I just read @MacSparky’s newsletter “Apple Creator Studio’s Awkward Bundle.” This got me to wondering: will iWork apps continue to be updated with new features for non-Creator Studio subscribers, with only specific integration features reserved for Studio subscribers? Or will non-subscribers be left with inferior products? Apple knows that the majority of its users have no use for Creator Studio. I cannot imagine that Apple will not continue to update Numbers, Pages, and Keynote for “the rest of us.”
IF Apple does not keep iWork up to date and feature rich without the Studio subscription, that brings up an interesting question, “Will I continue to rely on iWork or change my writing app? I have drastically reduced the use of slides so Keynote is not a major concern, but Pages is.
Is Pages “feature complete” for your purposes? What new features would you like to see added? What features might induce you to subscribe to a continuously updated version that costs, say, $19.99 per year? Would you pay extra for built-in AI? What are your alternatives? Would you consider Google Docs or LibreOffice Write?
I suspect Apple will continue to offer usable versions of the iWork apps, but if you want the special sauce (cough, cough, Apple Intelligence)—or, perhaps, an extra dollop of special sauce—you’ll have to pay.
ETA: I think it’s useful to distinguish between the stock apps that Apple bundles with its hardware to add value for the user and apps that exist primarily to generate other revenue. Books and Music are examples: Apple might have bundled a really good app for reading digital documents or a really good media player into its hardware. But Books and Music aren’t that—they’re sales platforms.
Apple is a master of the upsell. Their hardware is configured so someone that wants/needs just a little more ram or storage than offered in the base model, finds that “for a few dollars more” they can get the next better model. Their bundles are designed to extract just “a few dollars more” from customers that are already using some of their services.
IMO the difference between standard and ACS Pages, Numbers, and Keynote will probably depend on how much Apple wants the additional revenue.
I view it this way. AI is a service that costs money to provide and maintain. It can’t realistically be given away free, at least not for long. The Apple Creator Studio is just a way to pay for the AI. So if you don’t want or need the AI features, you can still buy the non-AI versions which will still be supported.
This announcement reinforces view my that the walls of Apple’s walled garden are closing in. There are alternatives to Microsoft Word, Excel and PowerPoint that use the same file format so you can, if you wish, avoid the Office 365 tax; not so Pages, Keynote and Numbers.
I wonder how long before “free” bundled software disappears from all platforms? Back in the day — the days when you paid for software — we had choice (anyone remember Corel or Lotus?), but Microsoft destroyed them by bundling comparable applications with Windows. Apple didn’t write iWork out of the goodness of their heart but to stay in the game. Now that they’re the only two serious desktop players, the Microsoft / Apple oligopoly can charge what they like.
The press release said it pretty clearly… “Apple clarifies, however, that Pages, Numbers, and Keynote will “remain free for all users to create, edit, and collaborate with others.” The free version of the apps will “continue receiving updates, with the latest versions adopting the beautiful new visual design language with Liquid Glass on all platforms, and supporting the new windowing and menu bar improvements in iPadOS 26.”
If I recall correctly, the Office suite of apps didn’t come for free with Windows as a matter of course for individual consumers. Sometimes a PC manufacturer might bundle Office with Windows if you bought one of their machines, but Office didn’t come with a Windows machine in the way that Pages, Numbers, and Keynote came with an Apple computer.
Of course things work differently at the enterprise level.
Other free first-party word processors: TextEdit on the Mac, but WordPad on Windows has recently been discontinued. Seems like Microsoft has gone 100% subscription and provides nothing with the basic Windows distribution.
The bundle makes sense if you think about the wide variety of “creatives” who are already well represented among Apple hardware buyers. There are a lot of folks who pay for their shoes with a “portfolio” career based around presenting information or seeking influence whether that is presenting, providing training, consulting, various kinds of marketing (especially online), web design, youtube etc etc. Those folks are not the committed ones who bought their specialist video or audio editing suite, DTP package etc. but people who might need to generate very different “product” at different times, depending on the needs of the gig. The same folks value things like Canva that can allow them to shortcut some of the design process e.g. to put together and personalise reasonable print or web design or presentations quickly, to go alongside some video or audio content.
This subscription gives you all that (at least in theory), right in the tool set. It’s different to someone who needs a generic word processor, spreadsheet or presentation - the apps for that come with the machine, for free. If you want the content and integration, you have to subscribe.
I think it’s mostly fine and a good value for those that need the tool suite. I agree with @MacSparky that it feels like a miss to have iWork extras included in this pack. The subscriptions are getting to be quite a bit with Apple. Between Apple One and AppleCare One it’s already approaching $75 a month, then tack on this for another $13 and we’re getting close to $100 bucks a month, or more if you have more family devices to cover with AppleCare. Coupling that with the premium that the devices go for and the total cost of Apple Hardware has gone up quite a bit. I know in the old days Apple software and software upgrades were paid for, but it wasn’t the same frequency nor did we have as many different devices.
If you have both. I do have Apple One, but they won’t sell me AppleCare One. Mind you… not sure I’d take it if they did after hearing John Sircausa’s saga.
I agree with @tomalmy that the subscription is an “AI subscription” and not really a software subscription. After all, my “subscription” to Logic Pro is currently NZD$2.10 per month, and it’s going down over time. What do I mean? I mean I paid NZD$259.99 for it 10 years and 4 months ago. There are big chunks of time I didn’t use it (and I’m in one now), but I still have the latest version.
Final Cut Pro, well that’s a more expensive prospect. I paid NZD$399.99. Uhhh… 12 years and 10 months ago. So NZD$2.60 per month.
My subscription on iWork is approximately … actually, is exactly … $0 per month.
In other words, Apple have long gone past the point at which they would have started charging (subscription or upgrade) if they wanted to make money from those apps.
Now, if they could just pick up the old codebase of Aperture and merge Photomator into it. Except, no, they’re far too late on that. That market is saturated.
There is only one application I’m interested in. That’s Pixelmator Pro for IPad. When I’m away from home I take my iPad with me, not a MacBook, I would like to have a full featured photo editor. I use Pixelmator Pro on my Mac so I’m used to it. I don’t see an announcement that there will be an iPad version I can buy instead of this bundle. That’s a pity.
The Mac Old Guard needs to work harder on wearing two hats for their editorials.
The Creator Studio is the pinnacle Apple Bundle. In a family setting it will cover the members who are more into Productivity with iWork, Freeform and Pixelmator and the members who are more into the video editing and music production.
This bundle in no way prevents Apple from offering a future tiered structure where the iWork, Freeform and Pixelmator are offered in a less costly bundle. I think what people want to do is see how much work Apple puts into Content Hub. John Gruber asked Apple about whether the Content Hub would grow to offer additional forms of media and Apple, with their tongues firmly planted in their cheeks, gave the “we don’t comment on future products”
Apple’s likely doing “Top Down” selling. You address the people with the largest needs first and establish values and then when that ACS is too expensive for the remaining consumers you offer a more cost effective bundle.
MacSparky himself knows that offering discounts on his products boosts sales. They understand how value influences the purchasing decisions. Apple’s just a company with much larger scale but the businesses prop is always the same.
My feeling is that they are starting to turn the corner to moving these apps over to start charging subscriptions or upgrades. This is the first group of applications that they’ve taken a portion of the enhancements and put it behind an upgrade/subscription wall. There’s a lot of subscription fatigue out there and if anything they feel long gone past introducing further subscriptions. Also, I agree with Gruber, why isn’t this part of Apple One? Apple One feels like Apple Kinda now, when you throw iWork and Pixelmator into something separate that’s always felt Prosumer.
