Dan Frakes Goes to Apple as Mac App Store Editor

Dan Frakes:

Some job news (thread): After 4(!) amazing years at @wirecutter, I’m leaving for a new editorial position at Apple (Mac App Store Editor!) focused on helping Mac users discover and get more out of great Mac apps. (It’s like Mac Gems redux :) )

Apple is a great place to work, and the App Store teams are producing (and commissioning) excellent work. This is good for Apple, good for App Store users, good for developers whose quality apps are getting editorial attention, and good for these talented writers and editors, job-wise.

But.

A ton of the top talent in the Apple media world now works at Apple, un-bylined and without credit. Many of them came from Macworld. In addition to the folks who’ve gone to work at Apple full-time, there are others who are writing as freelancers for App Store features. I don’t blame Apple for hiring great talent and I don’t blame anyone for taking a well-paying, secure job at Apple (or accepting well-paying freelance work).

But I don’t think this is a good thing for the Apple media world. The talent pool writing about Apple products and platforms from outside the company’s walls is getting noticeably shallower. And on a personal level, this trend is not good for me, because I can’t link to App Store articles, because they’re not on the web. They only exist within the App Store apps. I can’t link to some of the best pieces being written these days about indie iOS and Macs apps — and that’s a little weird. And none of these pieces are archived publicly.

★ Friday, 2 November 2018