What happens to great apps that Apple buys out?
In November 2024, Pixelmator announced that the company would join Apple. Although the post said there would be “no material changes” to the company’s apps, fans were worried. The assumption was that Photomator and Pixelmator (the latter being a rare sort-of-Photoshop for iPhone) were on borrowed time.
But is it always bad news for fans of an app when Apple buys it? Let’s explore some key examples from the past 30 years and see how they inform what Apple might do with Pixelmator’s apps.
NeXTSTEP (1997): Having been ousted from Apple, Steve Jobs founded NeXT. It struggled to sell hardware, but its software was ahead of its time. In a dramatic twist, Apple swallowed NeXT whole, bringing Jobs back to the helm. NeXT was gone, but its technology paved the way for Apple’s resurgence, Mac OS X and iOS.
SoundJam MP (2000): During the late 1990s, Audion and SoundJam wrestled for MP3 player supremacy on the Mac. Apple chose SoundJam, hired the team, but scrapped the app, which was reimagined as iTunes. Longtime fans mourned the loss of cherished features, but iTunes ignited the digital music revolution.
