In an announcement of features coming to the Creator Studio suite this November, Apple snuck in MCP support for the former iWork apps (Keynote, Pages, Numbers). It’s interesting to see them add deeper, external AI features to these more “consumer” apps in addition to their “Intelligent Assistant.” Of course, the Intelligent Assistant would make sense as a subscriber-only option, but I’m having trouble determining if they plan to keep the MCP support subscription-only. It’s at no cost to Apple if Codex uses Pages to write a document. I guess we’ll see this November.

It wouldn’t come as a shock to see features that aren’t dependent on the Apple dime on the subscription. Even though the small print of the press release maintains that Keynote, Pages, and Numbers remain free while Final Cut, Logic, and Pixelmator have purchases available, they’re totally okay with leaving one-time-purchase users out to dry. I can’t find evidence that Final Cut or Pixelmator (purchase versions) have received the Liquid Glass redesigns, and their update histories seem scant compared to the subscription versions. I wouldn’t feel comfortable buying the purchase versions and expecting updates for long, although I suppose that feeling is Apple’s intent.