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It feels like everything is “for rent” in 2026. Subscription fees are increasingly part of the present and future of technology, from streaming to AI to cloud storage to app access. Apple has shifted to a more subscription-focused approach, which is new Creator Studio Suite It’s just another side of him. But I’m not the right customer.
Apple introduced subscriptions for its professional-level creative apps when Final Cut Pro and Logic Pro were launched in iPad In 2023. At that time, I saw some appeal In those paid apps via the free iMovie and GarageBand apps. $5 a month seems like a good way to rent extra power if you need it.
Apple now offers a suite of creative apps for $13 per month in a single subscription. These apps work on both Mac and iPad and add more AI features to existing free apps like Keynote.
I’m not a fan of any of this, partly because I’m already paying a lot of subscription fees, but then again, I’m also not the target audience.
I don’t currently edit videos. I don’t make music. I rarely edit complex images. And if I did, would I want to spend endless money on a whole bunch of apps to do it?
I think I prefer the option of picking and choosing which apps I want to purchase.
Pixelmator Pro is finally available on iPad, but for rent, not purchase.
Applications for rent
The price of $13 a month or $130 a year is not trivial. It allows for family sharing, and the teacher and student discount pushes the price down to $3 per month or $30 per year, which is very reasonable. You can also get three months of service for free when you buy a new Mac or iPad.
But this is clearly where the entire software landscape is creeping in, especially with AI. This also seems to be where Google, Adobe, Microsoft, and perhaps even Meta are headed.
I have gone way beyond my socialist limit. I’m used to subscriptions to gaming consoles and health wearables. I already pay hefty monthly fees for cloud storage and services from Apple through the Apple One. And now this too? I complained about this Back in 2019, and it has gotten much worse since then.
I tried playing with these new apps briefly on my M5 iPad Pro over the past week, just to see how they felt. Honestly, I was lost. Although I’m sorry to admit it, Pro Apps can be complicated. Apple has tutorials to explore, and I’m sure I can figure things out with experience, but these more complex combinations seem ambitious at best to me.
If I really wanted to get into video editing and music creation, free apps would be a perfect fit.
I’m happy for those who have been waiting for Pixelmator Pro to finally become an iPad app, but I don’t like it being subscription-only. There are other photo editing and creation apps on the iPad already, including the original Pixelmator, which hasn’t gotten any further updates.
Final Cut Pro, Logic Pro, Pixelmator Pro, and AI-enhanced versions of Numbers, Pages, and Keynote for iPadOS are included with your subscription. On Macs, you get all of these apps, plus Motion, Compressor, and MainStage, which are additional tools for compressing music, graphics, and video. But on Mac, you can purchase these apps separately. If you’re likely to use it a lot, it may be better to go this route.
Where exactly does Vision Pro fit into this suite of apps?
Not enough for the iPad, and nothing for the Vision Pro
So, for me really, it’s the return of the eternal question: Are these devices worth the iPad? You need an iPad with an M-series chip (or one of the existing iPads or iPad Minis) to use these apps, which cover most available models.
No, I don’t think you need these. Me, no. I’d rather Apple find a way to put all of its Mac Pro creative apps on the iPad, which runs on the same processors as the Mac. This has not quite happened yet.
As a final note, I’m confused as to why these apps aren’t optimized to fit Vision Pro headphone. The Vision Pro can run some of these apps in iPadOS formats, but without the additional features. Or you can wear the Vision Pro, connected to your Mac, and use it as a multi-thousand-dollar extended display for your face.
The $3,500 Vision Pro is a PC for pros, according to Apple, and with the M5 chip, it should power Pro tools like this with all sorts of vision-ready enhancements. That hasn’t happened yet — another clear sign that, for Apple, Macs are the true professional computers. Then the iPad, and perhaps one day the Vision Pro, will get the same pro consideration.