So Long TUAW. Gonna Miss Ya!

I guess it’s just the way things are these days. Long-time staples of the Mac community are dropping like flies. Last year, Macworld Magazine ceased publication of their print version and let go (fired) a large percentage of their editorial/writing staff. Shortly thereafter, IDG, Macworld’s parent company announced their annual Macworld conference was on indefinite “hiatus” and this year’s conference wouldn’t happen. The event that hosted the introduction of the iMac in 1997, the iPod in 2001 and the iPhone in 2007 is no more. I know, the official word is “hiatus”, but c’mon, let’s be real here. Jesus is more likely back and living in New Jersey than the possibility of the Macworld Conference ever happening again. Now, TUAW (The Unofficial Apple Weblog) is shutting down and being folded into another AOL publication, Engadget. The reality is, most of the TUAW writers and editors have been given a pink slip so the unique Apple-centric content that was TUAW is (most likely) gone forever.

Taken separately, none of these events are hugely impactful although some would argue the Macworld conference cancellation leaves the Mac community with nowhere to gather. The fact is, for all intents and purposes, the Macworld Conference died when Apple stopped participating in 2009. My first Macworld was the 2008 event. I thought I had died and gone to heaven. 2009 was much the same. From waiting in line at 5 AM for a seat at Steve Jobs' keynote to the huge, multi-building Moscone show floor with monstrous Apple displays to the late night parties and once-a-year chance to rub elbows with other Mac journalists, podcasters and enthusiasts, Macworld was the event every hardcore Apple geek couldn’t miss. The 2010 show (sans Apple), while fun, was not the same. Not even close. I went once more in 2011 figuring to give it one more chance, hoping the 2010 show was an aberration. I was wrong. The fact is, no Apple, no magic, no Macworld Conference. Now the Macworld print magazine is also gone. That’s no big surprise and certainly follows the trend of the entire print world moving on-line, but with the demise of TUAW an indication of a bigger dissolution is at hand: the faternity of the Mac community (some say cult) as a whole. 

The one thing that kept Apple afloat during the lean years while Steve Jobs was absent was the Apple fanatics. The faithful customers who prided themselves as a community of outsiders and oddballs who clung to the Apple platform in a Microsoft Windows world and bought just enough product to keep Apple out of bankruptcy court. That all started to erode with the introduction of the iPod on 2001. Suddenly Apple became a cool brand for the masses. Instead of being the goofball with brightly colored laptop shaped like a toilet seat, Apple customers became the hip person with white earbuds and a music library in their pocket. Others flocked to the personna by the millions. When Apple released a Windows version of iTunes in 2003 the dam broke. The millions turned into tens of millions then hundreds of millions. The vast majority of Apple’s customers in 2006 had never touched a Mac, but even a tiny percentage of iPod owners experiencing the "halo effect" meant huge increases in Mac sales for Apple. Those were heady days for TUAW and their peers. The introduction of the iPhone in 2007 hyper-accelerated this trend. Today, the Mac is only about 15% of Apple’s business (in terms of profit) but Apple continues to sell record numbers of Macs every quarter. 

When I officially walked into the light in 2006, TUAW became a big part of my digital life. Their regular “Mac 101” articles taught me a great deal about OS X and I could always count on them to keep me informed about Apple in general. TUAW also offered a lot to gearheads (like myself) with tons of tips and tricks and contributors like Erica Sadun who introduced me to coding with Xcode, AppleScript and Automator. The site was truly a “one-stop-shop” for everything Apple on the web. Their RSS feed is (was) on every device I own. For me, their absence will take some getting used to.

The one aspect of TUAW I admired the most was their refusal to publish outlandish headlines as link bait. The reality of today’s commercial on-line universe: CLICKS ARE EVERYTHING. It’s sad really. This has shifted on-line tech journalism from being interesting and accurate to flamboyance, sensationalism and out-right lies. When money comes from page views, anything a publication can do to get you to visit is “good business”. It doesn’t seem to matter if you actually stay and read as long as your visit gets counted. This reality has turned much of tech journalism into the on-line equivalent of supermarket tabloids. That’s something I never worried about with TUAW. Clicking one of their titles in my feed reader meant I would be taken to an accurate, concise article from an excellent writer that was actually about what the title intimated. That sounds like something one would (and should) expect, but there’s so much link bait out there, getting the information you anticipate is quickly becoming a crap shoot.

My time (like most people’s) is valuable. Chasing baited sites and perusing poorly written dribble is aggravating and a complete waste. Losing TUAW means I and others like me are going to have a void where some really informative, enjoyable and honest Apple reporting used to be.

Farewell.

Update: Renè Ritchie of iMore.com says many (if not most) of the TUAW crew were striking out on their own to create AppleWorld.today. I visited this site and it is indeed real. There is a single "Launching Soon" notification page with a link to add your email address to the list of those informed when the launch actually happens. I highly recommend that, like me, you add your name to their list. (For all the reasons I mentioned above.)