Apple Finally Unveils Revamped 'Apple Support Communities'

MacRumors · Apr 18, 2011

Over the weekend, Apple finally rolled out the planned revamp of its support discussions forums, rebranding them as Apple Support Communities. The company had announced last August that the changes would be happening "very soon".

Apple has posted a series of tutorials laying out how Apple Support Communities bring a new organization and layout to the company's discussion forums, offering individual sections for each product line and a prominent text box for searching existing discussions by typing in a question.

Social-based features allow users to promote replies to questions by offering their own responses or "liking" individual posts. Community members can flag previously-posted answers as "correct", increasing the reputation score of helpful members to give additional weight to their future comments and provide them with increased privileges within the forums.

As noted by Fortune, however, the revamp is not being met with universal acclaim, with a number of users complaining about the changes and other bugs. While it will obviously take a bit of time for users to become familiar with the operation of the new site, it remains to be seen whether Apple will incorporate some of the feedback to improve the new Apple Support Communities experience.

Article Link: Apple Finally Unveils Revamped 'Apple Support Communities'

50548 · Apr 18, 2011

I've already posted some answers there and like the new design overall...only request for now would be for threads to show the number of replies - otherwise we have no clue as to whether a question has been answered or not.

projectle · Apr 18, 2011

And unsurprisingly, it still doesn't let iPhone or iPad users play.

And unsurprisingly, it still doesn't let iPhone or iPad users play.

When will Apple learn that their Support sites and Communities should actually work with their products?

drewyboy · Apr 18, 2011

BRLawyer said:
I've already posted some answers there and like the new design overall...only request for now would be for threads to show the number of replies - otherwise we have no clue as to whether a question has been answered or not.

Not trying to be snobby, but unless I'm miss-informed with your question, they do have the number of replies. Check out the how to use it button. Clearly shows on second image it shows the number of replies.

soloer · Apr 18, 2011

I imagine I just have to get used to it, but my initial thought is that I like the old format better.

Consultant · Apr 18, 2011

BRLawyer said:
I've already posted some answers there and like the new design overall...only request for now would be for threads to show the number of replies - otherwise we have no clue as to whether a question has been answered or not.

projectle said:
And unsurprisingly, it still doesn't let iPhone or iPad users play.

When will Apple learn that their Support sites and Communities should actually work with their products?

Maybe write to Apple.com/feedback

manu chao · Apr 18, 2011

The whole website has two pillars, you either use the traditional view or a personalised view labelled 'Your View'. You can set 'Your View' as the default when visiting the website (assuming you stay logged in via cookies).

What is confusing is that in the traditional view you can view your profile and in their also your contributions under 'Your Stuff', which again is split up into 'Overview', 'Discussions', 'Communities', 'Notifications', etc. ('Discussions' contains the most complete list of your previous posts but for some reason still does not contain all your posts).

In the personalised view, you can set up to view your posts as well and this list is more comprehensive (though it takes a couple of steps) but it is all on one page, all side-by-side or on top of each other. From the personalised page you can go to 'Your Stuff' page under the traditional view but not the other way around. You can only go to the personalised page by going back to top, to the 'home page' of the discussion site.

toddybody · Apr 18, 2011

Starting a Jailbreaking community

manu chao · Apr 18, 2011

drewyboy said:
Not trying to be snobby, but unless I'm miss-informed with your question, they do have the number of replies. Check out the how to use it button. Clearly shows on second image it shows the number of replies.

Once you are in the thread yes, but not while you look at a list of threads.

acslater017 · Apr 18, 2011

Looks Clean

I admittedly haven't explored every inch of the new page, but it looks like a big improvement in terms of usability. I don't use the support forums as much as I did when I first started using Macs (2003) but I can see how they are helpful to the uninitiated.

Another reason why I love Apple products. Even their website absolutely destroys the other tech companies' sites. I'm pretty good with computers (former computer teacher) but I've often given up in frustration going in circles on sites like Microsoft, Panasonic, etc. Link titles are ambiguous, products are on multiple categories, layout is illogical, etc.

Apple's site: One page for each category (iPhone, Mac, etc.), iTunes, Support, Store. Sign in and it links you to support pages for every product you've ever bought. A big ol' text box on top of the page lets you quickly type a question.

Good stuff.

ciTiger · Apr 18, 2011

This is major.
There are thousands of different problems with Apple products, if this is well implemented and used it will improve the users access to proper solutions.

kavika411 · Apr 18, 2011

Not trying to derail, but just want to mention that - assuming Apple is about to roll out its "cloud" - it makes sense that this (hopefully last) shoelace needed to be tied so there is a "cloud support community."

Bring out the cloud, Apple. Bring out the cloud.

gradenh · Apr 18, 2011

I had to use it this weekend. I thought the layout was fabulous and it worked very well on both my iPhone AND iPad.

baryon · Apr 18, 2011

No one ever knows any answer to my technical questions on various forums, so I hope this works better!

Spongebobk · Apr 18, 2011

You will need to edit your profile as Apple have kindly defaulted accounts to 'Everyone' meaning all of your account information is available to the world. They should have at least used the 'Registered Users' as a default.

bdkennedy1 · Apr 18, 2011

I can't log in at all. I get the error message "We're sorry. Your account could not be created due to system issues. Please contact Apple Support Communities with the information below to create your account."

res1233 · Apr 18, 2011

Well, if the massive number of posts already up in the last day are any indication, I'd say it's already a roaring success. Grats Apple. Finally an official iForum. This seems to directly compete with these forums in fact.

EDIT: Ah, most of them are from the old discussion threads. Still. Those old threads were well-used already, just hard to navigate. I think this is an improvement.

manu chao · Apr 18, 2011

kavika411 said:
Not trying to derail, but just want to mention that - assuming Apple is about to roll out its "cloud" - it makes sense that this (hopefully last) shoelace needed to be tied so there is a "cloud support community."

Apple is clearly using this discussion page revamp to lay the foundations for a Facebook competitor. For once, you only get a lot of their features if you view the discussions page via your 'personalised view'. And although you can still simply use the default version of your 'personalised view', most people won't like it as it does not give you access to your previous posts without modifying the layout (or jump out of your personalised view into the non-personalised version which is nevertheless confusingly called 'Your Stuff').

And once you drill down into the options, you can add your own RSS feeds, bookmarks, own HTML or text blocks. This clearly is a testbed for letting people create their own tech-portal, just centered around Apple's discussions page.

res1233 said:
Well, if the massive number of posts already up in the last day are any indication, I'd say it's already a roaring success. Grats Apple. Finally an official iForum.

These forums exist since at least 2001, 99.99% of the posts there predate this latest layout revamp. The layout is new, not the content, though they laid the foundations for a better structured content: documents, announcements, user tips, though they naturally had announcements before, they were simply called sticky posts and any post not labelled as a question by the poster was by definition a user tip.

res1233 · Apr 18, 2011

manu chao said:
These forums exist since at least 2001, 99.99% of the posts there predate this latest layout revamp. The layout is new, not the content, though they laid the foundations for a better structured content: documents, announcements, user tips, though they naturally had announcements before, they were simply called sticky posts and any post not labelled as a question by the poster was by definition a user tip.

You nabbed it before the edit.

or you missed the edit.

I wonder if there will be iMods on these new threads, wielding the almighty iBan Hammer.

jronius · Apr 18, 2011

The "revamped community" is just an upgrade to the latest version of Jive Social Business Software (along with some skinning and integration). It is a pretty impressive usage of an off-the-shelf product.

Dainin · Apr 18, 2011

projectle said:
And unsurprisingly, it still doesn't let iPhone or iPad users play.

When will Apple learn that their Support sites and Communities should actually work with their products?

Using my iPad with no problems...

3587 · Apr 18, 2011

bdkennedy1 said:
I can't log in at all. I get the error message "We're sorry. Your account could not be created due to system issues. Please contact Apple Support Communities with the information below to create your account."

Same issue here... They sent me a response, but that did not make any sense... Still can't log in...

Funkymonk · Apr 18, 2011

who gives a ffffuuu? rather just come here

dj-anon · Apr 18, 2011

I really like the new design, the old one was so... old.

blondepianist · Apr 18, 2011

The default username is [name]from[town]?? Seriously? The whole point of the username is to anonymize my profile. And unfortunately, I clicked "Agree" to the ToS before noticing that the same screen also confirms your name. Now I'm stuck with it

Apple Finally Unveils Revamped 'Apple Support Communities'

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