About iPhone Life

Mission

iPhone Life is the world's most comprehensive online resource for mastering your iPhone. It is our mission to help you keep up with technology and take control of your digital life. 

Who We Are

Apple creates amazing products, but it doesn’t do a great job of explaining how to use them. That’s where we come in. Our experienced team of writers, editors, and educators is dedicated to helping you master your iPhone and iPad with clear, easy-to-follow content. We cover all the hidden steps and details you won’t find anywhere else.

We are longtime Apple fans who want to help you get the most enjoyment and use out of your Apple products. We've spent years developing the best methods to teach users like you how to use Apple devices by using, troubleshooting, and teaching about iPhones, iPads, Apple Watches, HomePods, Apple TVs, and Macs. 

We provide the details that Apple leaves out. Unlike Apple Support pages, we understand how people use their devices in the real world, rather than at an Apple Store. We don’t start with any assumptions about what you know or don’t know, and we’re familiar with all the common stumbling blocks and frustrations and can help you avoid them.

Ways to Learn with iPhone Life:

With services ranging from our free daily newsletter and podcast to our premium monthly subscription, you can choose the best way to begin learning that suits you.  

Our History:

It all started in the early ’80s when Hal Goldstein, a free spirit and a software engineer at Hewlett-Packard, decided to quit his well-paying job to move to a meditation community in Iowa. Hal and his new wife Rita packed up their apartment in Palo Alto and drove across the country to live in Fairfield, Iowa, a spiritual community in the middle of the Midwestern cornfields.

Hal took his passion for technology to Iowa with him. He was an avid user of HP’s first laptop and LaserJet printer (fun fact: these cutting-edge items for the times weighed in at 9 and 70 pounds, respectively!). Thanks to his entrepreneurial spirit, before long, Hal found a way to run a tech business from small-town Iowa. He and Rita founded Thaddeus Computing in 1985, a tech reseller and publishing company whose first title was The Portable Paper, a newsletter created for HP laptop enthusiasts.

Hal saw a problem he could help solve for them—mobile technology was an exciting burgeoning field, but the gadgets were finicky and hard to use. The solution? He’d build a community of tech enthusiasts who could share their knowledge with one another—“for users, by users” became his motto. He built a loyal following and went on to launch other titles including the HP Palmtop Paper (1991-1999) and Smartphone & Pocket PC (1997-2008).

When Apple released the iPhone in 2007, Hal watched everything change as Apple began to dominate the smartphone market. He shut down his operations and poured all of his resources into producing the first issue of iPhone Life Magazine in 2008. iPhone Life Magazine became an overnight success. Shortly thereafter, Hal retired and handed the reins to three young entrepreneurs: David Averbach (the current CEO and Publisher of iPhone Life), Raphael Burnes (CTO), and Alex Cequea (former Editor in Chief). Together, they formed a new publishing company, Mango Life Media, which is the publisher of iPhone Life Magazine, iPhoneLife.com, and the iPhone Life Podcast. Hal remains a minority partner, advisor, and columnist for iPhone Life.

Mango Life Media has carried on in the spirit of its founder—creating how-to content and tech reviews written by users, for users. Our website, launched in 2008, now receives more than 2 million pageviews each month. iPhone Life Magazine has a print readership of more than 250,000 and is distributed across newsstands worldwide, digitally through Zinio and the App Store, and nationally through outlets such as Hudson and Barnes & Noble.

 

Meet the Team

We are the iPhone Life team: fifteen Apple enthusiasts and tech lovers, here to help you master your iPhone. We’ve been writing about tech for the past 30 years. And we’ve been covering Apple—reviewing apps, debating new features, and writing how-tos—ever since Steve Jobs released the first iPhone in ’07. And—unlike other publications—we focus on Apple devices. Exclusively.


David Averbach

CEO / Publisher

Raphael Burnes
Chief Technical Officer

Donna Cleveland
Editor in Chief

Noah Siemsen
Chief Operating Officer

Hal Goldstein
Founder / Columnist

Sarah Kingsbury
Senior Web Editor

Rheanne Taylor
S
enior Video Producer

Jaime Thatcher
Art Director

Leanne Hays
S
EO Content Strategist

Cullen Thomas
Writer & Producer

Nicholas Naioti
Ad Specialist & Video Producer

Erin MacPherson
Web Editor

Amy Spitzfaden-Both
Feature Writer

Carol Lee Kessel
Accountant