On Friday, Pixelmator, the company behind many popular photo editing apps for Apple platforms, announced that Apple would be acquiring them. While some people are rightly skeptical about the deal, I'm optimistic that it could solve one of my biggest issues with the iPad.
The iPad's Software Shortcomings
I've been trying to make the iPad a more viable laptop replacement for a long time. While the iPad's hardware has steadily gotten better and better, the software has always been imperfect. For me, one of those problems was the lack of a proper photo editing tool.
Adobe released Photoshop on the iPad about 5 years ago, and I'm sure it's a great tool. When I first tried the free trial, I found it sufficient. Plus, over the years, it's steadily gotten closer to feature parity with desktop Photoshop.
The only problem is that Adobe requires a subscription, and I'm not a big fan of that payment model. Especially when I have great apps like Pixelmator Pro on my Mac that I've already paid for once.
Another popular photo editing app is Affinity Photo, which has an iPad version. Like Pixelmator Pro, it's also a one-time purchase and doesn't require a subscription to use the software. However, I've never found Affinity Photo to be the most intuitive to use, so while I've purchased the app on my iPad, I always find myself turning to Pixelmator Pro on my Mac for those purposes.
Apple Could Bring Pixelmator Pro to iPad
Best comment by BarelyLucid
I'm not sure I'd trust Apple if they kept selling it as a one-time purchase going forward. It’s probably only a matter of time before Apple, a services company, clones Adobe Creative Cloud with its own subscription offering.
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With all that said, I really hope Apple makes Pixelmator Pro (or any other new Apple app that comes out of this acquisition) available on the iPad. In my opinion, the iPad has long been overdue for a good photo editing tool that’s intuitive to use.
In the past, members of the Pixelmator team have said they were working on Pixelmator Pro for the iPad, but nothing has come of it in all these years. Let’s hope Apple does it. I think it would be great if Pixelmator Pro’s Apple-like design and many of its features were available on the iPad. Plus, I’m sure they could come up with some really cool Apple Pencil features.
Also, let’s hope Apple doesn’t turn Pixelmator Pro (or any other new app they make) into a subscription service. They did this for Final Cut Pro and Logic Pro on iPad, so unfortunately it's likely.
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