Apple is acquiring the popular image editing app Pixelmator

Apple has agreed to acquire Pixelmator, a popular image editing app available on Mac and iOS. Pixelmator announced the news in a post on its blog, saying it will now "have the ability to reach an even wider audience and make an even bigger impact on the lives of creative people around the world."

Pixelmator issued the following statement about the acquisition (emphasis ours):

Pixelmator has signed an agreement to be acquired by Apple, subject to regulatory approval. There will be no material changes to the Pixelmator Pro, Pixelmator for iOS, and Photomator apps at this time. Stay tuned for exciting updates to come.

No details about the deal were revealed except that it is still pending, subject to regulatory approval of Apple buying the Lithuanian company. That can be tricky, though - while Microsoft successfully swallowed up Activision Blizzard, deals that melted under regulatory pressure include Nvidia and Arm, Amazon and iRobot, and more recently, Adobe and Figma.

After Apple acquired the popular weather app Dark Sky in 2020, it shut down the app in 2022 and integrated its tech with the first-party weather app. Still, other software packages acquired by Apple, like Final Cut and Logic Pro, remain available many years after they were bought.

Over the years, Pixelmator Pro has become a viable and far cheaper alternative to Adobe Photoshop, as it's available for a one-time payment of $49.99. It offers a robust suite of tools for editing and retouching photos, creating designs, drawing, and more. The app most recent update reworked its masking process and added the ability to hide an image's background with AI.