Apple is acquiring a popular Photoshop alternative

Image: Pixelmator

Apple may soon own Pixelmator Pro and Photomator, a pair of popular photo editing apps for Mac, iPhone, and iPad. The Lithuania-based company behind the apps, Pixelmator Team, has "signed an agreement to be acquired by Apple," according to a blog post on its website.

Pixelmator Team says "there will be no material changes" to its apps "at this time," but promises "exciting updates to come."

Given Apple's substantial reworking of its native Photos app, it wouldn't be surprising if we see some of Pixelmator's more advanced editing features show up in MacOS and iOS. That would be especially nice for anyone who stores their Raws with the company, as processing them in Photos has historically been a sub-par experience. Even if that doesn't come to pass, it does mean that a company competing with industry giant Adobe Photoshop now has the backing of an even larger corporation.

Pixelmator's blog post says the acquisition is "subject to regulatory approval," and Apple is currently facing a lot of pressure from regulators worldwide – especially the European Union. However, this acquisition doesn't seem as contentious as some of the others we've seen in the tech space, such as Nvidia's attempt to take over Arm and Microsoft's purchase of gaming giant Activision Blizzard.

This isn't the first photo editing suite to be snapped up by a bigger company. Earlier this year, Canva purchased Affinity, the company behind popular Photoshop competitor Affinity Photo.

Pixelmator Pro, Pixelmator and Photomator are available on the App Store.