Apple kicked off 2026 by announcing Creator Studio, a selection of ‘pro’ apps – including longstanding Apple services like Final Cut Pro – combined into a monthly subscription service. Think of it like Apple’s answer to Adobe’s very popular Creative Cloud.
For £12.99/$12.99 (or far less for students, which I will get into later) a month, or £129/$129 a year, you get the following apps for macOS: Final Cut Pro, Logic Pro, Motion, Compressor, Pixelmator Pro, Mainstage, plus ‘Premium’ versions of stalwart apps like Keynote, Pages, Numbers and Freeform.
These premium editions tend to include some extras, like in Pages you get some quite nice templates – but it certainly doesn’t reinvent the app.
It’s great to see iPad versions of available apps included too, like Final Cut Pro, Pixelmator Pro, and Logic Pro. While both Final Cut Pro and Logic Pro have been available for some time on Apple’s best tablets, they’re now a little more accessible for those who plan on using the desktop version.
The most interesting app, at least for me, is Pixelmator Pro. This is a service Apple acquired in 2025, and this is the first time it’s been formally listed as one of Apple’s core Pro apps. It’s also the first time the very capable Photoshop alternative is available on the iPad, with feature parity to the desktop version.
One slight drawback is that while legacy users of the desktop app will still be able to use it, the only way to get the iPad version is through the subscription – you can’t subscribe to it on its own, and you won’t be able to pay a one-off fee to get the app. This sets it apart from apps like Final Cut Pro and Logic Pro, which will still be available to buy on their own through the App Store.
So, with Creator Studio now available to download and subscribe to, how good is it? Ahead of launch, I’ve had the chance to take the apps for something of a test drive on both Mac and iPad.
How do the apps perform?
The two most important apps in this bundle are Final Cut Pro and Pixelmator Pro. These are Apple’s rivals to Adobe’s Premiere and Photoshop for video editing and photo manipulation respectively, and are the ones I have used the most during this process.
Both apps are existing services, so it’s not like Apple is starting afresh. If you used Final Cut Pro before, it’s the same here. The same with Logic Pro, and so on. This isn’t a radical new version of the app, for instance, so how you get on with it will really depend on what you’ve used before and how familiar you are with it.
One standout feature in Final Cut Pro, across both Mac and iPad, is Transcript Search. If you know there’s a particularly specific soundbite you’re after buried inside a clip somewhere, you can now use natural language to directly search for that clip, rather than sifting through the footage. The same thing can happen with objects, through Visual Search.
There is, of course, an essence of AI floating around. A Beat Detection feature in Final Cut Pro uses an AI model from Logic Pro to analyse a track and make the beat easier to line up with a clip.
On the iPad, Final Cut Pro has a Montage Maker feature that, again, uses AI to give you a head start by automatically combining relevant clips into a timeline. It’s nothing we haven’t seen before, but it’s there for those who want to use the iPad app as a quicker way to approach video editing.
Pixelmator Pro feels built for the iPad and the Apple Pencil, and with an app like this, I gravitated more towards using it on a screen I could touch and interact with rather than a Mac. Moving through layers and working with colours is far more natural this way.
It’s fast, fluid and intuitive with some neat features that I can see myself using far past the review period. A Pixelmator staple, Super Resolution, can upscale photos impressively and it’s nice having this, finally, on an iPad.
There’s definitely a spread of apps here, and I’m sure many users will, like me, stick to a favoured selection. Apple could possibly allow people to, in a similar way to Adobe, subscribe to a few apps – like Pixelmator Pro and Final Cut Pro – solely, rather than bundling in services they might never use.
There is one service missing
The omission from the Creator Studio bundle and the one reason that’ll likely stop many from ditching Creative Cloud completely is the lack of a true Lightroom alternative. Yes, Pixelmator Pro does allow for photo editing, but it doesn’t let you build out a library of organised shots like Adobe’s rival does.
At one stage, Apple had a ‘Pro’ photo editing and cataloguing app called Aperture (I used it a lot, and enjoyed it while it existed); however, this was ditched in 2014, with some of the features rolled into the redesigned Photos app. Photos is good, but it’s not as deep and fully-featured as either Aperture or Lightroom.
Pixelmator also has an app called Photomator, which is now under Apple’s control, so it seems like an obvious move that at some point this service will include such an app – it’s just a shame that it isn’t here to begin with.
Is it good value for money?
If you’re keen to get started in video editing, photo manipulation or music production, this is a strong starting point, and at a price that doesn’t feel too egregious. All these apps are fully formed and capable, and I appreciate the feature parity between the Mac and iPad versions.
Some of the AI features inside Final Cut Pro, for instance, work well, and it’s good to have Pixelmator Pro properly part of the Pro Apple app stable, as it’s an app I really like.
Now, where I think this service will really shine is for those who take advantage of the student pricing. For just £2.99/$2.99 or £29/$29 a year, students are getting an absolute bargain here that is currently unmatched. Of course, you do need the hardware to run all the apps, but if you do, then this is a service I would have definitely subscribed to when I was a student.
On the whole, I like what Apple has done, and the price feels, for the most part, fair. Although this will really depend on how many of the apps and services you will use.
If you’ll use them all, then great – this is a bargain. It is a shame that there’s no way to just buy Pixelmator Pro on the iPad on its own, and the service isn’t properly complete without a Lightroom rival, but as a starting point, there’s a lot to like here.
