The competition for the Creator Studio is not exactly Adobe. Of course Apple will be happy to build on their offerings to be able to really take on Adobe, but this subscription is priced to compete with the online services popping up from nowhere that have stolen the ease of use market away from Adobe.
The real competition in this market in 2026 is Canva.
Canva, really? Is this looking forward at what is coming?
I see the rise of and have to deal with Canva-generated PDFs instead of Adobe Illustrator. So the low end market of video / animation, I could absolutely see Canva dominating. Doubt we'll see audio tools though.
Final Cut Pro -- Professional non-linear video editing
* Canva? Partial: Best for social clips; lacks FCP’s RAW, multicam, and AI transcript tools.
Logic Pro -- Professional music production and MIDI sequencing
* Canva? No: No DAW capabilities, plugin hosting, or live mixing.
Pixelmator Pro -- Advanced image editing and graphic design
* Canva? Partial: Good for templates; lacks Pixelmator’s precision layers and AI retouching.
I would assume it's because younger generations of creatives are using their software less and less, increasing the risk of losing the market completely on the software side. At this pricing, more of them will turn to paying Apple rather than paying for multiple services, keeping them tied into the ecosystem.
Also so many people are paying for Canva, Capcut etc that taking a piece of that cake is quite a low hanging fruit if you have a distribution platform.
Most of the comments here demonstrates the lack of abstraction abilities here at HN.
My comments weren’t related to whether apple has data centres or not (afaik they don’t and actually use google hardware).
My comments were related to a business model used by amazon to destroy local shops in our neighbourhoods: offer products at vastly reduced prices, making a loss but covering those losses by profiting on aws. Once there is no competition left, prices rise and shareholder profits are made.
Hence my conjecture that apple was doing the same and hence they were offering this product at undercut price. As was the OP was wondering about.
I was actually criticising the business model increasingly used by big tech. Which has the consequences that are neighbourhoods are emptied out and left with stores that act as amazon package pickup stores or stores where packages are returned to be sent back to amazon.
Pretty spot on. I think what's new is that Apple is employing this tactic, before they always went with "Our stuff is more expensive because it's better", but as they seem to slightly pivot into other directions now, this choice also seems to align with the new direction.
jonwinstanley|1 month ago
dylan604|1 month ago
philistine|1 month ago
The real competition in this market in 2026 is Canva.
tln|1 month ago
I see the rise of and have to deal with Canva-generated PDFs instead of Adobe Illustrator. So the low end market of video / animation, I could absolutely see Canva dominating. Doubt we'll see audio tools though.
Final Cut Pro -- Professional non-linear video editing * Canva? Partial: Best for social clips; lacks FCP’s RAW, multicam, and AI transcript tools.
Logic Pro -- Professional music production and MIDI sequencing * Canva? No: No DAW capabilities, plugin hosting, or live mixing.
Pixelmator Pro -- Advanced image editing and graphic design * Canva? Partial: Good for templates; lacks Pixelmator’s precision layers and AI retouching.
Motion -- 2D/3D motion graphics and cinematic effects * Canva? No: Canva uses presets; Motion offers granular keyframing and VFX creation.
Compressor -- Advanced media encoding and batch exporting * Canva? No: No control over specific codecs, bitrates, or pro output formats.
MainStage -- Live performance audio rig for stage use * Canva? No: No live audio processing or MIDI instrument hosting.
Keynote -- Cinematic presentations and slide decks * Canva? Yes: Canva’s primary competitor for collaborative, template-based slides.
Pages -- Word processing and page layout * Canva? Yes: Canva Docs is a direct alternative for visual/marketing documents.
Numbers -- Spreadsheets and data visualization * Canva? Yes: Canva Sheets handles basic data viz, though lacks Numbers' complex formulas.
brk|1 month ago
rchaud|1 month ago
Towaway69|1 month ago
Ah, yes - cross finance your loses by selling compute in your own data centres / hosting service because you can.
thecupisblue|1 month ago
Also so many people are paying for Canva, Capcut etc that taking a piece of that cake is quite a low hanging fruit if you have a distribution platform.
exitb|1 month ago
Towaway69|1 month ago
My comments weren’t related to whether apple has data centres or not (afaik they don’t and actually use google hardware).
My comments were related to a business model used by amazon to destroy local shops in our neighbourhoods: offer products at vastly reduced prices, making a loss but covering those losses by profiting on aws. Once there is no competition left, prices rise and shareholder profits are made.
Hence my conjecture that apple was doing the same and hence they were offering this product at undercut price. As was the OP was wondering about.
I was actually criticising the business model increasingly used by big tech. Which has the consequences that are neighbourhoods are emptied out and left with stores that act as amazon package pickup stores or stores where packages are returned to be sent back to amazon.
beernet|1 month ago
embedding-shape|1 month ago
crazygringo|1 month ago
nozzlegear|1 month ago