• by Ray Schultz , April 16, 2023

Two venerable computer publications-- Maximum PC and MacLife—are ending their print editions this month.  

The titles, both published by Future Publishing, are now available in digital form only, writes Harry McCracken in Technologizer. 

“With their abandonment of print, the computer magazine era has officially ended,”  McCracken comments. 

Maximum PC was formerly known as Boot and MacLife as MacAddict. 

Editorial operations were moved from the Bay Area to the UK in recent years, McCracken continues.  

Both titles were seen as significant competition by other publications. 

“Back when I was the editor-in-chief of IDG’s PC World, a position I left in 2008, we considered Maximum PC to be a significant competitor, especially on the newsstand,” he writes. “Our sister publication Macworld certainly kept an eye on MacLife.“

McCracken adds that Byte failed in 1998 and PC Computing and Windows in 2002. But PC Mag hung on in print until 2008. 

“Computer magazines had been such a robust business that they could spend years dwindling and remain viable,” McCracken states.