Just as I published my diary documenting my journey choosing photo management software, Apple released the new “Creator Suite,” a bundle of subscription software that they previously would have either given you for free or sold you for a flat rate. And the reasoning for this change is the integration of AI tools (provided by openAI, mind you) and soft-locking templates behind the subscription service. It’s a disheartening move to see the iWork software pulled from their place as “nice-to-be-included” bonuses of owning a piece of mac hardware. Numbers, Keynote and Pages are just that - nice to have. They do nothing better than any other piece of office software with one, now forgone, exception: free of bloat! But the screenshots rolling around that show the upsell to the subscriptions have put that one advantage down, like a puppy no one wanted. My versions of Keynote, Pages & Numbers will now yell at me each time I boot them up because they needed to sunset these to cram all that bloat in, so I look forward to be greeted by this annoying pop-up.

I think it’s time to switch back to libreoffice, an open source office suite that’s been around forever.