Apple has long made its own productivity apps completely free to use on any of its hardware, but that’s about to change.
While core features will remain free, Pages, Numbers, Keynote, and Freeform are set to get AI and premium content which will require a paid subscription …
Apple hasn’t yet provided full details but included the information in its Apple Creator Studio announcement.
Exciting new intelligent features and premium content build on familiar experiences of Final Cut Pro, Logic Pro, Pixelmator Pro, Keynote, Pages, Numbers, and later Freeform to make Apple Creator Studio an exciting subscription suite to empower creators of all disciplines while protecting their privacy.
With Keynote, Pages, Numbers, and Freeform, Apple Creator Studio subscribers can be more expressive and productive with new premium content and intelligent features across Mac, iPad, and iPhone.
The company gets a little more specific further in.
A subscription also unlocks new premium templates and themes in Keynote, Pages, and Numbers. The Content Hub — accessible from Keynote, Pages, and Numbers — brings Apple Creator Studio subscribers access to an all-new, high-quality media library.
Top comment by PurplePumpkin
I will be moving to Mac in about 3 months time after over 30 years of Windows use and I want to adopt as much of the Apple ecosystem as I can. For instance I plan to move my email to iCloud+ because it will make it more convenient to use my own domain and the hide-my-email feature looks good. I was also excited about moving my spreadsheets to Numbers, I was even willing to redo some of them from scratch to take advantage of Numbers’ much more flexible layout capabilities and because I actually enjoy that stuff, until I discovered how functionally deficient Numbers is in terms of macros, named functions & built-in VBA-like programming language. I can’t recreate the functionality of my more complicated Excel spreadsheets in Numbers due to the Numbers limitations.
I’m not interested in extra AI features, more visual templates etc but I would be willing to pay a premium supplement for a Numbers that had the missing capabilities mentioned above.
Apple does provide reassurance that core features will remain free, with no subscription requirement.
Keynote, Pages, Numbers, and Freeform will remain free for all users to create, edit, and collaborate with others.
9to5Mac’s Take
My reading of this, and my expectation, is that you will be able to continue to use Apple’s productivity apps in exactly the same way you do today, and all of the existing features will be included. You’ll only need to subscribe if you want to use new visual-focused content, and that’s only likely to be the case if the Apple Creator Studio subscription makes sense to you for the Final Cut Pro, Logic Pro, and Pixelmator package.
It’s also worth noting that you will still be able to buy the Mac versions of those creative apps as a one-time purchase.
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