[jomohke]

My initial assumption is that this is more about Photomator than Pixelmator (ie. their Lightroom alternative rather than their Photoshop alternative).

Photomator has shown that you can add a lot of professional-level editing control to an Apple-Photos-like interface without making it difficult to use.

Their ML team also seems quite good — for instance, their spot/object removal tool was often more reliable for me than the one in Lightroom, despite being from a far smaller team than Adobe.

(I also feel that Photoshop has reduced in cultural significance in recent years, and that Lightroom is the more significant tool going forward, but that could reflect my own bubble)