What inspires you to cover Apple and work at iMore?

[pkcable]

Hey Ren,

First off I LOVE listening to you on the podcasts, and reading your blogs! I've asked some of our other bloggers in these subs; it's kind of my question. lol Anyways what motivates you to cover Apple products and to work at iMore as a career? How did you get in to the tech field? Are there any others you admire either here at Mobile Nations or otherwise who helped to get you started that you want to acknowledge? What keeps you motivated to do this?

In other words "what's your superhero origin story"? lol

Rich

 

[Serenity Caldwell]

Oh man, this is a great, great question! I gave an extended answer version of this in Myke Hurley's old Inquisitive podcast here: https://www.relay.fm/inquisitive/17

But the TL;DR version: I've loved tech since I was a kid, and used it constantly —*sometimes to the detriment of my friendships. ("Why are you constantly carrying around that Newton? No one uses it anymore.") I've also been a writer pretty much all my life, so the inevitability of that cross-section is probably unsurprising, in retrospect.

At the time, it was completely unthinkable to me: I basically used freelance writing for Macworld as an escape pod from what I *thought* I wanted to be doing after college (film and theater), and I liked it so much that it quickly became a full-time career.

Huge, huge props to Six Colors creator (and my former Macworld boss) Jason Snell for taking a chance on me when no one had any right to do so. (I think I even spelled Macworld with an InterCap when I wrote my trial piece —*heresy!) I also learned a ton from Chris Breen, who was basically my unofficial tech dad at Macworld, and my first manager Heather Kelly, who showed me how to be a complete badass as a lady in tech.

I also have to credit a lot of the Mac writing and developer industry for welcoming me with open arms. The technology field can be intimidating and sometimes pretty awful to women in this field —*especially young women —*and I was treated as an equal from day one by almost everyone I met. Marco Arment, John Gruber, Rene, Caleb Sasser, Craig Hockenberry and the other Iconfactory folks, James Thompson, Jessie Char, Maja Henderson, Mike Monteiro —*I wouldn't be nearly as active on Twitter and in the community today if they hadn't invited me in as an awkward little 22 year old back in 2010.