If my husband and I weren’t fans of Adam Engst’s articles in our Macworld and MacWeek print subscriptions way back when, we probably wouldn’t have bought his “Internet Starter Kit.” And without the exceedingly clear and excellent advice in the “Starter Kit” , we might never have gotten online at all.
So that’s what happened to my copies of InfoWorld!
Isn’t the iPad (kind of designed for reading magazines digitally) a good option, given the days of print are almost certainly gone or going for everything? They’re also searchable and bookmark-able.
BTW, I downloaded all of the PDFs from a useful resource for getting the back-cats of MacUser (146 editions) and MacWorld (258 editions), available at Vintage Apple.
I also have all PDF issues of Lee Garrett’s (previously started by Don MacAllister!) excellent ScreenCastsOnline magazine edition (~£50/year for the whole service is very fair).
Also know Apple podcaster Stephen Hackett mentioning several times on various podcasts he had a vast DevonThink db of past Apple magazines, can’t remember which ones though. ![]()
Anyone know of any other (preferably downloadable) archives?
(e.g. MacWeek , MacFormat , MacLife , et al.)
Edit 1 - Searching of Archive.org gave some back-cat editions:
MacWeek: https://archive.org/details/macweekmagazine
MacFormat: https://archive.org/search?query=MacFormat
MacLife: https://archive.org/search?query=MacLife
…presume the latter two are likely still under copyright as they still exist even in digital form, hence lack of availability.
Edit 2 - all back-cat editions:
MacAddict: https://archive.org/details/macaddict?&sort=titleSorter&page=2 [pre-MacLife publication]
I don’t know but when I tried reading magazines on them, it was cumbersome. That said I DO scan one magazine into PDF because I forward the print copy to my sister. The magazine used to have PDFs of all their back issues for subscribers to download, but when a new editor took over, he eliminated them, so now I have to scan the print copy. Of course I DON’T scan the 16 pages of full page ads!
…may be good to do them too while there, as they’re often funny/interesting points of reminiscence years later, lol! ![]()
This is so true. Decades ago I used to have hundreds of pounds worth of old Computer Shopper magazines (each 1" thick and oversized) before I finally got rid of them and their ads from the 1980s were hilarious years later. Like 100MB hard drives on sale for $6,000!
Memories! Remember retrieving free Computer Shopper and other technology mags from Honor Boxes?
We got our sons when in school the whole collection of National Geographic on CD going back to 1888. The ads there are real cool to see/read. To bad you can’t order that plow still!
I am wondering if the dearth of Mac print magazine is related to the health of print magazines in general?
Just yesterday I received a notice from Amazon that they are getting out of the print magazine subscription business. I have several print subs I bought via Amazon (and have maintained for years), but that is apparently over. In the future I’ll have to deal with each publisher directly (which sounds like a royal pain and means I probably won’t bother subscribing).
I am assuming that Amazon is getting out of this business as a cost-cutting measure and that it just isn’t a profitable business for them. That does not bode well for the magazine industry.
Take this from someone who spent decades in print magazine publishing, it most certainly is. There ‘s no more Life, no more Money, no more TV Guide, Gourmet, Mademoiselle, Glamour, Look, Playboy, Penthouse, OMNI, etc., etc., etc. etc. Whatever country, state or city you live in, a glaring example is the reduction of the number of different magazines that are currently available at supermarket checkout counters, on or near public transportation centers, candy and smoke stores, hairdressers, etc., etc., etc. For the vast majority of newspapers, the numbers are even worse. Sports illustrated went from a weekly to a bi monthly, and then a monthly that is slowly evolving to a bi monthly. Like Sports Illustrated, Bon Appetite, Cosmopolitan, GQ, Elle, and the New Yorker. Many of the survivors that still exist, like Popular Mechanics, have gone six issues a year and have cut the number of special issues that appeared annually, as well as trimming down page sizes, weight and quality of paper.
Most important, magazine advertising $$$$$$$$$ are slowly but faithfully flushing down the toilet.
Holy cow MMTalker, no more Playboy center fold pin ups? What are our jocks and servicemen going to put in their lockers for inspiration? Life has done a number of ‘special’ issues on many people, I have several and they have been great, I got Jimmy Buffett, MASH (couldn’t add the stars, system eats those), and Walt Disney.
Why pay money for a magazine when you can print just about anything you want off a website? And you can size and edit the image anyway you want.
I’ve actually been surprised how many Mac print magazines have survived till now given the general decline over recent years. The health of print magazines has been on a sharp downward trend for 10 years at least now. But maybe that’s because I came to the Mac in the 90s when seeing even a single Mac magazine seemed like a win.