I'm surprised to have read very little about the recent demise
of a pillar of the Mac community: MacHome magazine. Closing its
doors after publication of the June 2006 issue, the Macintosh
community has lost a valuable citizen.
I have subscribed to all three (now two) of the mainstream
Mac-related magazines - Macworld, MacAddict, and MacHome - since
the late 90s. Each magazine has a slightly different target
audience.
MacHome aimed squarely at the consumer, with substantial content
directed toward the beginner or casual user who just wanted to know
how to design a newsletter in Word and had no interest in soldering
the motherboard in order to achieve a 10 MHz speed gain. Here is an
excerpt from the single paragraph dedicated to MacHome's closure on
Bacon's Media Update:
...the monthly technology magazine was written for
Macintosh consumers. Editorial content provided practical advice
for those who used Macintosh computers for their personal needs,
whether playing games, creating music and art, or running a home or
small business. Each issue contained technology tips, expert buying
advice and detailed how-to articles.
The key phrase in the above description is practical
advice. Every month, MacHome seemed to have a couple of tips
that made you say, "Hey, I can use that." Articles I recall through
the years dealt with topics such as how to do a simple mail merge
in Word, basic photo manipulation in iPhoto, and designing and
publishing a newsletter. It was nothing fancy - just useful and,
well, practical.
The most disappointing part of the loss of MacHome is that there
is no longer a publication that a beginner can pick up, read cover
to cover, understand most of the content, and even find a lot of it
useful.
The prototypical consumer I have in mind is my wife, Kay. She
glances at each Mac magazine we receive every month. As
entertaining as I might find reading about Niko taking something
apart and putting it back together in a disturbing and unnatural
way (in order to, for instance, power your iPod with a car battery
while walking around town), such things just don't interest
Kay.
However, she always read MacHome cover-to-cover, and I often
find the magazine or a how-to article torn from it sitting beside
her PowerBook.
I don't know why MacHome went under. One can suppose it was
probably for the usual reason a business fails: not making enough
money to pay the bills. But as to the reasons why it didn't make
money, I haven't a clue.
MacHome was founded as, literally, a mom and pop operation. In
2002, the husband and wife publishing team sold the magazine to
MacHome's former Director of Advertising, Kevin Octavio. I
interviewed Kevin for a weekly newspaper column I write back in
2003. It seemed like things were going well at MacHome.
After buying the magazine, Kevin's team had given it a
much-needed and impressive makeover. The content and the approach
had been refreshed. But somewhere along the way, something
apparently went wrong.
The magazine's demise comes, ironically, at a time when its
fortunes should have been on the rise. Finally, after years of
fighting the good fight, Apple's market share is rising -
significantly. As a result, Apple has acquired a constant stream of
users who are new to the Mac.
MacHome would have been the perfect magazine for introducing
these users to the simple wonders that are Macintosh.
In many ways, the MacHome saga is reminiscent of what Sears went
through over a decade ago. Faced with declining sales, Sears
discontinued its venerable catalog. In the couple of years
immediately following, however, a phenomenon called the Internet
exploded onto the stage. Sears' catalog business was tailor-made
for online ordering. If they could have just hung on a little
longer....
Rest in peace, MacHome. You will be missed. 
