One of my favorite Mac apps is Pixelmator Pro, an image editing tool I use daily. On Friday, the company behind the app announced that Apple is acquiring it. While that sounds like great news for the Pixelmator team and Apple users, my first reaction was a sense of dread that an app I frequently use will be drastically different in the future or may no longer exist in its current form.
I started using Pixelmator primarily to escape Adobe’s subscription-only model for Photoshop. Pixelmator is available for a one-time purchase of $50, which is much friendlier to my wallet than Photoshop’s $20 per month or Photoshop Elements’ $100 for a “3-year term license,” whatever that means.
I also wanted to support the Pixelmator team in making Mac-only apps. While developers can make a living as a Mac-only developer, the market isn’t as big as Windows, or even iOS. The Pixelmator team makes top-notch software and they deserve as much support as they can get.
When I first started using Pixelmator Pro instead of Photoshop, I had a lot to learn about the app’s user interface. After using Photoshop for years, undoing all that muscle memory took time. But it helped that Pixelmator Pro has a great UI that makes sense, and it didn’t take long to get comfortable. But now, with the acquisition news, I’m afraid that’s all going to be thrown out the window. Pixelmator Pro isn’t going to change “at this time,” says the Pixelmator Team. That’s not very reassuring.
My major concern is that the one-time purchase plan is going to disappear. Apple’s Final Cut Pro and Logic Pro are one-time purchase Mac apps, so there’s hope that this will be the case with Apple Pixelmator Pro. But the iPad versions of Apple’s Pro apps are subscription purchases, so there’s a recent precedent of Apple implementing such purchase plans. Apple’s Services revenue is valuable to its bottom line and making its Mac apps subscription-based is something the company could do to help Services revenue grow.
Final Cut Pro and Logic Pro were Apple acquisitions, but Apple didn’t have a presence in those software categories in the first place. They do with Pixelmator and Photos, so my other concern is unfounded and far-fetched, but what if Apple decides to end Pixelmator as a stand-alone app and incorporate it into the Photos app, possibly as a paid Photos+ option? That’s not ideal—Photos is an app for maintaining your photo library, and it’s not ideal for my work. What makes more sense is if Apple incorporated the Photomator app into Photos and left Pixelmator as its own app.
Overall, this seems like good news for the Pixelmator Team–Apple made a great acquisition and I’m happy to see them succeed. But let this be my plea to Apple to keep Pixelmator Pro as an affordable, stand-alone app that I can rely on for years and years.