Apple's Clips App Discontinued

Invites App be like

So what was the point of redesigning it?

Weird, I've haven't heard of it. This is why I"m reluctant to use Apple Journal. Imagine them discontinuing it and hundreds of Journals are in there.

So what was the point of redesigning it?

This is what happens when departments in a company are not allowed to work together.
"Secrecy” and stuff like that.

Then resources are wasted everywhere.

Following up on my previous comment about being surprised that Apple didn't say anything about integrating Clip's functionality into iMovie...

I do miss the days when Apple had a clearer product and software strategy. Sure, things came and went. That’s inevitable. But back before “content creation” went mainstream, Apple’s lineup felt more intentional. You had distinct tools for different users: iMovie vs. Final Cut Pro (and remember Final Cut Express? That was a sorta weird anomaly to me), Photos vs. Aperture, GarageBand vs. Logic. We looked forward to those annual updates just as much as the latest operating system or the newest hardware. Even the iWork apps got regular love— new features, annual updates, the sense that Apple actually cared about the software side of the experience.

These days, that focus feels… diffused. Apple used to build out entire creative ecosystems. Now it feels like they occasionally dip a toe, like adding web-based iWork with light collaboration, but never really commit. Meanwhile, Google has steadily deepened its Workspace integration year after year, long before Gemini showed up to supercharge it. Apple’s equivalent momentum just isn’t there anymore. (And that's sad considering it seems like Google's productivity apps and Apple's iWork both started around the same time, more or less. Apple had the potential to turn iWork INTO that.)

People often say “the money’s not in it,” but Apple built its reputation on not chasing the easy money. They made thoughtful decisions because they could, not just because they should. I can’t help but wonder how much of today’s hesitation comes from playing it safe, maybe to avoid antitrust scrutiny, maybe just to avoid risk altogether.

That’s the sad part: Apple absolutely has the resources to build and sustain world-class creative tools and cohesive platforms. Their resources are effectively "unlimited" for a company their size. And these world-class creative tools and cohesive experiences? That's a HUGE part of why us diehard Apple fans love this ecosystem so much. But without a strong product vision, things get fragmented and eventually abandoned. And instead of doubling down on what makes the ecosystem powerful, we get things like “Liquid Glass” — pretty, sure, but it feels like a design solution in search of a problem. Cosmetic updates like that might grab attention for a cycle, but they don’t move the platform forward. Instead, they just add new layers of complexity while the truly valuable stuff quietly fades away.

Under Tim Cook, Apple has done phenomenal work on the hardware front, genuinely pushing the envelope of what’s possible. And while Apple is famously secretive, a lot of those breakthroughs only happened because the walls came down just enough for cross-team collaboration. You can see it in the way the hardware, chip, camera, and battery teams clearly work in sync. That level of coordination is what allows something like an iPhone Air or iPhone Pro Max to exist— a device that feels engineered as a single, coherent object, not a collection of parts.

The software side, though, hasn’t kept pace. It feels like that same spirit of collaboration, the “whole greater than the sum of its parts” mindset, never fully took root. I don’t know how Apple operates internally, but the difference shows. Hardware feels unified, almost poetic. Software feels siloed. Polished, but detached.

And that’s the irony: Apple’s greatest strength used to be the seamless blend of hardware and software— tools and experiences designed to amplify each other. Lately, it feels like the balance has tipped. The craftsmanship is still there, but the cohesion isn’t. Clips disappearing is just a small symptom of a larger story— a company that once obsessed over how everything worked together, now content to let some of those connections quietly fade away.

I remember opening and playing around with the effects once or twice when it was released, and then ever touching it again.