Apple released their Creator Studio suite of programs this January. The suite includes Final Cut Pro, Logic Pro, Pixelmator Pro, Motion, Compressor, and MainStage, as well as more full-featured versions of their free software Pages, Keynote, Numbers and Freeform. These applications are now offered as a subscription service; the annual plan appears to be $15/month CDN. That is not only less than Adobe’s Creative Suite but also cheaper than the photographer’s package. It also appears that everything in the suite can be purchased separately and can be tried for free. How it compares to Adobe’s suite is yet to be seen, but I suspect the Apple version is far less complex and more intuitive to use. Another question is how it compares to Canva’s suite of software, which costs $12.00 CDN per month with an annual subscription. These applications work on both the iPad and the Mac and are optimized for the Apple Pencil.

One thing that may be confusing between the subscription and the separate purchase of each app is that the icons are not the same, yet Apple maintains that the programs are identical. In the case of Pixelmator Pro, the version that can be purchased has a white background with a brush against a multicoloured object. Whereas the subscription version has a black background with a red graphic.

What Does Each Application Do

• Final Cut Pro is a professional video production application that now includes an AI-driven music/image synchronization system. It also includes Montage Maker, an automated tool for laying out video clips. along with Transcript Search, which finds specific spoken words and Visual Search, which locates objects in the footage.
• Pixelmator Pro is a photo editing, vector graphic design and digital painting application. It includes Super Resolution, Auto Crop, Deband, and Warp tools for layer manipulation.
• Motion creates 2D and 3D motion graphics, titles and effects, and includes Magnetic Mask, which isolates people or objects without a green screen.
• Compressor is a porting program that exports and encodes video files into various formats.
• Logic Pro is used for songwriting, beat-making, and recording, and includes Session Players and Chord ID to mix with the music being created.
• Main Stage turns a Mac into a live-performance rig for instruments and vocals, delivering studio-quality sound on any stage.

The Creator Studio appears to be aimed at creative professionals, students, and content creators, offering a comprehensive set of tools for creating videos, images, printed materials, social media posts, presentations, and more.

A Few Early Reviews