The forthcoming Apple Creator Studio adds features iPad users have long wished for, and for a certain audience, it also makes using Apple's pro apps more affordable.

Apple Creator Studio is a new subscription bundle that for $12.99 per month, or $129 per year, offers iPad and Mac users one price for a slew of pro creative tools. It's just that you may already have some, or that you may never use all of them

It's complicated, and the complexity is not helped by how so far, Apple has left many issues unanswered. That's particularly so with the detail over differences between new subscription versions and existing editions of apps.

If you have none of these apps

If you do not own or use any of the apps in Apple Creator Studio, you are missing out — but you're probably fine to continue missing out. But on the off chance that you would benefit from them all and don't know it yet, then there are iPad-only, Mac-only, and cross-platform apps for you in the bundle.

For the iPad, the bundle chiefly contains:

  • Final Cut Pro
  • Logic Pro
  • Pixelmator Pro
Tablet screen showing a dark blue space-themed drawing: open book with a ringed planet on the cover, rocket, swirling stars, and dotted text reading FUTURISTIC FICTION CLUB

It's no exaggeration to say that Pixelmator Pro has long been wanted on the iPad — image credit: Apple

And for Mac users, the same subscription gets them:

  • Final Cut Pro
  • Logic Pro
  • Pixelmator Pro
  • Motion
  • Compressor
  • Mainstage

Across both platforms, though, Apple says that there will also be new "intelligent features and premium content for Keynote, Pages, Numbers, and later Freeform." That's another unanswered concern, as while Apple says these will all be updated, we have no way to know when.

It would seem messy to have multiple versions of apps, but Apple will presumably want to drive users to the new subscription ones. That must surely be the case for the new features to the free iWork apps.

That all aside, if you use both Mac and iPad, you're be getting all of Apple's pro video, audio, and image tools plus some improvements to the iWork suite.

If you have none of the apps, and yet you are creating audio, video, and images, then you should get the Apple Creator Studio.

It also makes the Mac versions of Final Cut Pro and Logic Pro more affordable. They were previously only available as one-time purchases of $299.99 and $199.99 respectively.

It will still be possible to buy these standalone one-time-purchase versions. And for what you get, those prices are tremendous.

Person wearing large headphones focuses on a laptop, editing colorful audio tracks, seated indoors near a bright window overlooking a blurred outdoor scene with lattice fencing and orange seats

If you need all or most of these apps across the iPad and the Mac, this is a bargain — image credit: Apple

But that raises the next possibility.

If you already own Final Cut Pro and Logic Pro

You can't buy Final Cut Pro or Logic Pro outright for the iPad outside of a subscription, but you can for the Mac. Equally, you could not subscribe to either of these apps on the Mac before.

So every existing user of either these apps on the Mac will have bought them or be using a purchased version with Family Sharing.

That means their Apple Creator Studio subscription is only getting them the iPad editions of those apps, plus Pixelmator Pro on both platforms. And also the Motion, Compressor, and MainStage companion Mac apps for Final Cut Pro and Logic Pro.

Those are more niche apps, so users may already have them or they may not. At $50 for Motion and Compressor, and $30 for MainStage, it would be more economic to just buy those outright.

In future, the subscription may bring them new features that their bought versions don't get. But for now, existing Mac users have less to gain from Apple Creative Studio.

If you use the iPad apps

Up until now, no amount of cash could get you Pixelmator Pro on the iPad, so that is the standout best addition to the bundle and undeniably good. If you need it.

Yet you could well already be subscribing to Final Cut Pro, Logic Pro, or both on the iPad.

Apple has not yet said what will happen to those existing subscriptions. But unless users are allowed to stick with them, current subscribers are going to see a potentially significant price rise.

Final Cut Pro and Logic Pro each cost $4.99 per month on the iPad. Even if you use both of them, that means your cost rises from $9.98 to $12.99.

And of course if you only use one, tough. Your monthly bill just went up by $8.99.

For that, you do get Pixelmator Pro on the iPad, though. And you get all of the Mac apps.

So on the positive side, the new bundle is potentially a lower-cost route to many more apps across Mac and iPad. But it's definitely raising the price of the iPad app or apps that you already use.

Subscription versus purchase

Ever since Apple launched Final Cut Pro and Logic Pro as subscription apps on the iPad, it's seemed likely they would do the same with the Mac. Despite the decades of existing purchasers, or perhaps because of them, subscription gives Apple a lower upfront cost to offer new users.

But consider the prices. Alongside the main apps, Pixelmator Pro, Motion, and Compressor each cost $50, while MainStage is $30, all as one-time Mac purchases.

So the total value of Mac apps in the bundle is roughly $680. Ignoring how many creative users will already have bought the apps, it would take five years of subscribing to Apple Creator Studio before you were spending more than buying outright.

Then money is not the only factor here, because of this business of how much Apple has yet to tell us. As well as details of subscription changes now for existing users, very little has been said about the future of these apps.

Laptop screen displaying video editing software with multiple colorful clip thumbnails and a preview of a person standing among bright red geometric stairs against a clear sky.

There are also new features coming, such as Final Cut Pro gaining a visual search — image credit: Apple

You can't cherry pick apps

At least with the Apple One bundle of services, such as Apple TV and Apple News+, you have a certain amount of choice. There are tiers with different apps, for instance.

With the Apple Creator Studio, it's one bundle, take it or leave it.

In any usual bundle, there are elements that are less useful than others. Microsoft PowerPoint probably only became so ubiquitous because it was bundled in to Office with the Word and Excel that people actually wanted.

With Apple Creator Studio, it's going to be Final Cut Pro, Logic Pro, and Pixelmator Pro that drive sales. As great and useful as they are, Motion, Compressor, and MainStage are a little more niche.

Laptop screen displaying professional music production software with colorful audio tracks, virtual keyboard, patch list on the left, mixing console with sliders and meters on the right

Even if you're a Logic Pro user, you may never have considered buying the additional MainStage — image credit: Apple

Maybe they will see a PowerPoint-like halo effect and become more used, simply because they are there.

But in terms of what will attract users to the bundle, they are the Apple Arcade of the set.

Just personally

I have Final Cut Pro and Logic Pro for the Mac, and I utterly adore them both. Even when Logic Pro keeps crashing on me, it is still so powerful, so useful, that it remains a favorite.

So much so that I did get the trial month of Logic Pro for the iPad, and I did come away thinking that it was superbly well done. But for my use, especially since I have the Mac one, I couldn't justify the $4.99/month subscription for the iPad edition.

iPad screen showing a digital art app with layers panel and colorful artwork titled Fantastical Creatures Podcast, featuring a whimsical winged giraffe-like creature in a lush jungle setting

Seriously, Pixelmator Pro for iPad is very tempting — image credit: Apple

Originally I felt the same about Final Cut Pro on the iPad, except there for all its strengths, it also had weaknesses. I left both apps after the one-month trial, and only came back to subscribe to Final Cut Pro after I bought an M5 iPad Pro.

I really do not need Logic Pro for iPad. And I don't want to be effectively paying again for the Mac apps, especially since I already have all of them bar MainStage.

For me, then, it's going to come down to just how much I want Pixelmator Pro on the iPad. And how much I will use it, given that it's already in daily, even sometimes hourly use for me on my Mac.

If my previous use of the trials for Final Cut Pro and Logic Pro don't preclude me trying the new trial — Apple isn't clear yet — then I'll give it a go. I'll see how much I use the bundle during the month.

And I'll see just whether Pixelmator Pro really is as full-featured on the iPad as it is on the Mac.

That will decide me for now. But in future, whether the trial persuades me to subscribe or not, there is another issue.

Apple talks about new and extra features coming to Keynote, Pages, and Numbers, for subscribers to the Apple Creator Studio. On the one hand, I'm concerned that sooner or later, the free versions are going to seem handicapped next to the subscription ones.

But then, Apple's iWork apps are astonishingly underrated, and the fact that they are free is practically a crime. If I think they are already worth paying for, then I should also now think that this bundle is a good buy.

It may also mean that with revenue coming in more directly to the iWork team, the apps will get updated more often.