[jasoneckert]

The most important benefits in my opinion are choice and price - people like me who prefer to buy software outright can still do so at a reasonable cost, while others who opt for a subscription can also do so (again, at a reasonable cost).

[embedding-shape]

It's pretty clever that they keep the "pay one time" option still alive while announcing the availability of subscription, so anyone who says "Boo, not you too Apple" can easily be shut down with "You still have the option to buy it!" instead of leaving those critics without answers. Of course, they'll eventually remove the option to buy the software by paying once, I think everyone can see the writing on the wall, but still clever of them to choose to do it later for PR purposes. 1-0 to Apple :)

[alwa]

Final Cut Pro X has been available for purchase (at the same price, IIRC) for well over a decade now. Pro feathers were ruffled at the time they leapt from FCP7 to FCPX: the $299 price point was something like 1/4 of the going rate for its predecessors, was Apple planning to abandon its pros for the consumer market? Well. Here we are almost 15 years later, and if you paid the one-time price back then, you're still getting free updates today (at least on desktop). And you can still buy in with 299 2025 dollars, rather than 299 2011 dollars.

At the time, the common wisdom was that they'd go the same route as Adobe: you'd have to buy Final Cut X+1 in a couple years for another $299, and Final Cut X+2 a couple years after that... to their credit, that's not the way it's gone.

So that way, I imagine, all the film folks have a little more money to chuck at their high-powered Mac hardware budgets in the next refresh cycle instead... An evergreen Final Cut Pro license costs almost as much as 1TB of SSD from those guys!

[raw_anon_1111]

Office 365 - the subscription version of Office - was released in 2011.

Microsoft still offers a one time purchase of Office. There is precedent for Bigcorp keeping a one time purchase version and offer a prescription.

[alwillis]

> Of course, they'll eventually remove the option to buy the software by paying once, I think everyone can see the writing on the wall

There's no indication Apple is planning to end the option of paying once for these apps.

Apple introduced subscriptions for Final Cut and Logic nearly three years ago [1]; this isn't new by any means. Pages, Numbers and Keynote remain available at no cost.

[1]: https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2023/05/apple-brings-final-cu...

[smugma]

Many years ago Apple reduced their pricing on many of these apps. They also made their OS updates free.

Apple wants its customers to buy/subscribe to these tools so that you’re in the Apple ecosystem and buy more hardware and services.

Unlike Adobe, they have profit-maximizing incentives to let you stay on the buy/rent model that you prefer.

[whycome]

Why do you think they will remove the option to buy the software? They’ve kept the model for years. They’re targeting different audiences with the move.

[groundzeros2015]

You are complaining about a problem that hasn’t happened yet and there is no inherent reason it will happen.

[dabinat]

There are features they are planning to make exclusive to the subscriptions. I don’t know if they’re planning to make the one-time purchase go away completely, but it seems like it’s going to be approached as the “lesser” option.

https://www.macrumors.com/2026/01/13/apple-creator-studio-ex...

[philipallstar]

> so anyone who says "Boo, not you too Apple" can easily be shut down with "You still have the option to buy it!" instead of leaving those critics without answers

This is like saying that it's clever for Mars to keep Mars Bars while launching a new bar, as it "shuts down" complaints that Mars Bars will no longer exist.

[drdaeman]

Not Apple, but iMazing switched to subscription model and they simply lost me as a customer.

JetBrains tried something similar a while ago too, and almost screwed it up - but managed to listen to their customers and nailed it with the perpetual fallback licensing. Making me not just pay the subscription but feel respect to the company.

YMMV, of course.

[handsclean]

The other thing that’s going to go away is purchasing only what you need. I want exactly one of these apps, I bet virtually nobody uses all of them, and yet the suckers are going to be telling us that being made to buy stuff we don’t want or use is “more value”.

[wilg]

I think it's okay, or even better probably, if they move to subscription only. All Apple's paid apps have languished for years and if its actually a revenue stream for them maybe they'll actually make them industry-leading again.

[dopamean]

This is such a strange way to think about what was done. Rather than just being happy they kept the pay once option and saying that's good you're imagining critics who how Apple can "shut them down."

[SunshineTheCat]

Yea I've already purchased some of these apps so I was not going to thrilled if they pulled an Adobe and made me pay for an overpriced subscription on top of it >:(

[carlosjobim]

> It's pretty clever that they keep the "pay one time" option still alive while announcing the availability of subscription, so anyone who says "Boo, not you too Apple" can easily be shut down with "You still have the option to buy it!"

Probably not. Those customers are almost completely irrelevant and not people who Apple or anybody else cares about. They won't mind if you kick and scream.

[tshaddox]

Yes, shame on them for only making good decisions now, instead of in the future.

[fooqux]

> but still clever of them to choose to do it later for PR purposes. 1-0 to Apple :)

They're doing it because it makes them more money. Corporations are not your friend.

[dylan604]

So what about next year when all of the apps receive updates/upgrades? Will the paid-in-full versions receive the upgrade for free, or will they have upgrade prices? I remember the days of Adobe's annual version upgrades, and they were at least $99 per app. Using that as the basis, the Adobe subscription plan is not more expensive that just broken up into 12 payments. People that kept running v4 to avoid the upgrade prices eventually got left out as they could not open files provided to them from others using the most recent version. Let's not forget our history on the one-time purchase pros/cons

[wrs]

These apps have provided free updates after initial purchase for many years already. It would be big news if that stopped.

[larkost]

These are being sold on Apple's AppStore, and there the model is that you get all of the updates for that App. Of course there is the work-around that some apps use, which is to create a new App (i.e.: MyApp vs MyApp2), which Apple could do at some point in the future.

The best one to watch at the moment is if Pixelmater Pro license holders from before it was bought by Apple get access to any of the new improvements.

[concinds]

All companies should do this. Sometimes I want a one-time purchase. Sometimes I want to try the program for a few months and I prefer a cheap subscription over a big upfront cost. And very, very rarely, I'll prefer the subscription, even though it's more expensive over time, to support a cool indie studio with recurring revenue instead of one-time purchases that may dry up and lead to lack of interest from the devs.

[dylan604]

This is my argument for the Adobe subscription. One day, I'm a photographer needing apps like Photoshop and Lightroom and After Effects (because I do a lot of timelapse). One day, I'm a graphic designer, so I need Photoshop and Illustrator. One day, I'm an editor, so Photoshop, Premiere, Illustrator, and After Effects. One day, I'm doing desktop publishing with Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign.

[schappim]

This isn’t the whole story as one-time purchases will no longer have access to all new features without a subscription [1].

1. https://www.macrumors.com/2026/01/13/apple-creator-studio-ex...

[NBJack]

For now. Let's not forget MS Office had a period like that as well. I give it five years max.

[Someone1234]

For *now.

Adobe also started out as a choice between subscription or buying. The only thing maybe keeping Apple honest is that their stuff isn't as popular.

[iAMkenough]

Except certain features in the software will be reserved for subscribers only.