British Mac magazines...
Why are they SO much better?!?!
Just came from Barnes & Noble where I spent some time reading through the UK Macworld and another called MacFormat (I think that was the name). They were HUGE. They were thick. They had great design, illustration, typography, "how to" articles, kick-ass photography, more in-depth reviews, more detailed articles about hardware and software, entire sections on how to do cool stuff with the iApps, etc.
In every possible way, these two magazines kicked the living crap out of Macworld and MacAddict combined: content, style, design, bang-for-the-buck, etc.
Anyone know why this is?
I stumbled across an old Macworld I had from 1996 and it's as thick and content-packed as a regular issue of Vogue or Vanity Fair. It's just under half-an-inch thick!!! And had TONS of cool stuff in it.
So, at one point, U.S. Mac magazines (Macworld and MacUser) were like this. What happened?
I get them now and they're really thin, overpacked with ads and - to be frank - quite lamely written, illustrated, etc.
Just an observation. But a right one, of course.
Just came from Barnes & Noble where I spent some time reading through the UK Macworld and another called MacFormat (I think that was the name). They were HUGE. They were thick. They had great design, illustration, typography, "how to" articles, kick-ass photography, more in-depth reviews, more detailed articles about hardware and software, entire sections on how to do cool stuff with the iApps, etc.
In every possible way, these two magazines kicked the living crap out of Macworld and MacAddict combined: content, style, design, bang-for-the-buck, etc.
Anyone know why this is?
I stumbled across an old Macworld I had from 1996 and it's as thick and content-packed as a regular issue of Vogue or Vanity Fair. It's just under half-an-inch thick!!! And had TONS of cool stuff in it.
So, at one point, U.S. Mac magazines (Macworld and MacUser) were like this. What happened?
I get them now and they're really thin, overpacked with ads and - to be frank - quite lamely written, illustrated, etc.
Just an observation. But a right one, of course.
Comments
<strong>Why are they SO much better?!?!
</strong><hr></blockquote>
I guess they're written to reflect their intended audience.
(And I don't mean huge and thick
[ 02-25-2003: Message edited by: RodUK ]</p>
Over 50% of pages in these magazines are ads.
annoying annoying annoying....
I almost broke into lament that I wasn't born in Japan. Damn I can't read in Japanese.
And you know what? It occurred to me that Winblows users don't have such magazines. And they never will.
Amorya
Any UK readers remember The Mac? Great magazine, always chock full of good stuff, and came with not one but two (2!) cover mounted... 700k floppies. <img src="graemlins/lol.gif" border="0" alt="[Laughing]" />
That said, in the UK we don't have Apple Stores (yet!), we don't get anywhere near as many TV ads as the States and our Macworlds are pretty much village-fete affairs.
I've bought a few MacAddict magazines imported from the States and while they have cost the same as MacFormat here, the MacAddict mag was printed on inferior paper with a lot less content and very little in the way of tutorials... though there was a good CD with it.
I've also noticed that most of the US mags available here are printed on thinner, less glossy paper ... is this a common thing with magazines over there?
<strong>Why are they SO much better?!?!
Just came from Barnes & Noble where I spent some time reading through the UK Macworld and another called MacFormat (I think that was the name). </strong><hr></blockquote>
You must check out MacUser... visually it is the best Mac Magazine on the market. MacFormat is another favourite but the added bonus of MacUser is that instead of coming out every month it comes out every 2 weeks satisfying my Mac news cravings twice as much as the competition.
The question STILL stands: why?
Apple is an American company with lots of passionate Mac users are strewn throughout the nation, in a wide range of occupations, skill levels, usage styles, etc.
You would think that someone would go "you know, we can do better than this..." (even if it's Macworld themselves).
I just find it really odd. So skimpy and lightweight, these offerings are (why am I talking like Yoda?).
Yeah, one could say that the Internet has rendered some of the news types of things useless. And I agree...you can go to maccentral or macminute.com a bazillion times a day to get the latest. By the time your magazine arrives, it's all old news. Fair enough.
However, what the Internet doesn't necessarily excel at is indepth articles with accompanying illustrations or photography, tutorials, etc. I mean, it's done. But people like to read that stuff in a tangible, "take it with them" magazine format I'm betting. The Internet is never going to fully replace print, if for no other reason than people simply aren't going to give up reading in the john, doing the "lay in bed on a Sunday morning with the huge Sunday paper" thing and simply sitting in a park, on a couch, a patio, etc. and reading.
So I think there is a hunger and a market for some of these things on THIS side of the Atlantic (and Pacific). I'd love to see Macworld go back to that approach: thick issues, CRAMMED with great articles, reviews, how-to's, etc. and augmented with awesome photography, cutaway illustrations, infographics, more comparison charts/graphs, etc.
Anyone think that's a bad thing? I'm sure one or two of the usual suspects will tell me why this "can't happen", but as usual I'll ignore them because they're wrong about every other damn thing...
and
we get extortionate prices and better magazines.
I know which I'd rather have.
On another note, over the last 10 or so years I've seen an increasing number of cross platform or even solely PC ads in mac magazines in the uk but I've never seen a mac advert in a PC magazine.
oh well another example of apple's brilliant "let's preach to the converted" marketing strategy