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Apple Blog iMore Shutting Down: 'One More Thing… Goodbye'
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Sigh... I miss iPodLounge from when it actually was iPodLounge. It was the place I hung out when I got my first iPod in 2004. It ultimately launched a significant career change for me into tech writing, but long before that, it was just a fun place to hang out and talk about iPod stuff.
Even after the name changed to iLounge around 2005 or 2006, it kept its iPod roots for a long time.
(Funny insider story... the name change came when Apple was cracking down on the use of the "iPod" trademark across the board... the owner of the site answered his phone one day, and it was Steve Jobs on the other end who said something like, "Dude, just get over it and change the name of your site.")
Also Precentral.com (Palm Pre).
When it was TiPb, it was a great site with nice people.
Rene Ritchie is such a shill, though. Shilliest McShillest Apple personality (I refuse to call him a "journalist") out there.
Dude broke one rumor about the iPhone 5 switching connectors and he ran so swiftly into the arms of the establishment Apple press' arms my head was spinning.
Never broke another rumor or story again--he got a Golden Ticket into the establishment Apple press, and then just became unofficial Apple PR.
When it was TiPb, it was a great site with nice people.
Rene Ritchie is such a shill, though. Shilliest McShillest Apple personality (I refuse to call him a "journalist") out there.
Dude broke one rumor about the iPhone 5 switching connectors and he ran so swiftly into the arms of the establishment Apple press' arms my head was spinning.
Never broke another rumor or story again--he got a Golden Ticket into the establishment Apple press, and then just became unofficial Apple PR.
They were. Years ago, though. Hey day was in the 2010's.
Once they sold out and did the site redesign it was all downhill from there.
Well, I guess I'm the odd man out because I'll miss iMore, although like others I haven't been to the site all that often lately. My visits dropped considerably when Rene Ritchie left because I, for one, really liked how articulate he was and looked forward each time to his next video.
What makes me the most sad is that the number of Mac/Apple websites keeps dwindling. Back in the late 90's, early 2000s there were 5 or 6 sites I hit every day, often twice a day: MacInTouch (I really miss Ric Ford!), MacNN, iPod Lounge/iLounge, MacOS Rumors, MacRumors, and a while later iMore. Now there's but one. Not to denigrate MacRumors but instead of hitting 6 different sites twice a day, I now end up hitting MacRumors 6 or 8 times a day. Feels like a loss, if only from the perspective of variety.
Of course, there are now lots of YouTube channels that offer variety, so maybe I shouldn't be so sad. Change is hard, though. Sigh.
What makes me the most sad is that the number of Mac/Apple websites keeps dwindling. Back in the late 90's, early 2000s there were 5 or 6 sites I hit every day, often twice a day: MacInTouch (I really miss Ric Ford!), MacNN, iPod Lounge/iLounge, MacOS Rumors, MacRumors, and a while later iMore. Now there's but one. Not to denigrate MacRumors but instead of hitting 6 different sites twice a day, I now end up hitting MacRumors 6 or 8 times a day. Feels like a loss, if only from the perspective of variety.
Of course, there are now lots of YouTube channels that offer variety, so maybe I shouldn't be so sad. Change is hard, though. Sigh.
They got rid of their comments section so I'm sure that didn't help with driving traffic either.perhaps they didnt run enough EU DMA stories to get people arguing?
Maybe Apple PR invoiced for all Rene's loaner devices
Found iMore.com a few years ago and have relied on them for various product reviews and comparison.
I'm going to miss that!
I'm going to miss that!
Sad times. I still visit but not as often as I did when their 2 top contributors left.
Anandtech was another great publication I enjoyed as it got under the hood more than most of the editorial sites.
Tough times, tough to make money in editorial, people only care about news bites, and feel everything online should be free.
Anandtech was another great publication I enjoyed as it got under the hood more than most of the editorial sites.
Tough times, tough to make money in editorial, people only care about news bites, and feel everything online should be free.
I’ve been on there a few times and it always struck me as one of those second class sites covering Apple. Still sad to see.
It’s a tough business. In the early 2000s there was a surge of gaming sites, I ran one of them (my username here), sold it, and it seems like one day at once most of those sites disappeared or got gobbled up. When the company does so well, and the fans become more jaded, it’s hard to thrive, especially when the competition (in this case MR) seems to put nearly all of them out of business, minus YouTubers of course.
I visited them when actively looking for alternatives to MR (which IMO is nowhere near as good as it used to be in the 90's, but there's not really any good alternatives that I can stick with).
IMO the reality is that anybody can share their opinion about tech. Paying for full-time opinion columnists and better search results doesn't guarantee you a useful/viable product.
Also with things like Reddit out there... I think people are less likely to go to one website for everything. Back in the 90's I'd visit my local newspaper, Macworld, MR, Macosrumours, Versiontracker and a few other more specific sites on a daily basis. Updates were less frequent (e.g. you wouldn't necessarily see a post every day). I preferred this as there was less junk and more goodness. Now there's a lot of sites throwing large amounts of junk at us, in the hope they'll be able to jig some Google algorithms. It gets boring.
Classic!!! TBH some of my favourite 90's style forums are the ones where moderation is minimal (outside essentials like spam / racism / doxing...etc) and there's lots of free-flowing banter.
The Tom's sites are some of the best-performing in that company's technical site portfolio, and should be okay longer than some of the other remaining ones if things get worse. Of the two, I personally use Tom's Hardware more than Tom's Guide. Some TH writers placed more in-depth articles over at Anandtech, though, and I don't know if TH is going to pick up the slack or if that coverage is just going to go missing, now.
Funny you should mention that. I was just remembering that TUAW's name got resurrected a while back, and Christine Warren caught them putting her name and those of other former journalists on fake bylines for their generated garbage. I joined Twitter in 2007 just to see those people in action as they found and chatted about news before turning it into stories. What a time that was.
As tech innovations stagnated so did my interest in reading tech blogs. I've been using an iPhone 11 since 2019. It was always a good read when Rene was the main person but I haven't visited for a while. I rarely go on AppleInsider anymore, nor PatentlyApple and even MR isn't high on my visit list anymore these days.
I was unaware of Anandtech's demise. Anandtech is truly going to be missed. They had great technical content.
Out of all those, I was most familiar with Rene Ritchie. I just realized that I haven’t seen any content with him for awhile, so him departing iMore and working for YT now makes sense.
I can’t say I read/utilized iMore often, but there were articles I would read from time to time. Still sad to hear they’re shutting down.
I can’t say I read/utilized iMore often, but there were articles I would read from time to time. Still sad to hear they’re shutting down.