Apple buys popular photo editing app Pixelmator – and Photos could soon get a massive upgrade
It’s big news for photo editing on iPhones, iPad and Macs
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Applehas just bought the popular photo editing app Pixelmator – and that could be huge news for photo editing on iPhones, iPads and Macs.
The news was shared by Pixelmator in a surpriseblog post, which says that it’s “signed an agreement to be acquired by Apple, subject to regulatory approval”. That approval is likely to be a formality, given Pixelmator is far from the biggest fish in the image editing pool.
If you’re a Pixelmator fan, you don’t need to worry about big changes for now – the app maker says there will not be “material changes to the Pixelmator Pro, Pixelmator for iOS, and Photomator apps at this time”.
However, it added to “stay tuned for exciting updates to come” and it’s hard not look ahead to what Apple could do with the apps. The obvious parallel is Dark Sky, a relatively small startup that Apple acquired in early 2020, before folding it into its own Weather app.
It looks highly likely that Apple will do the same with Pixelmator’s tech and its Photos app, which similarly exists on the iPhone, iPad and Mac. And that would be big news for photo editing on those platforms…
The new Aperture?
Apple once made a pro-level image editor and organizer called Aperture for the Mac, which existed between 2005 and 2015, when it was discontinued. This Pixelmator acquisition could potentially fill that hole – and also give Apple fans a powerful native alternative to the likes ofPhotoshop.
On the iPhone, many photography fans prefer Pixelmator toAdobe’s apps. TechRadar contributor Paul Hatton recently wrote that the iOS app let himsay goodbye to Photoshop,partly because it’s designed specifically for iOS and iPadOS (so can take full advantage of Apple silicon).
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We also rate Pixelmator Pro highly in our guide to thebest photo editing apps for Mac, calling it a “great all-rounder” and better value than an Adobe Creative Cloud subscription. If Apple does ultimately fold Pixelmator’s tech into the Photos app, it could become even better value – perhaps even free, for Apple fans.
The potential for that move has understandably made Pixelmator fans a little nervous. Apple won’t necessarily absorb Pixelmator into Photos, but it seems the most likely future scenario.
WhileApple Intelligencedoes now power features like Clean Up for removing distractions from photos, the acquisition of Pixelmator suggests that Apple still thinks it’s behind the likes ofGoogle’s Magic Editor and Adobe when it comes to native AI image editing and organizing.
That’s certainly the case when you look atTechRadar’s Phone of the year, theGoogle Pixel 9 Pro, but we could soon see Apple catch up
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Mark is TechRadar’s Senior news editor. Having worked in tech journalism for a ludicrous 17 years, Mark is now attempting to break the world record for the number of camera bags hoarded by one person. He was previously Cameras Editor at both TechRadar and Trusted Reviews, Acting editor on Stuff.tv, as well as Features editor and Reviews editor on Stuff magazine. As a freelancer, he’s contributed to titles including The Sunday Times, FourFourTwo and Arena. And in a former life, he also won The Daily Telegraph’s Young Sportswriter of the Year. But that was before he discovered the strange joys of getting up at 4am for a photo shoot in London’s Square Mile.
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