Apple Discontinuing Physical Photo Books Printing Service In September This Year

If you’re a fan of Apple’s photo printing service, you won’t like this shocking news one bit.

According to a new message popping up in the Photos app, and After 16 years, Apple is killing off its Photo Print Products service, a service that has been part of iPhoto and subsequently Photos. Apple Photo Prints Products grew from just supporting simple prints to producing albums, calendars, and photo books.

The message, first spotted by 9to5Mac, instructs users of macOS 10.13.6 to make their “final purchases” by September 30 of this year. MacOS Mojave’s Photo app has already scrapped any mention of the service.

The message also encourages users to download the Photo Project Extension from the Mac App Store to get access to a range of third-party printing services. These services include Mimeo Photos, Wix, GoodTimes, WhiteWall, and Shutterfly. Following the news, shares of Shutterfly and Wix were up 2 and 3.1 percent, respectively. Here’s the message in full:

“Download a Photo Project Extension from the Mac App Store to create books, cards, calendars and prints, or reprint an existing project. You’ll also discover a variety of new services available through Project Extensions.For final purchases using the existing built-in service, place your orders by September 30, 2018.

For classic landscape-style books, Apple sells softcover books starting at $9.99 in a medium size, and increasing to $49.99 in hardcover and extra large size. Calendars are $19.99 each, cards start at $0.99, and posters for panoramic shots are also available for $12.99-$17.99. These prices should remain intact until the service shutters in the fall.

The date September 30 is also likely to be significant. That could reveal the date Apple plans to roll out the completed Mojave version of macOS to all users. It could also be an arbitrary cut-off date Apple has simply chosen to stop taking orders.