Apple Makes iLife And iWork Apps Free For Everyone, But GarageBand Won’t Be Free

Today at Apple’s iPhone event, Apple updated everyone on iWork for its mobile devices, announcing it has chosen to release its big-selling productivity suite iWork for free. Part of iLife, iMovie and iPhoto will now be free as well. The company didn’t say anything about GarageBand, so it’s a good assumption that it will not be free.

The news comes after Microsoft released Office for the iPad for Office subscribers. On the other hand, Surface tablets come with Word and other popular productivity apps. Apple probably wants to remain competitive for word-processing and spreadsheet mobile apps. iMovie and iPhoto are very popular apps as well and should attract users of all kinds.

“No other platform has any apps like these. We think that all iOS devices are made even better with these apps, and almost all of our customers want these apps,” Tim Cook said on stage. “So today, we’re announcing that we’re making all 5 of these apps free,” he continued.

One reason behind this move is that Apple wants to sell iPhones more than it wants to sell apps. While iWork and iLife were a signification business, getting the iPhone into everyone’s hands is more important. These new customers will then purchase apps and Apple will even generate some revenue from its 30 percent cut. It’s a win-win.