What Does Apple Buying Pixelmator And Investing In Satellite Tech Mean For Their Product Roadmap?

So we need to talk about a bit of Apple M&A and some investing. First up, satellite services provider Globalstar says Apple committed $1.1B to expand satellite service capacity and $400M to buy a 20% equity stake. Quoting 9to5Mac.

The news has sent GlobalStar stock soaring, and it hints towards Apple’s growing plans for iPhone satellite features. With iOS 18, for instance, iPhone users are now able to send text messages to friends and family over satellite, when outside of cellular or WiFi range.

Apple continues to commit significant financial resources to providing satellite features, while offering the feature for free to end users. However, it has repeatedly signalled that it intends to charge fees to iPhone users at some point.

Satellite connectivity for Emergency SOS first launched with the iPhone 14 in 2022. At the time, Apple said that satellite would be free for two years. That means customers would have had to start paying around now, in late 2024. However, Apple extended the free period until 2025.

Apple has yet to confirm how much it intends to charge for the satellite features. It’s a hairy subject as much of the current offering relies on using satellite during life-threatening emergencies, which feels rather punitive for Apple to charge for. It is possible the company will continue to offer Emergency SOS for free, while charging for other features like the ability to share location in Find My or the new iOS 18 capability to send text messages over satellite recreationally. Others have speculated satellite service may be rolled into the Apple One bundle, or be offered through mobile carrier add-ons. ENDQUOTE

Interesting that Apple keeps expanding its interest in satellite connectivity without anyone really understanding what the endgame is. Will they charge for this eventually? Could they be trying for their own Starlink-like service somewhere down the road? Ditch your carrier. Go with Apple as your service provider? Unclear.

And then, popular photo editing company Pixelmator said late Friday it has signed an agreement to be acquired by Apple, pending regulatory approval, “to reach an even wider audience.” Quoting The Verge:

No details about the deal were revealed except that it is still pending, subject to regulatory approval of Apple buying the Lithuanian company. That can be tricky, though — while Microsoft successfully swallowed up Activision Blizzard, deals that melted under regulatory pressure include Nvidia and Arm, Amazon and iRobot, and more recently, Adobe and Figma.

After Apple acquired the popular weather app Dark Sky in 2020, it shut down the app in 2022 and integrated its tech with the first-party weather app. Still, other software packages acquired by Apple, like Final Cut and Logic Pro, remain available many years after they were bought.

Over the years, Pixelmator Pro has become a viable and far cheaper alternative to Adobe Photoshop, as it’s available for a one-time payment of $49.99. It offers a robust suite of tools for editing and retouching photos, creating designs, drawing, and more. The app most recent update reworked its masking process and added the ability to hide an image’s background with AI. ENDQUOTE

In a statement Pizelmator said there will be no material changes to its apps or operations… AT THIS TIME. Emphasis mine. Mark Gurman notes that this comes along 10 years to the day since Apple made its last update to Aperture. Quote:

For those unfamiliar, Pixelmator is essentially the modern, high-end photo-editing app that Apple would have created if it had the resources and desire to do so. From the features to the icons to the app interface to the website, Pixelmator has the feel of a company that’s already owned by Apple.

Pixelmator has assured users that its products won’t change in the near future, but here’s my guess for further out: The software becomes something like “Photos Pro” and gets offered as a subscription on the App Store alongside new iPad programs like Final Cut Pro and Logic Pro. That means Apple will once again have both consumer and higher-end iterations of its video, music and photo-editing apps (with Photos, GarageBand and iMovie serving as the free downscale versions). Given Apple’s push to boost services revenue, I think you can rule out it giving away Pixelmator features for free in its current Photos app. ENDQUOTE

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