Pure speculation: This is about visionOS. Photo editing is the least friction "pro" task to bring to a spatial computing platform.
The other options I considered:
⁃ Renewed interesting in pro use cases in general. I don't see enough incentive for this. Apple's historical interest in this was winning over creatives, but particularly creatives interested in photography are already won.
⁃ Apple wanted the tech for something on iOS. I don't think there's enough "special sauce" tech Pixelmator has to justify this. Pixelmator's tech is only valuable as a full package.
I think Pixelmator probably already runs on visionOS (I don't have one personally) but I doubt they spend enough engineering resources to make it amazing because the ROI isn't worth it for a third party company. But of course Apple can make Pixelmator amazing on visionOS without even noticing the cost.
There have been a couple of bits in the news about Vision Pro, the specific hardware product. Nobody knows their plans for the future of the platform as a whole though. They just hosted a developer event for visionOS a few weeks ago https://www.toddheberlein.com/blog/2024/10/3/a-cozy-wwdc
They didn’t. The thing you found about reducing production is likely what GP is thinking of. The headlines had several people thinking the same as them on first read.
The other options I considered:
⁃ Renewed interesting in pro use cases in general. I don't see enough incentive for this. Apple's historical interest in this was winning over creatives, but particularly creatives interested in photography are already won.
⁃ Apple wanted the tech for something on iOS. I don't think there's enough "special sauce" tech Pixelmator has to justify this. Pixelmator's tech is only valuable as a full package.