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Comment by oger | Hacker News Reader

Interesting: Apple is moving their apps to a subscription model.

„ Pricing and Availability Starting Tuesday, May 23, Final Cut Pro and Logic Pro for iPad will each be available on the App Store for $4.99 (US) per month or $49 (US) per year with a one-month free trial.8 Final Cut Pro is compatible with M1 chip iPad models or later, and Logic Pro will be available on A12 Bionic chip iPad models or later. Final Cut Pro for iPad and Logic Pro for iPad require iPadOS 16.4. For more information, visit apple.com/final-cut-pro-for-ipad and apple.com/logic-pro-for-ipad.“

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It'd be interesting to see them modify their Apple One tiers.

Split out Premier to a "Premier home" tier (keeping News+ and Fitness+) and a "Pro" tier at the same price that gives you 4TB of iCloud Drive + Logic and Final Cut instead of the 2TB/News/Fitness option.

I'm not certain, but I think Apple including video editing software in a subscription called "Premier Pro" might anger Adobe's lawyers.

Some people just want to watch the world burn.

It would be mighty entertaining see Adobe calling Apple out.

There's a certain humor to the idea of Final Cut Pro being relegated to the Premier Pro subscription lol.

Apple needs to at least adjust their iCloud storage tiers to match their phones. The jump from 200GB to 2TB is ridiculous and feels like extortion. The 50GB -> 200GB is also ridiculous because it can't even support a full backup of their base 64GB iPhone.

Your Backup does't include your all of your iOS and App Installation. So a 50GB in most cases should be able to backup a 64GB iPhone unless it is all Photos.

They charge the same as MS and google afaik for cloud storage so it's hard to complain.

I wonder what the fallout will look like if they make Logic on the desktop subscription based. The DAW / audio plugin community at large have resisted subscriptions quite ferociously. And considering how competitive the space is, I could see a lot of people jumping ship based on this alone.

Jump ship to what exactly? A product that costs less than one Frappuccino per month?

One of the numerous other DAW's on the market? It's less about the cost, and more about the fact that it's a subscription.

If I had a subscription for every company that I own audio plugins from, I'd pull my hair out.

They could offer both like Microsoft does with Office now - and eventually everyone will move over.

Office still offers a permanent license.

It's interesting as they was a big uproar weeks ago when audio plugins developer Waves tried to move to a subscription only model (they caved in four days).

There's a big difference in earned trust. Waves has had scummy business practices for a long time - price gouging back in the day, and more recently, an "upgrade plan" that amounts to a barely optional subscription already. That is, unless you don't want bug fixes, M1 compatibility, etc.

They also have perpetual sales cycles that only serve to trick new customers into thinking the sale price is actually a deal and not just the normal price (this is not exclusive to Waves but they do it more broadly and more often than anyone else except for Plugin Alliance).

In other words, Waves is the used car salesman of the audio plugin world. Certainly not alone in that, but way less trustworthy than a big player like Apple. Who knows what they'd try to pull this time. THAT is the sentiment behind the recent uproar.

This seems like a silly comparison. Obviously the people buying Wavves plugins trust them enough to buy the software. Wavves has always been a little scummy, sure, but it's not like Apple is a guardian angel themselves. They saw an opportunity to make money, and Tim Cook made the predictable move of pushing the "service" button on a new software product.

All of these companies are making the wrong decision, and refusing to stand by their products because their runtime is too fragile to stay put. Apple is complicit in this problem, and uses it as an excuse to sell you more services than products. They could work to solve the issue of subscription software being required for perpetual update models - but they don't. They are put in a position where perverse incentives (like the App Store monopoly) is their de-facto solution. This is bad for users. It's why I left the ecosystem and how Apple burned their "trust" with me.

> trick new customers into thinking the sale price is actually a deal

Wow, it's almost like you're describing Apple's "sale" model verbatim. Constantly offer 5-10% discounts at big-box stores to make people think they're getting good deals, and unload used models with upsell marketing like "factory refurbished" or some such language.

Which one of them are you comparing to the car salesman again?

You're not wrong about Waves. But, I'd argue that one of Logic's most appealing features is it's low one-time price. You could have bought Logic 10.0 ten years ago, and upgraded it all the way to 10.7.5 (current release), and paid $0.

Otherwise, it's feature set is really nothing special relative to other DAW's. And, if you're into making electronic music, it's pretty lackluster compared to Ableton or Bitwig (imo, of course). Plus, the whole no VST's bit. Which is less of an issue these days, but still.

What makes logic lackluster in your opinion for electronic music?

$49 a year is pretty affordable for what you'd get.

Interesting change, I do wonder if the Mac apps will follow suit.

My guess, based on the fact that Logic Pro and FCP, in the nicest way I can say this, haven't had any meaningful core upgrades in a while, is that they're planning some fairly major updates on macOS for both and the plan is to release them as new, subscription-only versions later this year.

Glad I moved to Reaper, then.

Mind you, I'm still running Final Cut for video making. Hope I don't have to bail on that too. I'll keep running the version I have, but much like I don't use Adobe at all, I won't run such a program if I have to rent it.

Exception, XCode :D most certainly have to pay yearly for that! But I view it as paying for authorization as an Apple dev, not so much as 'for the app itself'.

You can download XCode without a dev membership, so you're definitely not paying for it either way.

Being a full time iOS engineer means having to tell folks it is “Xcode” not “XCode” every time see it.

Damn if you're not right. I stand corrected. I wonder why I thought I needed to mentally camel-case it? Is that what it was? Was it ever capitalized this way or have I been making it up this whole time?

I think it's Mandela Effect. I don't know of any other words that can have the letters 'Xc' in sequence in a capitalized word, so my brain must just reject the idea even though I've literally seen it over and over right in front of my eyes.

That's super interesting. having to pay for "authorization as an Apple dev" to me is a much, much larger outrage than having to rent an editor.

Platforms are weird. I'm a Godot user, but have made a game on Unity and have downloaded the Unreal environment. There are circumstances where I have to give all those entities a cut of whatever I do (except Godot is MIT-licensed open source, so I'm not restricted by them very much at all).

It's a bit like paying for access to Apple's Gatekeeper system? Without their involvement, I can't circumvent their code signing systems, so in some ways it seems to me like it's a given that if I code for their platform, I'm expected to pay for access to their security system that checks my submissions for malware. I could code stuff purely on the Unix layer to run in Terminal or something like that, but then I would clearly be an outsider with no association with Apple's 'walled garden'. The cost of entry to being considered inside the 'walled garden' and safe to use, is not just willingness to have my code audited and code-signed if it's safe to run, it's also paying for engagement with those systems.

I feel like if Apple both did that and prohibited use of any other dev software, it would flip something for me and I would be adamantly against their practice. Since it's for access to a class of developer that's meant to be treated as privileged and Apple-approved, it doesn't bug me to pay $100 a year. I would be distressed if I had to cough up $1000, and if it was $10,000 a year I might not be able to continue the practice.

You don't have to pay for Xcode, only for if you want to submit to an app store

don't you also have to pay if you want to load your app on your device? (aka side-load) So yeah you could dev with the emulator for free, but even if the app is by you and only for you, you have to pay

Updates to Logic have always been a bit slow though…

That said, if a paid subscription meant that Logic (macOS) got more love and more frequent updates, I’d happily pay for it.

Are we talking about the same Logic Pro? https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT203718 shows quite a lot of activity of the last 2 years. Idk what you consider a "meaningful core upgrade".

Those are just releases that improve/change some small workflow stuff, fix bugs, or add minor or niche features like "Spatial Audio mixing with Dolby Atmos" that Apple cares about more than most producers do. The change lists look huge, but if you lose closer its all minor stuff.

The last release with a meaningful core update was 10.5 (May 2020) - the one that introduced Live Loops, major new devices like the new sampler, etc.

If it was a regular company selling its software, 10.5 would have been a paid update/major new version, and 10.6 and 10.7 would have been point updates.

> niche features like "Spatial Audio mixing with Dolby Atmos" that Apple cares about more than most producers do

People do care about it and it's why Logic and Pro Tools are the only game in town for people who aren't making EDM.

It's nice, but I wouldn't go that far. Professionals who mix for Dolby Atmos do it with a Dolby-approved system, not their Atmos-certified home theater or Airpods Pro. For the prosumer market, it's mostly a gimmick to promote Apple Music.

It's not necessarily a bad playback platform, but neither is an Xbox with 5.1 surround hooked up. Apple's commitment to surround sound is far from revolutionary.

Well, for a $200 app that was feature complete when I bought it, I am not at all sure what I'd want them to do with it. It'd be a really hard sell to go from almost a decade of "free and professional" to a subscription model- I'd much rather have them just keep maintaining the software exactly as is so I can use it when I buy my next MBP in 2026.

So I am a bit skeptical that your prediction is accurate. But I can't tell the future and I don't know folks at Apple so maybe you know something I don't.

You’re probably going to be pushed into it over time. Whether it’s because they will make it incompatible with newer plugins, or because they will make newer hardware incompatible with older Logic.

FWIW, I’m in your boat too. Logic is a PERFECT DAW for me the way it is. I would be so sad to have to switch to Reaper or something, and have to go hunt for plugins..

Logic is the only thing tying me to the Mac, so I guess that’s a plus.

That is a relatable worry.

On one hand, I do enough work that the price of Abelton (which is what I'd move to if that happened) isn't a big deal so unless there simply is no non-subscription tool I can use I'll be okay.

However, I remain hopeful. It's a 30 year old piece of software and my understanding of Apple's model for it is to drive hardware sales seems reasonable to me.

That was my thinking too.

I don't know about Final Cut, but I do know lots of Logic users in the media composing world. Some will keep using it no matter what but plenty will leave for Cubase or Studio One if Apple forces a subscription on them. And Logic is probably the reason they buy Macs for producing music...

It would be a terrible move by Apple.

As someone who uses these professional apps, maybe two or three times a year, the subscription prices would be an absolute blessing. The critical point is that there should be no reason for Apple to sunset the existing price. Surely they can do both. Offer a perpetual license to anyone who wants it. Offer a subscription price to anyone who wants it.

That said, a dual pricing model can get unstuck depending on the future development path of the app. Does the perpetual license include the next major version? What is the price of a major version upgrade? How does that compare to the value of the subscription price?

Still strange that apps that work fully locally and thus don't entail any running costs are a subscription. Adobe did it first but they at least threw in some cloud stuff (that no one uses) to try to justify the subscription.

How is that strange? What about maintenance and regular updates?

What happened with people using one single version of something for 10 years? If there's a major update, it's a separate product that's a paid upgrade. We've had that figured out since the 90s. And quality software doesn't need maintenance.

FCP and Logic are highly optimized for Apple's CPU and GPUs. They fully utilize all cores and operate in a way that won't bring the general OS to a grinding halt if you're encoding in the background. Additionally, Apple updates these to provide all the latest video and audio encoding available on their devices.

Doing all of this requires significant engineering and licensing (Dolby) that comes at a cost.

Sure but none of that should fall under "maintenance". Apple makes a new SoC and needs to optimize Logic for it? Fine, issue a paid upgrade but make it optional since it has 0 impact on my M1 Mac. They add a new feature like Dolby support? Again, make the update optional if it's paid since a lot of people (me incl) don't care about it. The entire point is to not cut off access to one's offline workflow if money is tight which is absolutely possible for tools like Logic and FinalCut.

What is the difference between maintenance and regular updates? If I for software it should be complete, correct, and secure.

No new features? Fair enough.

I’m generally okay with subscriptions for software without running costs if I get to keep using the last version I paid for when I cancel.

Paying hundreds of pounds and having nothing to show for it is fucking lame.

People are broke and too undisciplined to save up even a little money, so normal software prices look huge in their eyes. That's why subscriptions and splitting a purchase is coming to everything now. It won't take long before the cashier in your local supermarket will ask you if you want to pay everything at once or divide after ringing up your stuff.

That's what literally happens in Brazil, where you can even pay gas on a card and have it split into multiple payments.

It won't take long before the cashier in your local supermarket will ask you if you want to pay everything at once or divide after ringing up your stuff.

You mean like with a credit card?

or AfterPay?

Yes, but more integrated with the store/merchant - and without interest.

> That's why subscriptions and splitting a purchase is coming to everything now.

Maybe that's a factor, and in this particular case a reasonably large one, but I'd guess it's because subscription revenue is the holy grail for modern software. People end up spending way, way more than they would have, often forgetting about the subscription and paying for it when they don't even use it, and the revenue is predictable and stable. There aren't any downsides for the company, and the question of ethics is irrelevant to them

The downside is that the company has a responsibility for delivering software that is working as long as the subscription is being paid. Contrast that to pay-once software, where maybe you might not get much help if you can't get the product to work - depending on the seller.

Agree. Once off purchases have to focus more on sales and then who cares what the user thinks after. Subscription software must continually justify it's existence against the competitor since the user can jump ship at any time for free.

Aren't our supplies already a subscription? Like we don't purchase lifetime, and we already have credit cards/Monthly installments for any big purchases, at least in my country EMI(Easy monthly installments) is already huge.

Yes, in some countries this is already the norm. It will become the global norm and it will be for almost every purchase except the smallest for the majority of the population.

>People are broke and too undisciplined to save up even a little money, so normal software prices look huge in their eyes. That's why subscriptions and splitting a purchase is coming to everything now.

Or people don't want to have to continuously pay to have access to some latest version, and prefer to update when they feel like it and need some new feature, not always.

Producers and video editors especially hate to have to upgrade.

As for subscriptions, they have made the total yearly cost for getting a product much higher in many cases (doubled it in the case of some software), and made you lose your software any time you have to prioritize something else over its payment, like a medical emergency...

> Or people don't want to have to continuously pay to have access to some latest version, and prefer to update when they feel like it and need some new feature, not always.

These people are not the target group for subscriptions, nor are they the majority. For large swatches of potential customers there are only two options that they accept: 1) Free or pirated 2) Low monthly value subscription.

> These people are not the target group for subscriptions, nor are they the majority.

The iPad app will only be available with a subscription.

This majority which does not prefer subscriptions do not have the option for "high cost one-time purchase".

I highly suspect Apple considered the market for one-time purchases too small to bother with, right or wrong. People think and behave different around purchases when it's on an ipad, even if they by now are powerful devices.

I highly suspect Apple (like all these companies, Adobe first and foremost) merely consider the elasticity of demand when they force their customers to the subscription model.

They also factor in heavily the securing of recurring income to impress their shareholders.

The needs or desires of customers are never considered. Just whether enough of them suckers would yield to a subscription model.

Of course they think about their profits and shareholders. But nobody is forced to get the software, they can go with a competitor or use Garage Band - for free.

If you think somebody is a sucker for getting software as a subscription, then you are very unimaginative as to what are the needs and wants of other people. Many people are going to think it's great. Those who hate it can still buy Logic for their laptop for $200 something.

>Of course they think about their profits and shareholders. But nobody is forced to get the software

Yes, nobody is threatened with death if they don't comply. I'll give you that.

For many pro users, with project files in that software, compatible hardware, accustomed to workflows, a studio setup based on it, etc, "just go to other software or use Garageband which is free" is as good as forcing.

I'd say pro users probably already have laptops and desktops with their pro tools (hehe). They can also pay $5 bucks per month.

They do. My comment is not narrowly focused on FCP and LP on iPad, but on FCP and LP turning into subscriptions in general (which would inevitably follow), and other pro software already changed into the subscription model to the dislike of its user base (but to the profit of the issuing company).

> As for subscriptions, they have made the total yearly cost for getting a product much higher in many cases (doubled it in the case of some software), and made you lose your software any time you have to prioritize something else over its payment, like a medical emergency...

That's how "rent-to-own" furniture works too. It exploits poor people for whom the price tag seems prohibitive but the monthly payments look deceptively cheap.

You will own nothing and you will be happy.

Walmart already does that. And the Apple Store offers 0% APR right now. Possibly Best Buy too? I can't remember

Well that's a lot cheaper than Adobe Premiere at $20.99/mo. If this pricing plan came to macOS then I might consider switching.

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