Smartphone & Pocket PC Magazine Shuttered

Citing market changes and declining ad dollars, Thaddeus Computing Inc., the Iowa-based publisher of Smartphone & Pocket PC, has decided to suspend publication of the 11-year-old magazine after its next issue.

"It has become harder to grow circulation over the past three years since Windows Mobile changed from being PDAs to being phones," Thaddeus co-founder and CEO Hal Goldstein wrote on the Smartphone & Pocket PC Web site.

In the note, Goldstein also indicated difficulties in attracting advertising sponsorships from major companies like Microsoft, and from phone companies and OEMs. "In order for us to sell subscriptions at current low consumer magazine-type prices, we must have a stronger and growing circulation, and we must attract the large advertisers who benefit the most from our existence."

Thaddeus is "leaving the door open," according to Goldstein, for a sponsor or buyer to step forward to either acquire or fund future issues of the magazine, which had been published seven times per year. There are no immediate plans to take down the Smartphone & Pocket PC Web site.

Changing Focus

In an e-mail to FOLIO:, Goldstein said that suspending publication is actually an opportunity to refocus the Smartphone magazine brand. This month, Thaddeus is launching iPhone Life magazine under the Smartphone umbrella.

"We may or may not produce more Windows Mobile issues after the final issue of Smartphone & Pocket PC, however, Smartphone magazine will continue and assume the same newsstand distribution, but focus on the iPhone rather than Windows Mobile," Goldstein wrote in the e-mail. "That leaves the door open for a Google Android edition or a RIM Blackberry edition."

Launched in 1985, Thaddeus Computing also published the Portable Paper, which folded in 1991. It publishes the Ultimate Palmtop Catalogue, and produces the PalmtopPaper.com and UsedHandhelds.com sites.

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