A couple of months ago, I sat down to make sense of my smart home devices with the help of Claude Code. I’ll have more on the process soon. By and large, it’s been a good experience, and adding an agent to the process has been truly useful. However, last week, I hit a wall,...
Apple Updates Creator Studio Apps
Today, Apple released an update to its Creator Studio subscription with new features across many of the suite’s apps.
Pixelmator Pro now integrates more deeply with Creator Studio’s other apps. While working in Keynote, Pages, and Numbers, you can open an image directly in Pixelmator Pro, edit it, and save the changes back to the source app’s document. On the Mac, Final Cut Pro can now send individual frames to Pixelmator Pro, making thumbnail creation simpler.
Final Cut Pro is also adding a set of Creator Themes with multiple aspect ratios, dynamic titles, and customizable backgrounds. Plus, users now have more control over the design of captions generated on-device using AI. On the Mac, Auto Mask lets you isolate certain parts of footage for editing, and Match Color reproduces colors more accurately.
For Logic Pro users, today’s update includes improvements to Chord ID, a new Producer Project from Khris Riddick-Tynes, a new sound pack, and an expansion of Beat Breaker.
Final Cut Camera for the iPhone and iPad has been updated with support for Clean HDMI Out, more flexible ProRes support, and disabling of digital zoom. Motion now supports vector graphics, and Compressor gains Vision Pro features, while Freeform gains shape creation, opening images in Pixelmator Pro, a Dark Mode, folders, and drawing on the Mac. Plus, Pages, Keynote, and Numbers each added a handful of new features.
Creator Studio debuted just six months ago, so it’s good to see it already being updated with meaningful features. Creator Studio costs $12.99/month or $129/year. More information is available in Apple’s press release here.
Are AI Aggregators Worth It?
FedericoThis week on AppStories, Federico and John talk about the state of AI aggregator apps and their future prospects before checking in on their current AI app setups for the AppStories+ post-show.
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AppStories Episode 491 - Are AI Aggregators Worth It?
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The AI Tax on Creative Industries
There was something about yesterday’s Apple hardware price hikes that bothered me more than I expected. I don’t know anyone who likes a price hike, but it was more than that. This morning, I woke up realizing what bothers me so much, and it has everything to do with AI. Don’t get me wrong: I’ve...
This Week on MacStories Podcasts
This week on MacStories podcasts: AppStories This week, John and Federico are back home and reflect on all the WWDC announcements, including Siri AI, Apple Intelligence, design changes, developer tools, and more. On AppStories+, we check in on our research setups and how they fared at WWDC. Listen on: Apple Podcasts Overcast Pocket Casts Castro...
Interesting Links
I’m not a truck person (or really a car person, for that matter) but I’m fascinated by the Slate truck that starts at $25,000 and is designed to be modded. (Link) The $1,049+ price tag of Valve’s upcoming Steam Machine is disappointing, as we’ll cover next week on NPC: Next Portable Console, but the...
App Debuts
Charty Charty was one of the first Shortcuts utilities I ever tried. Version 2.0 is out after six years, and it’s been rebuilt from the ground up with SwiftUI. The app features examples of the kind of charts it can create, along with tutorials and a list of actions describing all of their available...
Previously, On MacStories
Apple Raises Prices Across Most of Its Product Lines Amazon Prime Day 2026: Our Top Picks...
Apple Raises Prices Across Most of Its Product Lines
Apple raised the prices of Macs and other products across the board today. For entry-level Macs, the increases are mostly $100–$200. However, if you want a MacBook Pro or Mac Studio with lots of memory and storage, it’s going to cost you dearly. Prices were also raised on the iPad, Vision Pro, Apple TV, HomePods, and many items sold through Apple’s refurbished store.
This should come as no surprise to anyone, but it’s painful just the same. Last week, Tim Cook told The Wall Street Journal that price increases were coming without getting into specifics. Apple was able to hold the line on prices for several months, even while smaller gadget and computer makers raised their prices or canceled products altogether.
What’s happening is simple macroeconomics. Demand for memory and storage is vastly outstripping supply, largely due to the insatiable appetite of data centers that power AI services. That demand shows no signs of waning, and supply isn’t as simple as turning a knob to 11. There just aren’t that many makers of memory chips and SSDs, and bringing new plants online to manufacture takes years and billions of dollars.
For now, the price of iPhones has been left alone. Some may see that as a silver lining, but I suspect all it means is that Apple has enough prebuilt inventory to get to September, when new iPhones are announced. Apple Watch and AirPods prices remain the same, too.
Could Apple have avoided this? I doubt it. The magnitude and speed of the price increases and the projected duration are beyond what any reasonable company could or would plan for.
That said, I do think the situation will get better with time, again because of macroeconomics. The increases may preserve Apple’s margins, but it’s going to reduce the number of customers who can afford its products. Margins only equate to profits if you have customers willing to pay for your product. So with time, if the data center demand slackens or new chip capacity comes online, prices will improve. Just don’t expect that anytime before 2027 or 2028 if current projections are to be believed.