UPDATE, November 19, 2023: They announced Procreate Dreams, which is a standalone, non-subscription animation app. So I was totally wrong!
I got an email from the team behind Procreate, the terrific drawing app available on the iPad that I use for all of my digital sketching. It talks about an event on September 8, 2023 and if you click the “Learn more” link it takes you to a page where you can subscribe and shows you the following, with “cool” laser light effects:
Procreate is a one-time purchase that currently goes for $12.99 Canadian in Apple’s App Store. It’s a great deal. There are no in-app purchases, nothing to unlock.
But I look at the above, and it is clearly setting up something the developers of Procreate think is Big.
And all I can think is…subscriptions. That they will announce a brand-new version of the app (the old one will be rebranded as Procreate Classic or something similar) and this new app will come with a mandatory subscription with either a) a free trial period or b) a stripped down set of features that can only be unlocked by subscription.
I am so certain this will happen that I’d bet my iPad on it. And it makes me sad.
But maybe I’m just being cynical.
And to be fair, I would happily pay another $12.99 (or whatever reasonable price they ask) for a new version of the app. I just don’t want to keep paying for it, forever.
