Apple purchased Pixelmator earlier this fall, in a uncommon prevalence of the corporate shopping for an present app. Although questions on its plans abound, Apple’s app acquisition historical past factors to a vibrant future forward for Pixelmator.
Apple has a powerful observe file with acquired apps
John Gruber wrote this weekend on Daring Fireball about Apple’s historical past with app acquisitions.
The complete piece is properly price a learn, strolling by the varied outcomes for various acquisitions over time.
Right here’s a superb abstract within the type of two excerpts:
The underside line is that what we, as customers, hope for after an enormous firm acquires a beloved app is for an end result the place the customers of that app stay completely happy. Which may imply simply protecting the app going, like with Logic. Or it would imply scrapping the standalone app, however bringing the core options of the app into the OS itself, like with Darkish Sky. Typically it’s a mixture, although, like with Shazam.
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Apple is a really giant firm, and Pixelmator is a small firm with two very cool apps. However an examination of Apple’s acquisition historical past doesn’t give me any purpose for alarm. Apple actually does are inclined to do proper by cool app acquisitions.
I used to be struck, in studying, by how a lot belief Apple deserves for its observe file of app acquisitions.
The issue, any time a beloved app will get acquired by one other firm, is that these tales usually don’t finish properly.
- new homeowners could over-optimize for income and make the app worse within the course of
- or they could neglect the app altogether, content material with milking present income streams
- usually the artistic staff behind the app departs, leaving a void the brand new homeowners can’t fill
These situations have performed out numerous instances, main many glorious apps to develop into a shell of their former selves.
However Apple’s observe file is solely totally different. As Gruber places it, “Apple respects the artwork of creating nice apps,” and “Pixelmator particularly is just too good to scrap.”
I don’t know if Apple plans to maintain Pixelmator and Photomator working as-is for years to come back, or combine their tech into the Photographs app, or one thing else altogether.
However no matter their plans are, it’s good to do not forget that this isn’t similar to another app acquisition within the tech world. Apple has a powerful observe file on this space, and that factors to a vibrant future for Pixelmator.
What do you assume Apple’s plans for Pixelmator could be? Tell us within the feedback.
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