Sam OliverRevealed last week in a post on the existing Apple Discussions, the forthcoming Apple Support Communities will allow users to have their own personalized profile with a custom picture and avatar. Users will be able to build their homepage with widgets and custom content.
The newly redesigned forums also aim to increase community participation with a reputation system. Members on the site will be able to recognize the contributions of others who are helpful by giving them reputation points, helping to increase their status.
"Apple Support Communities brings together thousands of Macintosh, iPod, iPhone, and iPad users from around the world to discuss Apple products and topics," the official introduction reads. "Apple Support communities provides a wealth of information about your favorite Apple hardware and software products to help you get the most out of your purchase. And, in the spirit of community, you can also help other Apple Support Communities' users by answering their questions."
Apple has said that the new online forums will represent a "major change" from the existing Apple Discussions. It also said the launch will take place "very soon," but did not provide a specific date. Users on the forums have indicated that Apple Support Communities is currently in beta testing for some users.
Users with custom profiles will be able to access the "Your View" feature on their homepage, which allows them to view the information they want to see. The new forums will allow users to customize their layout and add, remove or edit widgets.
"Let’s say you want to add a widget for Unanswered Questions," the Personal Homepage introduction reads. "From the Widgets list, click on the widget category from which you’d like to choose. For Unanswered Questions, select Content, and when a list of widgets is displayed, select Unanswered Questions. Now, click on the Drag to Add button and drag the widget to the place you would like it to appear on your My Page (Your View?)."
Over the weekend, the existing Apple Discussions forums were temporarily taken offline after it appeared the site was the victim of a malicious attack. The official forums were unavailable Saturday soon after the pages displayed the message "for fun, by tojen" without any other content.
After that, the site became "temporarily unavailable" and asked users to visit apple.com/support during the downtime. It is believed the attack many have targeted external DNS servers or Apple's content delivery partners, sending users to an incorrect or outdated address of compromised servers that had been taken offline.
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49 Comments
It is nice to see Apple Inc. starting to make this resource more public and available. It has always been a great help.
As someone who has done forum work for about 20 years and is the co-admin of a iPhone developer forum, I think the forum format is something that needed to die 10 years ago. I haven't yet seen Apple's forum referred to here, but they didn't say it was innovative, so i just assume it's "lipstick on a pig."
The problem with forums is that most questions don't get answered, and people ask the same question over and over because the ability to search for an existing answer (much less people having a skill to search, which they shouldn't have to) is so poor that they cannot find the answer they are looking for, and ask again and again and again, which makes people not bother to answer.
Furthermore, forums get filled with old information that is never cleared away. The list goes on, and everyone here knows EXACTLY what I am talking about.
There is a better way. I know what it is. And if I can think of it, so can many other people. I told Apple in a questionnaire what was wrong with the forum format, but I think the problem is that there are people at Apple who are not thinking outside the box and thinking different. It costs money to innovate, and apparently it's cheaper to have an open Genius bar than to innovate with online information.
I guess I'm ahead of my time. We're only into the second decade of the 21st century.
Mark Hernandez
The Information Workshop
Ridiculous.
The Apple Discussion Forums -- no matter what Apple calls them and no matter how Apple redesigns them -- are a COMPLETE JOKE and an insult to all Mac users worldwide.
Without actual Apple employees answering questions on the forums, most questions never get answered, and the rest of the questions are the blind leading the blind.
Until someone is paid $$$ to help people in the forums, there will continue to be ZERO consistency and ZERO reliability and ZERO incentive for other people's help.
Apple would be better off shutting these forums down altogether, than making this mockery of themselves and their users.
you don't think Apple will come out with Apple.me?
lol
I use the Search feature on the Forums and 90% of the time find the specific answer to my question. The Forums for me are a Godsend.