Lithuanian-based Pixelmator, the maker of Pixelmator and Photomator, has reached an agreement to be acquired by Apple. Apparently this is of interest to many of you, as my In Box received many "are you going to write an article" questions almost immediately.
It's premature to write anything useful about this acquisition. Apple doesn't tend to do product acquisitions, but talent acquisitions. This could be either. You may recall when Google bought Nik. Google bought Nik not for the Nik Suite, but mostly for their knowledge of how to apply different presets to an image. The Nik Suite was eventually offloaded to DxO, where it survives today.
Apple has a long history with photos, much like they do with music and video. That included offering one of the most advanced photo editing products available at the time, Aperture. Nik Bhatt was one of those who led the work on Aperture at the time Apple decided to close it down in 2014. He went off and started his own company, Gentleman Coders, which introduced Raw Power, which can be used within Apple Photos. Later he came out with a more advanced program, Nitro, which comes closer to the original Aperture idea.
I mention Bhatt because if Apple really wanted to have an advanced photo program in their portfolio, it seems like Nitro would be the right one to acquire. I doubt that Nik (no relationship to the software program ;~) would be interested in that, though, as his experience being pushed out of what he was doing would likely bias him against being reabsorbed.
Meanwhile, Pixelmator is heavy into ML (machine language) and AI (artificial intelligence), which are certainly things that Apple is embracing.
It is interesting that Pixelmator has introduced culling, flags, star ratings, and filtering, and that the product's extensions into other graphic arts are things Apple might value. It's also possible that Apple sees Pixelmator as the next generation Photos app, particularly since Photos itself seems to have run out of ideas and these days is just messing with what you see by default.
The number one question in my In Box has been "what's this mean in relationship to Adobe?" Good question. I would say that it's a good thing that Adobe has kept the accelerator pedal on adding function, features, and performance to their photography products. But at the same time, Adobe is now charging more for the Photography Plan (US$19.99/month), so they are increasingly vulnerable to competition. With Affinity (Affinity Photo 2 and its other Adobe clones) being acquired by Canva, the race is on to be the company catering to creatives. And I mean creatives in a broader sense than what the camera companies are calling the influencers.
However, even though Pixelmator Pro is currently the top-selling app in the macOS App Store at the moment, it doesn't quite fit Apple's software model. By that I mean that Apple's software is either free (Photos, Numbers, Pages, Keynote, et.al.) or high-priced (Final Cut Pro, Logic Pro, Motion, Compressor, et.al.). Pixelmator Pro at US$50 is not either of those, so it's difficult to fit the acquisition into Apple's business model without something changing. Historically, Apple has tended to acquire small companies more for personnel than product, though there are exceptions (Logic Pro, for instance).
For what it's worth, the news that everyone is reacting to is Pixelmator's own blog post, which says: "Pixelmator has signed an agreement to be acquired by Apple, subject to regulatory approval. There will be no material changes to the Pixelmator Pro, Pixelmator for iOS, and Photomator apps at this time. Stay tuned for exciting updates to come." That post is titled "A new home for Pixelmator," though, so people are interpreting between the lines.
