Apple is giving Creator Studio another round of updates, adding new tools for video editing, image design, presentations, documents, spreadsheets, and visual collaboration.

The company announced the changes on September 29, with several of the updates aimed at connecting the creative workflows across Mac, iPad, iPhone, and Apple Vision Pro. Pixelmator Pro is getting new templates and more precise selection tools on iPad, while Final Cut Pro and Motion are gaining a new workflow for editing Cinematic mode footage captured on the iPhone 18 Pro.

The productivity side of Creator Studio is also getting attention, with new templates and intelligent features arriving in Keynote, Pages, Numbers, and Freeform.

Pixelmator Pro gets better selection tools and new templates

Pixelmator Pro is gaining two new template collections across Mac and iPad. One collection focuses on sports and action-oriented projects, while another is designed around launching a creative idea, business, or product.

Apple is also adding a new Podcasts category with cover-art templates sized for major podcast platforms. That should make it easier to start a podcast project without having to build the artwork dimensions and layout from scratch.

On iPad, Pixelmator Pro is getting the Select and Mask tools previously available on Mac. The tools provide more precise control over selections and masks, including the ability to preserve fine details around difficult edges such as hair and fur.

That makes the iPad version more capable for image editing tasks where simply drawing a rough selection isn’t enough.

Final Cut Pro brings iPhone 18 Pro Cinematic mode into the editing workflow

One of the more interesting changes is coming to Final Cut Pro and Motion on Mac.

Apple says video captured natively on the iPhone 18 Pro can now have Cinematic mode effects applied during editing. Editors can adjust focus points and depth of field directly from the Final Cut Pro timeline, giving them more control over the final look instead of relying entirely on how the effect was captured on the phone.

Motion also supports the new workflow, while Compressor can convert video with Cinematic mode effects back into the previous Cinematic mode format.

Compressor is also gaining new HEVC and MPEG-4 export presets designed for social sharing.

The update effectively extends Apple’s iPhone-to-Mac video workflow: footage can start on the iPhone 18 Pro and then be refined later using Apple’s professional editing tools on the Mac.

Keynote, Pages, and Numbers get new productivity features

Apple is also adding new professionally designed templates and themes to Keynote, Pages, and Numbers for Creator Studio subscribers.

Keynote’s intelligent slide generation feature can now automatically create images tailored to a presentation. That gives users another way to build presentation visuals without having to separately create every image before placing it into a slide.

Collaboration is getting a small but useful improvement across Keynote, Pages, and Numbers as well. Users can request access to a shared presentation, document, or spreadsheet directly, making it easier to join collaborative projects when they don’t already have permission.

Pages for Mac is gaining Screen View, which is designed to make reading and focused writing easier by optimizing how content is displayed.

Numbers, meanwhile, is getting new trigonometry, statistics, and logic functions for more advanced spreadsheet calculations.

Freeform gets some long-requested improvements

Freeform is picking up several changes that should make Apple’s visual collaboration app more practical for everyday use.

Boards can now automatically adapt to Dark Mode, while folders allow users to organize boards into collections and invite other people to collaborate.

Apple is also bringing Writing Tools powered by Apple Intelligence to handwritten notes in Freeform. Users can rewrite, proofread, and summarize handwritten content, adding some of the same AI-assisted writing capabilities already appearing elsewhere across Apple’s software ecosystem.

Freeform can also work with Shortcuts to automate the addition of content, and users can request access to shared files when collaborating with others.

On visionOS 27, Freeform is gaining a more spatial workflow. Users can pull multiple items from a board—including images, videos, sticky notes, shapes, and 3D models—into their space. Multiple 3D models can also be viewed together as a group.

Apple is turning Creator Studio into a broader creative toolkit

The latest changes show how Apple is positioning Creator Studio as more than a collection of individual professional apps.

Pixelmator Pro handles image creation and editing, Final Cut Pro and Motion cover video, while Keynote, Pages, Numbers, and Freeform increasingly sit alongside those tools as part of the same creative workflow.

That approach is particularly visible in the new iPhone 18 Pro video workflow. A clip can be captured on the phone, moved into Final Cut Pro, and then refined with focus and depth-of-field adjustments on the Mac.

Apple has been steadily expanding Creator Studio since introducing the subscription earlier this year. The collection brings together Final Cut Pro, Logic Pro, Pixelmator Pro, Motion, Compressor, MainStage, Keynote, Pages, Numbers, and Freeform, combining Apple’s professional creative software with additional premium content and features.

The September update continues that strategy, but without trying to turn every app into the same kind of tool. Instead, Apple is adding smaller capabilities that make the individual apps more useful while making the overall workflow feel more connected.