you can.
I would assume it's because younger generations of creatives are using their software less and less, increasing the risk of losing the market completely on the software side. At this pricing, more of them will turn to paying Apple rather than paying for multiple services, keeping them tied into the ecosystem.
Also so many people are paying for Canva, Capcut etc that taking a piece of that cake is quite a low hanging fruit if you have a distribution platform.
The acquisition of the Affinity software by Canva I imagine motivated this.
It’s even a similar pricing model, though technically with Pages / Numbers / Keynote covers a little more ground but I think the main intent is to get creatives using Apple’s creative software again
Pixelmator being the only 3rd party software because Apple never made a competitor to Photoshop
Though since Canva went full on toward more robust tools I imagine they have started capturing the entire editing chain more than they did 2-3 years ago, hence the Affinity acquisition
> Pixelmator being the only 3rd party software because Apple never made a competitor to Photoshop
Pixelmator isn’t third party. https://www.pixelmator.com/blog/2024/11/01/a-new-home-for-pi...:
“November 1, 2024
A new home for Pixelmator
Today we have some important news to share: the Pixelmator Team plans to join Apple”
That deal completed almost a year ago.
Apple doesn't ever need to make much money on this software, when they make money on hardware needed to use it.
Apple hardware has "only" a 36% margin, while their software and services have a 75% margin. They definitely want to make more money on software with absurd margins.
A huge portion of that margin is from the 33% App Store cut which is infinite margin for them, effectively.
"software and services" really should be broken out from the App Store cut.
Is margin profit/revenue or profit/costs? I think it is the former, so it should be “effectively 100%” right?
Anyway, this isn’t really a meaningful quibble argument-wise, it is obvious what you mean!
Most of the comments here demonstrates the lack of abstraction abilities here at HN.
My comments weren’t related to whether apple has data centres or not (afaik they don’t and actually use google hardware).
My comments were related to a business model used by amazon to destroy local shops in our neighbourhoods: offer products at vastly reduced prices, making a loss but covering those losses by profiting on aws. Once there is no competition left, prices rise and shareholder profits are made.
Hence my conjecture that apple was doing the same and hence they were offering this product at undercut price. As was the OP was wondering about.
I was actually criticising the business model increasingly used by big tech. Which has the consequences that are neighbourhoods are emptied out and left with stores that act as amazon package pickup stores or stores where packages are returned to be sent back to amazon.
Not an Apple fan at all, but damn, in the views of some of the HN community, one can only do wrong. Pathetic.
Pretty spot on. I think what's new is that Apple is employing this tactic, before they always went with "Our stuff is more expensive because it's better", but as they seem to slightly pivot into other directions now, this choice also seems to align with the new direction.
Somehow I don't think Apple is going to put Adobe out of business.
They don't need to, but they do lose a bunch more of the 'feeder' market. If need to edit video to a semi professional standard I'd pick this bundle at 12.99/month (and get extra tools i might need) vs adobe premiere for 22.99/month.
As someone who came up along side adobe, the only reason photoshop is as entrenched as it is is simply because of piracy. Ditto for premiere. It created the market that they then locked down with subscriptions.
I think you are going to see shops that are smaller, doing their own design stuff internally, increasingly moving away from adobe subscriptions.
They don't need to.
They want marketshare to enhance their other market positions and give them optionality for future strategy.
They'd love the whole market, but they don't need it and they won't employ too many resources chasing that.
They're a powerful giant with hands in so many places. Each enforcing other endeavors.
This encourages people to stay in the Apple hardware ecosystem, for instance. It dog foods their silicon. It keeps people thinking of Apple as the creative brand and operating system. More creatives buying Apple -> more being produced and consumed for and on Apple.
Also the strategy of getting kids young has always been genius. They started that in the eighties, I think.
Well put.
Best framing I’ve seen of the answer to, “Why is Apple in the streaming service business?”
What data centers? Does Apple even have data centers? Can people purchase compute on Apple's data centers?
> What data centers? Does Apple even have data centers?
Apple absolutely has data centres. Where do you think Apple TV, Apple Music, iCloud, Maps, etc compute happens?
Here's a press release straight from the horse's mouth about one in Denmark, in late 2020: https://www.apple.com/uk/newsroom/2020/09/apple-expands-rene...
> Can people purchase compute on Apple's data centers?
Not to my knowledge, but that's not saying much.
> Not to my knowledge, but that's not saying much.
But that's the entire crux of their comment: undercut the competition, and make them pay for compute on Apple's data centers.
As someone who's loved Logic Pro since the days before Apple bought Emagic, this is amazing that it will be accessible to a broader audience.
There are many discussions e.g. https://gearspace.com/board/music-computers/1433515-why-does... about the reasons for its popularity, but one stands out to me - its event data model.
There are far too many tools out there (from FL Studio on one end, to MuseScore on the other) that present piano-roll-based rapid prototyping and traditional western score notation as diametric opposites. From day 1, Logic challenged itself "what if we can use the same event-based data model to render both."
None of this complexity is hidden - you can edit the raw event stream directly. If you're a developer familiar with, say, React, it makes music creation quite intuitive - everything from visual to audio output is a function of a transparently formatted data store.
And while that has its challenges, and some of the UX innovations of e.g. MuseScore have been slower to arrive in Logic, because of this "dual life" it's unmatched as a pedogogical tool, and a professional creative tool as well.
There's a lot of information in a traditional western score that cannot be easily represented in a pianoroll, at least not losslessly.
Considering them as alternate views of the same data model gets problematic when the composer uses the full bag of tricks that score notation allows (notably repeats, but also the problem of representing tuplets correctly when a pianoroll can offer no clues about how to structure them). So for example, the user can create a set of notes in the pianoroll that will never be played correctly by anyone reading the score; the user can create dynamics in the score that cannot be correctly presented in the pianoroll version.
I'm not saying it isn't possible to do an MVC-style system with two different views of the same data model - it clearly is. It's just moving between the two views is not lossless, and moving between the two controllers (i.e. editing) is not equivalent.
How else could you represent piano roll data than as a stream of events? I thought that was ubiquitous since the invention of MIDI.
Are you saying other sequencers are unable to render the same data as piano roll and score?
Among professional-ready DAWs, as far as I know, it's unique in its approach. Pro Tools and FL Studio still don't have score rendering or even MusicXML export! Reaper has limited score rendering/engraving support, but minimal customizability.
And on the notation-oriented side, you have things like MuseScore, Finale, etc. where there is an event model, but the UI itself doesn't have mature (or any) support for tracking mixer/knob automation (outside of what can be derived automatically from dynamic symbols).
Years ago, I used Logic in a musical theater context where I could build a constantly-updated demo for pitching/rehearsals/live-iteration and edit the final orchestration to be printed for the pit orchestra, both from the same living document. Could I have duplicated my changes in a DAW and notation software separately, and kept them in sync manually? Absolutely, and many creators do. But there's something special about having that holy grail at your fingertips.
Among professional-ready DAWs, as far as I know, it's unique in its approach.
Cubase, surely? I'm pretty sure it has done this for decades unless I am misunderstanding what you're saying.
Cubase recently revamped their score editor to embed a version of Dorico, so it's better than it was!
https://blog.dorico.com/2024/11/cubase-14-score-editor/
I'm still a Logic Pro fan, but credit where credit's due!
Not related to your comment exactly but I feel like I need to get this out in this thread somewhere:
As someone who defended FCPX and used it professionally for years even when it was at its most hated (2011 or so), it’s been woefully supported the last few years and no one should be on it anymore. Resolve Studio outclasses it top to bottom for the same one-time cost and runs great on both MacOS and Windows. Linux it’s bumpy unfortunately but it does technically run lol
> Resolve Studio outclasses it top to bottom for the same one-time cost and runs great on both MacOS and Windows
Best 200-300 EUR I spent some years ago, and still receives free updates, Blackmagic Design is a really nice company. And, not only does Resolve run great on macOS and Windows, they have Linux native builds that run even better than it does with the same hardware using Windows, which is REALLY nice.
Oh interesting re: Linux. My understanding was it was rougher but maybe I should try myself!
Runs like a dream for me, albeit on workstation-hardware so YMMV. It runs better under X than Wayland, at least the version I'm still stuck on, but otherwise the performance is top notch and easily worth a try :)
9800x3d + 9070 + 32gb ram so I’ve got horsepower. Though I’ve seen people have issues with the 9070 specifically
Hm, yeah, AMD GPUs was a long time ago I owned, only used it myself with either 5950X or 9970X, and either RTX 3090ti or RTX Pro 6000, works great for 4K footage with both of those :) Could be that it works worse with AMD GPUs indeed, that'd suck :/
Not arguing against Resolve, but FCP is still great for edits.
It lacks some flashy social media features and modern conveniences for sure, but it's still a very good and widely used editor.
It lacks a lot more than flashy social media features - and given their biggest driver in the 2010’s was arguably YouTubers, they actually need more robust social media features. For starters, they just added voice isolation what? A year ago? That has been bog-standard for resolve and premiere for years now. The audio tools in general are still very subpar.
I used it professionally from 2011-2020 or so. Around 2020 the gaps in feature parity became wider and more apparent, it’s clearly not a priority anymore. Once I went to resolve I basically abandoned it. I use maybe every 6mo tops now for quick stuff for friends and family or to open an old project.
The one thing I will say is for speed cutting, it’s probably the best. And that’s no small thing! But that’s about it.
Based on revenue estimates, if Apple wanted to be competitive here, they could buy Blackmagic for a billion or so ...
It's certainly interesting that Apple have been pushing Blackmagic's products. They practically rely on Blackmagic software for all their demos when they release some new bit of hardware. They totally conceded on the camera app, for instance.
Also in their behind the scenes for their "Shot on iPhone" videos, usually they show Resolve, Premier or Media Composer, but rarely Final Cut.
That has always been an issue. Pros buy Apple hardware but very rarely commit to Apple software. In my experience, they are perfectly right. Not only can Apple not be trusted to maintain the software to be competitive feature-wise, but they are also very likely to get bored or make some annoying hardware requirement that makes fleet management annoying.
In the end, their creative software is just ok; it's probably best to not rely on it too much if you don't want to get stuck. After they canceled Aperture for no good reason and destroyed the iWork suite while taking forever to even manage feature parity, I'll never rely on or recommend Apple software.
Thank god they preserved the one time purchase. I bought all of these apps back in like ~2013 and have been using them for literally 13 years with all updates (fcp, compressor, motion)
good on them
It's rare for a company to not only offer one-time purchases, and keep updating them, but also not rebranding/renaming/version cut-off charging at some point.
It helps that you have to continue to buy their hardware to keep running said software. I guess they could be greedy and keep making me pay for Logic every few years so I'm happy they don't do that but they're still making money off my initial purchase of logic just in a different way.
I thought they basically gave away Keynote/Pages etc to anyone with an Apple device?
It's literally in the introduction of the page.
> plus new AI features and premium content in Keynote, Pages, and Numbers
So it's the GP comment that is inaccurate.
Potentially AI slop features coming to both that they'll charge for?
>Comes out January 28th
I wonder why? Why not today but 28th of Jan?
Part of me thinks M5 MacBook Air and M5 Pro MacBook Pro will also be released on January 28th.
Well I guess either Great Mind thinks alike or they just read my HN comment
https://9to5mac.com/2026/01/14/apple-may-have-hinted-at-a-hi...
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Mac Studio is still on M4 Max and M3 Ultra chips.
I could see a press release refresh on that day to M5 chips.
Could be related to billing cycles
I would like this to be very true. Can’t wait to get the new Air.
That's actually a hell of a deal considering I already pay $5 a month just for Logic on the iPad.
I bought Logic maybe 8-9 years ago, and get free upgrades.... If I had paid $5/mo it would already have cost me ~$280.00 more than I paid.
Even if I had to purchase an occasional update (assuming they were reasonably priced), I'd still be coming out ahead.
I hate "renting" software.
Oh yeah, my Logic for Mac is probably about that age too, but there's no choice to buy it outright on iPad sadly.
I bought a license for Pixelmator Pro a couple of years ago. IIRC it cost 30 or 40 EUR. I don't use it much, but it is unlikely you're going to need all of that software.
Oh, didn't know that. That's lame.
I could see using an iPad for automation, triggered by midi, but I use an Air for that (and even if I used an my Pro, I still have to use a USB C hub because for some reason Apple things 1 (or 2) USB ports is enough. Sigh.
Meanwhile the subscription for Adobe Premiere ALONE is 22.99/mo
Yeah, I'm pissed that the Photography plan (Lightroom/Photoshop) has gone from 9.99/mo to 24.99/mo in the last 18 months.
> Educational discount with verification required drops the price to $2.99/mo / $29.99/yr.
Guess it’s time to take some online self-paced courses at a university for no reason in particular …
time to dust off that 20 year old edu email address. with these discounts, college has paid for itself!
I finally had to give mine up. Needed to reset the password which required a trip to 4HELP office and I live halfway around the globe now. But the kiddo will be starting college soon so I can mooch off their edu email address.
Ah, I've been mooching off an old library card for years to rent books for my Kindle. Finally got an email saying "Just pop into your local branch to renew this year." Ah...
YES! I was a happy Kanopy movie viewer until last year I got a message that my library card no longer worked on Kanopy and I had to physically go in to the library to get a new one. Maybe someday....
You have to renew them? I've been using the same card since '03. I went in a 2 years ago to pay my fine for a book lost in the couch cushion for a few months. Librarian thought it was quaint that I still have my old tattered library card.
This was Chicago. I believe a lot of people had managed to get online cards without physically being in the city and they decided to call it in and get everyone to renew in person to see who was still legit.
That almost never works for me, they usually use a service that verifies current student enrollment like SheerID.
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If you are planning anyway to break the terms of the license and effectively steal the software, why even bother paying something for the privilege? Just get it for free, surely it has to be available cracked
> break the terms of the license and effectively steal the software
We're all (mostly/some) software people here, you don't need to use terms established by the "anti-piracy" firms to make your point, no one is "stealing" anything here, even if they were getting it for free from TPB or whatever.
Indeed. But people are stuck on these archaic unrelated terms for now. AI firms will make the whole thing obsolete while luddites cry about “stealing from artists” and stuff like that.
> But people are stuck on these archaic unrelated terms for now
Seen it in media for decades at this point, which makes sense, most people can't tell up from down.
What's sad is hearing those things echoed here of all places, a community for hackers, and people are repeating the words of the MPAA.
>luddites cry
oh come on I thought we had gotten past this crap
When I moaned to the Adobe support person about a recent price hike they said "It's a real shame you haven't signed up for a free educational course online, like the ones from Google, that would qualify you for a student plan. Or have you? I'll wait here while you tell me if you are enrolled in one of those free Google courses. Take as long as you need."
So now I'm getting an education too.
Cracked software has risks attached to it, such as malware.
Spare me the morality play. Apple gifted Donald Trump a 24k gold statue! They will gift me an educational discount to Final Cut Pro.
There was no morality play. My point is your copy/use of software is equally "illegal" whether you just download a cracked copy or pretend to be an active college student and pay the student price, when you are not in fact an active college student. Either way, you won't have a valid license. So why bother paying?
This is quite the slippery argument IMO. So it’s not about morality, it’s about legality. But also it’s about paying for a valid license, so they shouldn’t pay at all?
I mean, why not? I barely use FCP, sometimes to trim a movie in places. I'm still going to be subsiding other users. I'd rather not pirate.
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won't somebody think of the poor trillion dollar company!
Make the one-time purchase while you still can. The educational version is a great value, and the license allows the software to be used for commercial purposes.
But Keynote, Pages and Numbers are already free
Hopefully staying as such. I like Numbers, but I suspect I could totally replace my use of it with Emacs org-mode.
From the subheading: “plus new AI features and premium content in Keynote, Pages, and Numbers”
Seems like a great "opportunity" for Apple to pump up their Services revenue
I thought Keynote, Pages, and Numbers were complimentary. Or part of an iCloud subscription or something. Is that changing?
the other benefit is that subs can be a sort of extended trial. Ive been wanting to try out final cut pro but I don't want to do a full video project if i'm going to be evaluating it. better to have 1-3 months to really know before I plunk down 299 bucks.
They offer a 3 month trial already.
Does this mean Keynote and Pages are now paid products? Aren't they included with Mac OS?
From the subheading: “plus new AI features and premium content in Keynote, Pages, and Numbers”
My concern here is are they going to start locking features for Pages, Numbers, and Keynote behind a paywall? Yes, it’s free—but will they still have all of the newer features without a subscription?
I’m assuming that they’re going to (fairly) lock AI generative features behind the subscription since they’ll be incurring ongoing costs.
They'll be pressured by gdocs and other similar products to not keep too much of this behind a paywall. I already don't know anyone who loves using Pages (every time I share a document I have to export it to .docx, which is annoying), so they're already starting off behind by a bit.
I think many more would be on to Pages if they realized it was more than a simple WP. It's especially great for personal use, where there's no non-Mac sharing needed — there's no simpler layout program out there, & the typographic options are nice to have. If I have something longer/more detailed to put together, that's what ()LaTeX, Inkscape, etc., is for. We need alternate app ecosystems out there, & it's nice that Apple hasn't left these apps to rot like they did back in the 2010s.
It's OK but way too limited for proper layouts and doesn't have enough features for long/complex documents like books.
As it is, it's barely better than GDocs but less convenient, and since people rarely need to print stuff, layout isn't that important.
What do you recommend for long/complex documents like books?
I really enjoy Pages, but if they’re going to lock stuff behind a paywall — it might be time to look at other things. I can’t afford to add a whole bunch of new subscriptions.
