After almost 5.5 years, my time at iPhoned and Android Planet is almost over. Time to say goodbye, of course in article form.
On April 1, 2016 I started as an editor at BigSpark, publisher of iPhoned and Android Planet. Five and a half years and over 3500 articles on both sites later, a lot has changed. My role within the editorial team shifted from editor to editor-in-chief, we got a (beautiful) new office, many new colleagues and our readership continued to grow. We have also started making videos and now have more than 10K subscribers on our YouTube channel.
In those years I have had the opportunity to work with numerous editors, each with his or her own writing style, but all driven to guide readers in the world of mobile technology. In that respect, much has remained the same in five and a half years. I am still proud of the way in which the editors of iPhoned and Android Planet do everything they can every day to advise, help and entertain readers with articles.
From tomorrow I will no longer take on that role. That will take some getting used to: no more starting the day checking Twitter for news, no more working out the first news item with a cup of coffee and planning the rest of the day ahead.
Instead, I’m going to do something completely different. I will reduce my audience from over a million readers to about 25 students when I make the switch to primary education after the summer holidays. In this new role as a teacher, I will continue to do my best to help people. Not by advising whether the iPhone 13 is worth the money, though I probably won’t be able to resist if I get that question.
While I’m super excited to start this new career, I’m also sad to leave BigSpark. I would like to thank Peter and Marco for giving me the space to start and complete a new study. Without that flexible attitude I would not be a teacher today.
Above all, I would like to thank the editors. Wouter, Michel, Colin, Erwin, Rens, Mike and Bram: I have every confidence that you will do many great things with iPhoned and Android Planet. Thanks for all the lame jokes and the countless strong articles.
I sincerely hope that my years-long struggle to incorporate the band Radiohead into images will continue with courage. Also cameraman Sten: you managed to let me present videos in a fun way, you deserve a ribbon for that alone. Your enthusiasm (and talent) for video has made YouTube a regular part of our editorial team.
Of course the rest of BigSpark as well: team marketing for the healthy discussions we had, team technology for keeping our sites up and running on a busy evening and team inbound for everything Google related. We have a great team that, despite the divergent interests and qualities, still works well together.
Finally, I would like to close this article (nice cliché) by thanking you as a reader. When I announced my departure on Friday in the iPhoned newsletter, my inbox was filled with responses. Super fun to read and it makes me happy to see what we mean to some people with our websites. Keep following iPhoned and Android Planet, because there are still many great things to come. Who knows, maybe one day my name will pop up in an article.
Until then, good luck to everyone and thanks for reading!
