Ask Paul: January 16 ⭐

Happy Friday! We got back late from Acapulco, had an earthquake alarm go off at 12:45 am, and everything is just great. But let's kick off this weekend a bit early with some great reader questions. I'm going to need a nap after this.
? There's only one thing creative about Creator Studio
spacecamel asks:

Looking at the pro subscription that Apple announce this week, I think the iWork part could be a bigger deal than people realize. They announce the Google AI integration and if they can get it to the point where Copilot is for office, having those tools for 13 a month is much cheaper than any of the other services. Plus you get some really good other pro software and can share the all of the AI with the whole family. This seems like a good deal.

I was going to write about this separately, but since you ask. Apologies if this feels overly negative, I know some see this thing and think it's great.

But.

I don't understand Creator Studio. At all. Well, beyond Apple's need to continue goosing its Services numbers via yet another monthly subscription.

Look, I know things have changed. I know Steve Jobs isn't with us anymore and that the current leadership at Apple is about revenues leading design rather than the reverse. And I'm also aware that Jobs was problematic for all kinds of reasons. But one of the things he would repeat regularly that I took to heart was that Apple was about making great products and if the customer base agreed, they would pay to own them. In other words, design was leading revenues. And while there were all kinds of ways in which this surfaced in real-world ways, the one that's most relevant here is, you pay a bit extra perhaps for the quality of an Apple product, but in doing so, you also got more. And among those things you got were free OS updates, free iLife tools, and free iWork apps. The pro apps were expensive because they were pro apps, but they were also one-time payments.

Yes, you still get all that today (though one worries about the pro apps). I know. But this expansion into more and more ways to keep paying Apple money every single month is troubling. And now we're reaching a point that Microsoft reached 25+ years ago when it arbitrarily created Windows SKUs (product editions), arbitrarily had to decide which features were or were not in each, and then kept expanding the number of options until it was so confusing that no one understood what was what.

I don't understand a world in which the iWork apps are free but I can pay every single month to get a handful of additional features. This is the same issue I have with Microsoft 365 Copilot: Those are just features of a thing I am already paying for, so they should just be included.

I don't understand a world in which a handful of new features for iWork apps are in a bundle with a handful of new features for high-end creator apps like Final Cut Pro. They have nothing in common.

I don't understand a world in which one can pay Apple...