Apple buys Pixelmator, the iPhone image editing app with AI capabilities

Apple will buy Pixelmator, the developer of image editing apps for Apple's iPhone and Mac platforms, Pixelmator announced in a blog post on Friday.

Pixelmator, a Lithuanian company, was founded in 2007 and in recent years has been best known for Pixelmator and Pixelmator Pro, which compete with Adobe Photoshop. It also makes Photomator, a photo editing app.

Apple has highlighted Pixelmator apps in its keynote product launches over the years. In 2018, Apple named Pixelmator Pro Mac app of the year, citing the company's enthusiastic embrace of Apple's machine learning and artificial intelligence features, such as removing distracting objects from photos or making automatic color adjustments.

“We have been inspired by Apple since day one and develop our products with the same laser-sharp focus on design, usability and performance,” Pixelmator said in its blog post.

Apple doesn't acquire as many large companies as its Silicon Valley competitors. It prefers smaller acquisitions of companies with products or people that it can use to develop Apple features. Neither Pixelmator nor Apple gave a price for the transaction.

Pixelmator said in its blog post that there will be “no significant changes to the Pixelmator Pro, Pixelmator for iOS and Photomator apps at this time.”

Earlier this week, Apple released the first version of Apple Intelligence, a suite of features that includes photo editing features like Clean Up, which can use AI to remove people or objects from photos.

Apple has acquired other popular apps that have won awards at the company's product launches and awards ceremonies.

In 2020, Apple purchased Dark Sky, a weather app that was eventually integrated into Apple's standard Weather app. In 2017, the company bought Workflow, an automation and macro app that eventually became Shortcuts, the iPhone's scripting app, laying the foundation for a more powerful Siri assistant.