This Week's Sponsor
Filmlog: The personal, offline and ad-free app for movie lovers – now native on the MacBy Dan Moren for Macworld
How making its iWork and iLife apps free could hurt Apple and its users
“Free” seems like a good thing, right? After all, who doesn’t like not paying for things? This week’s announcement that Apple’s productivity and creative software–namely Pages, Numbers, Keynote, GarageBand, and iMovie–is now free to all users was mainly greeted with a positive reaction from pundits and consumers alike.
I’ll agree that making these apps (which were already provided no charge to people who bought new Macs, iPhone, and iPads) free across the board is largely a positive move. But that decision does have some consequences that could be a downside for end users, developers, and even Apple.