Retrospective: A Look Back At The Top 5 Stories Of 2020 In The ‘Mac Potpourri’ Column
FEATURE: 01.27.21 – All the tallies are in and we finally can publish the results (and, no, we’re not talking about the tumultuous 2020 Presidential Election here!).
2020 has long since passed and boy, what a year it was for Apple. As far as the company’s hardware and devices go, we finally saw the advent of the 5G-enabled iPhone and the company’s very first Macs featuring Apple silicon under the hood (so to speak).
As far as my coverage of events surrounding everyone’s favorite tech conglomerate named after a fruit, it was the usual assortment of news, features, commentaries and editorials: a whole bushel (pun intended) of reports from the company’s financial business dealings and legal troubles to previewing the Apple Special Events throughout the latter half of last year (just to name a few).
The Year That Was
Dominating the headlines was, of course, the global pandemic and Apple (like everyone else in the world) was not immune to the effects of the virus. A lot of the stories I covered in this column revolved around the company’s response to COVID-19 (e.g., retail store closures, enabling contact tracing on iPhones, etc.). Of the 52 total published, 11 of the articles — more than 20% — were related to the coronavirus.
While MacPrices is not a rumor site, there is a fair share of those reported in this column when the news item warrants sharing such with my readers, Just like the one of a new MacBook Pro model with a 14-inch display in the works (since confirmed earlier this month by Bloomberg) or the one about the company building its own Apple-branded search engine.
I would be remiss if I didn’t take the time to at least, once every so often, provide my two cents (so to speak) on certain grievances related to Apple that I feel inclined to air out within the walls of my column. They’re not necessarily rants — or raves for that matter — about the company: I’d like to think of them more as constructive criticisms (more like thought provoking topics, in my humble opinion). For instance, I opined on whether the ball was dropped (so to speak) by not branding the iPhone SE the “iPhone mini” because of its diminutive size and compact form factor. Or, why the company’s paltry $25payout for its “Batterygate” fiasco wasn’t worth my time (or the money!).
Then there are those stories that are my favorite to write, the ones where I share my experience as an Apple fan and a user of its products.
One such example is a feature story about my personal encounter with the Apple co-founder himself, Steve Wozniak (“The Woz”) who I briefly met at a Macworld Conference & Expo one year during a book signing exclusively for educators (of which I was at the time). Or the explanation of why I missed out on the very first iPhone back when it debuted in 2007 (and how I, uh, almost became a Samsung smartphone user…).
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Most Viewed Stories
With that said, however, you’re probably curious to know what visitors to the “Mac Potpourri” column were spending their time reading all throughout last year. Without further ado, here are the statistics for 2020.
- category: news
- published: 06.08.20
- views: 103,423
#2- Disinfecting vs. Cleaning iPhone
- category: feature
- published: 03.11.20
- views: 32,495
- category: news
- published: 09.06.20
- views: 28,871
#4- Advantages of Using iMessage
- category: commentary
- published: 12.14.18 (story read in 2020)
- views: 27,604
- category: feature
- published: 05.05.20
- views: 12,443
As you can clearly see, the dominant subject matter with two of the three top five stories viewed by readers had to do with COVID-19 as it relates to Apple products (as I touched on earlier). Of course, it’s quite evident that every iPhone owner out there (well, almost) was interested in finding out how much of a payout they could get from the settlement in the “Batterygate” lawsuit with that story topping the charts. However, the most interesting statistic recorded last year was the story ranked in fourth place because it was originally published two years ago but (for some unexplained reason) gained a lot of page views all throughout 2020.
The Road Ahead
I don’t know exactly what accounts for the increase in web traffic to the stories in my column — it is significantly higher for 2020 than it was in 2019 (or even 2018, when “Mac Potpourri” was launched) — but there was definitely an uptick in page views last year. In total, there were 335,487 hits altogether amongst the 52 articles published (this is the first time that I’ve compiled all of the data in one lump sum for my readers… in past years, I’ve only published numbers from the top five most read by visitors to this site).
All I know is that I’m not going to complain one bit (and I’m very grateful to my audience of readers which numbers in the tens of thousands and continues to grow each year)!
What 2021 has in store for Apple — and, in particular, this column and what will be covered in it — is anyone’s guess. One thing is for sure, however, and that is that you can count on yours truly to keep you abreast of any information that comes this way. And, just maybe, one of those stories your find yourself reading later this year will make the top five list for next year’s retrospective.
By the way, if you missed any one of the 52 stories that were published last year, moving forward you can find them in the archives section of this column (all archived content is organized by story category and in descending order by year). And, as always, thanks for reading and for stopping by “Mac Potpourri” here on MacPrices!
A Note from the Author: for the latest stories from the “Mac Potpourri” column, be sure to bookmark the following link: macprices.net/mac-potpourri-by-joe-leo/ (and, if you ever feel so inclined to do so, drop me a line by email sometime when you get a chance!).