A few months ago, photographers and filmmakers were mourning the closure of a little-known color-grading program called Color.io. And now, its development company Patchflyer GmbH has been bought by Apple. News of the acquisition, which took place with little to no fanfare, was broken by MacRumors and follows the company’s Founder and CEO, Jonathan Ochmann, announcing that he was moving to an undisclosed company, as reported on at the time by CineD. Well, now we know that undisclosed company was Cupertino’s most famous resident.
What was Color.io?
While Patchflyer GmbH is over a decade old, Color.io was only released in 2023. It was billed as a browser-based all-in-one RAW-image processor, 3D LUT creator and film emulator, with the latter proving a particularly big hit with its user base. The software was coveted for its realistic-looking film presets and halation effects, allowing filmmakers to turn out cinematic colors and photographers to give their digital imagery an authentic analog-era look.
What is Apple planning?
It’s not hard to ponder why Apple moved to acquire Color.io. And indeed, MacRumors has already theorized that the software could be integrated into existing Apple software such as Final Cut Pro or Pixelmator Pro. The move comes at a time when Apple seems to be shoring up its creative software offering. At the beginning of the year, Cupertino announced a subscription bundle, Creator Studio, which includes Final Cut Pro, Pixelmator Pro, and various other apps. And back in March, MacRumors also reported on the company's acquisition of video-editing plugin company, MotionVFX.
Despite Apple’s status as an absolute titan of consumer tech, its creative software offerings face fierce competition in what has become a crowded and highly competitive sphere. Not only do you have established big hitters like Adobe’s Creative Cloud and Blackmagic’s DaVinci Resolve, but Canva’s decision to make Affinity free has certainly made waves within the industry, and that’s before you consider the raft of AI-editing programs that are popping up. Anything that could potentially make Apple’s established creative software suite stand out seems like a good idea to me.
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