Farewell, iMore
Editor-in-Chief Gerald Lynch breaks the bad news in ‘One More Thing… Goodbye from iMore’:
Dig out your old iPod and fire up your ‘Songs to cry to’ playlist, I come bearing sad news. After more than 15 years covering everything Apple, it’s with a heavy heart I announce that we will no longer be publishing new content on iMore.
I want to kick off by thanking you all for your support over the many years and incarnations of the site. Whether you were a day-one early adopter in the ‘PhoneDifferent’ days, came on board with ‘The iPhone Blog,’ or recently started reading to find out what the hell Apple Vision Pro is, it’s been a privilege to serve you a daily slice of Apple pie. […]
I would like to take this moment to thank everyone from the iMore community, past and present, for their support and passion for what we’ve created over the years. A massive thanks goes to iMore’s previous leaders, Lory Gil, Serenity Caldwell, and Joe Keller, and of course, the inimitable Rene Ritchie who kickstarted this wonder all those years back. I hope we’ve done you all proud.
Wow. iMore used to be at the top of my daily Apple blog reading. It’s through them that I found voices that I loved to read, like Rene, Serenity, and Mikah Sargent. From their works, I can draw a direct line to me trying out podcasts, to the Relay community, to discovering more related blogs and voices in the tech community, to finding the inspiration to start writing this very blog myself.
That said, when my favorite writers left iMore, it gradually fell off my reading list altogether. That’s not to say that today’s writers there aren’t up to snuff, it’s just they never broke back onto my radar. I suppose that’s part of what led to today’s announcement.
One notable silver lining is that the iMore site will remain up indefinitley:
iMore will stay online so readers can continue to access articles from the archive, and the forum at https://forums.imore.com will remain active until November 1 to serve our community.
It’d be a shame to see the iMore site end up being taken over by AI slop the way TUAW was, especially since Lynch notes that it’s AI that is at center of the changing dynamics of online publishing:
It’s a keen reminder that the world of technology never stands still: The term ‘artificial intelligence’ was the reserve of science fiction in the early days of the iPhone. The world of publishing is forever evolving too, as do the forms of technology journalism that look to shine a light on the industry. iMore leaves the stage at a pivotal crossroads for online publishing, where the battle for readers’ time and attention is more demanding than ever before, and the aforementioned AI advances and search discovery methods further complicate the playing field.
Anyway, I’m raising a glass to iMore tonight. Thanks for the many years of entertaining and helpful blogging, and for being part of the journey. I wish all their writers the best of luck in whatever comes next.