Retrospective. A Look Back At The Top 5 Stories Of 2019 In The ‘Mac Potpourri’ Column
FEATURE: 02.21.20 The best of the best are now history and we’re not talking about Super Bowl LIV from earlier this month but rather, coverage from the past year (its second and first full one at that) of the “Mac Potpourri” column where today we share and take a look back at the most read stories of this writer from 2019 here on MacPrices (returning, I might add, after another short writing hiatus).
When you click on the link to any one of my articles, you are just a single individual of many out there in the worldwide web who are reading that story. While some websites show how many page views an article has received, the “Mac Potpourri” column currently does not have that feature — although it does have a Facebook plugin that shows how many likes from readers (which is not an accurate representation of the total number of actual hits) — but behind the scenes, however, we receive those statistics from WordPress, the system that our site is built upon.
And that leads us to a short list of data which includes the articles and the number of page views or total hits it has received.
From January to December of last year, the following are the top five most read stories of 2019 here in the “Mac Potpourri” column.
No. 1: 24,336 Total Hits
“With The New iPadOS, Apple Is Paving The Way For A Merger Of iOS & MacOS”
EDITORIAL: 07.26.19- The advent of the new iPadOS, — a hybrid-like operating system that is part mobile and part desktop, further blurs the lines between iOS, “the world’s most advanced mobile operating system,” and MacOS, “the world’s most advanced desktop operating system,” and this latest move by Apple suggests that an impending merger of its two operating systems is on the horizon, something that continues to look even more likely than ever before (if not definitely).
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No. 2: 15,450 Total Hits
“iPhone SE Successor Possibly To Come In Form Of New 4.8-inch ‘XE’ Model”
NEWS: 04.15.19- Current owners of the iPhone SE who are fans of the smaller 4-inch form factor in Apple’s smartphone lineup may finally get their wish for a newer model to succeed the miniature device among the Cupertino, California-based tech giant’s assortment of larger sized phablets if a newly published rumor bears any weight and the new product is released.
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• www.macprices.net/2019/04/15/iphone-se-successor-possibly-to-come-in-form-of-new-4-8-inch-xe-model/
No. 3: 15,293 Total Hits
“Apple Moving Forward With Production of iPhone SE 2 With Release For Spring 2020”
NEWS: 11.04.19- In what feels like an eternity compared to the annual upgrade cycle of the flagship iPhone lineup, the successor to the iPhone SE may finally see the light of day four years after its original inception with the iPhone SE 2 if a new rumor circling around the Apple news circuit bears any weight and is an accurate prediction of the Cupertino, California-based tech company’s plans for a follow up to its surprise hit 4-inch smartphone.
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No. 4: 11,015 Total Hits
“Secured Transport Of Secret Apple Products Involved In Accident On Silicon Valley Highway”
NEWS: 01.11.18- An accident on a California highway Wednesday morning that involved a commercial vehicle transporting secured items belonging to Apple, Inc., which required the contents to be driven and escorted by two armed security guards, resulted in one fatality while another was seriously injured and in the process, apparently exposed the tech giant’s secrets during the unfortunate mishap.
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No. 5: 9,116 Total Hits
“Apple iMessage May Soon Play Nicely With Android Devices”
NEWS: 01.23.19- iMessage, the proprietary messaging service from Apple (as with most, but not all, of its technologies), is a closed ecosystem that is only compatible with iOS devices and the Mac but it soon could be compatible with Android devices if the Cupertino, California-based tech giant decides to adopt the RCS protocol into its Messages app for iOS.
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• www.macprices.net/2019/01/23/apple-imessage-may-soon-play-nicely-with-android-devices/
If you missed any one or all of those stories, be sure to click on the links provided to read the entire article as only a short preview — the story’s headline and lead — is featured here.
By comparison, the best of 2019 didn’t reach the high volume of traffic that the articles from 2018 did (see statistics from previous year). Of note is that we only record page views each month above 1,000+ hits and disregard anything below those numbers.
Of the top five stories listed above, I think my favorite one would have to be about the secured transport of Apple products involved in a highway accident because of the intrigue and mystery that underlies the story. (Of course, as with most of all things concerning the Cupertino, California-based tech giant, we never ever learned later on what confidential products or prototypes were in that cargo since it was guarded very well). Another reason is that MacPrices was one of the few Apple-centric websites that covered the article — the other two were AppleInsider and MacDailyNews (aside from financial news site Business Insider which also provided coverage) — originally published by NBC Bay Area News (KNTV) after first reporting about the mishap on their morning program which yours truly happened to be tuned in to locally and, , in turn, reported on it as well for the “MacPotpourri” column. Furthermore, we had special access to a video screen capture taken directly from the station’s evening broadcast (obtained care of and, thanks to, one of my contacts/acquaintances there) for exclusive use in my article!
However, probably my most favorite of the many stories that I wrote last year out of the 64 Total articles written and published in 2019, was the one about the original iPad product launch held at the then flagship (at the time) Apple Store Stockton Street in San Francisco, California mainly for it reminding me of the time when I was still able to take pictures and lug my camera bag around with my D-SLR, press badge, and notepad in tow to media events (ah, those were the days!). If you didn’t already know, I am visually impaired and have been completely blind since 2013 and, if you haven’t read the article yet, that story featured some never-before-seen photographs last taken for my job as a columnist for the now defunct PowerBook Central, the sister site of MacPrices which merged in 2018.
If you want to read any stories you may have missed from 2019 (or back to 2018 when this column started), you can find them in a dedicated page on this website called The “Mac Potpourri” Archives where you will be able to see all articles published from previous years, organized by category and by year (of course), listed in descending order with the newer content on top.
To go there, head to the main page of this column, and click the corresponding link under the section labeled Archived Content. (At the time of this story’s publication, all articles from 2019 are still featured up front but eventually, only stories published during the current calendar year will be viewable).
Writing and covering Apple (and technology in general) is one of my favorite topics to cover and it has been a pleasure to continue to write every week for you and great to know that I have an established audience of readers in the tens of thousands! Thanks to all of my readers for stopping by, whether if you are a regular reader of the “Mac Potpourri” column, peruse these pages every so often to see what’s new, or if you only came by once by way of a Google search for a specific topic you were looking for.
And, whenever you stop by, be sure to show you like a story and share your thoughts by leaving a comment (found at the end of each article — you must be logged in to your Facebook account to do so) or drop me a line at my email: j.leo@macprices.net
