Apple launches new Support Communities social online forums

Posted:
in General Discussion edited January 2014
Apple has gone live with the Apple Support Communities support forum upgrade it announced last year, adding social network features and replacing the Apple Discussions board.



Apple announced the new Support Communities upgrade to its online forums last August on the Apple Discussions board.



"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 read. "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."



As first reported by MacStories, Apple has officially launched its newly redesigned forums, which add a highly social element to the support forums.







Users are encouraged to browse through "communities" to find one focused on the relevant product or topic, then join the discussion by replying or liking posts. Those who don't find the answer they're looking for can easily submit a question to the community.



To join ASC, users simply sign in using their Apple ID, select a username for the Community and then approve the new ASC terms and conditions.







A new "Your View" section with customizable widgets allow for a personalized experience and layout with modular content categories from both outside or inside the community.







The "Your Stuff" section of ASC includes Bookmarks, Discussions, Documents, Communities and Notifications, as well as a Preference and Profile.



The ASC user interface takes inspiration from the iPad and iOS, with frequent use of popover menus and overlays.



ASC members can customize their profiles with photos and avatars, which include iconic Apple products such as the original iMac, clamshell iBook and first-generation iPod.





Apple has outlined a "Community Etiquette" policy for ASC:

Post only technical support questions and answers, unless otherwise noted.

Be polite, constructive and stay on topic.

Search for questions similar to your own before submitting them to the community.

Reward helpful community members by marking answers to your questions helpful and correct.

Avoid speculation and rumors.

Users who submit helpful and correct responses will continue to receive reputation points, which contribute to an increase in status level, thereby unlocking greater privileges, though it's not immediately clear what those privileges entail.







Apple has been systematically revamping the support section of its website. In January, the company added a Support Profile site that allows users to track repair and support activities for their products.
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Comments

  • Reply 1 of 45
    john.bjohn.b Posts: 2,742member
    Check your privacy settings. For some reason, my phone number and home address came up as Visible to: Everyone from the old discussions board.



    And it's probably more generically secure to change anything that you want the world to see from Everyone to Registered Users.
  • Reply 2 of 45
    chris_cachris_ca Posts: 2,543member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by John.B View Post


    Check your privacy settings. For some reason, my phone number and home address came up as Visible to: Everyone from the old discussions board.



    And it's probably more generically secure to change anything that you want the world to see from Everyone to Registered Users.



    When you edit your profile, these fields are not there. There is no place to add this info.



    However, you are correct that those fields should default to Yourself (not Registered users).



    I have notified the mods there.



    Oh, and you are now subscribed to 14 magazines such as "Big 'Uns" and similar titles as well as having your name and phone number submitted to as various charities.

    You can expect delivery and solicitations to begin in 7 to 14 days…

  • Reply 3 of 45
    alienzedalienzed Posts: 393member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by John.B View Post


    Check your privacy settings. For some reason, my phone number and home address came up as Visible to: Everyone from the old discussions board.



    And it's probably more generically secure to change anything that you want the world to see from Everyone to Registered Users.



    *gasp*, it's also in the phone book!
  • Reply 4 of 45
    cgc0202cgc0202 Posts: 624member
    This move further strengthens the Apple Ecosystem. What Apple should do is not only this but something similar to a wikipedia relevant to everything Apple;



    CGC
  • Reply 5 of 45
    cgc0202cgc0202 Posts: 624member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Chris_CA View Post


    Oh, and you are now subscribed to 14 magazines such as "Big 'Uns" and similar titles as well as having your name and phone number submitted to as various charities.

    You can expect delivery and solicitations to begin in 7 to 14 days…





    Do you have proof that Apple is selling member information to various charities? Or are you just being yourself, and speculating the worst of Apple?



    Quote:
    Originally Posted by alienzed View Post


    *gasp*, it's also in the phone book!



    A database of names of Apple customers has greater value to solicitors than that of the names in a generic phonebook. Hsving stated the aforementioned, it is true also that marketeers and demographic analysts can learn a lot about a person or a family from the ZIP Code or Area Code (Phone).



    CGC
  • Reply 6 of 45
    twelvetwelve Posts: 49member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by John.B View Post


    Check your privacy settings. For some reason, my phone number and home address came up as Visible to: Everyone from the old discussions board.



    And it's probably more generically secure to change anything that you want the world to see from Everyone to Registered Users.



    My profile defaulted to "Yourself." Apple is very protective of its customers.
  • Reply 7 of 45
    chris_cachris_ca Posts: 2,543member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by cgc0202 View Post


    Do you have proof that Apple is selling member information to various charities?



    Why would I need proof? I never suggested they were selling anything.

    Are you serious? I surely wasn't, as anyone without a stick up their ass could easily tell, based on the -> I inserted at the end of my post as well as the general tone of my post.

    And I was jokingly hinting that some of the posters in the forums/spiders/SPAMbots had already gotten his info since it defaults to show everyone. However, since this info cannot even be added to the current or past forum database, it cannot be displayed so noe one could have gotten this info

    Quote:

    Or are you just being yourself, and speculating the worst of Apple?



    What are you on about? "Being myself"?

    Show me any post where I have speculated "the worst of Apple?"



    "Lighten up Francis"

    (I know your name is not Francis. This is a quote from the movie "Stripes" with Bill Murray in which Francis aka "Killer" is far too serious and the drill instructor tells him to calm down)
  • Reply 8 of 45
    nvidia2008nvidia2008 Posts: 9,262member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Chris_CA View Post


    Oh, and you are now subscribed to 14 magazines such as "Big 'Uns" and similar titles...



    Yay hope they send me some free samples.
  • Reply 9 of 45
    nvidia2008nvidia2008 Posts: 9,262member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by cgc0202 View Post


    Do you have proof that Apple is selling member information to various charities? Or are you just being yourself, and speculating the worst of Apple?



    A database of names of Apple customers has greater value to solicitors than that of the names in a generic phonebook. Hsving stated the aforementioned, it is true also that marketeers and demographic analysts can learn a lot about a person or a family from the ZIP Code or Area Code (Phone).



    CGC



    Pill. Chill. You Take.
  • Reply 10 of 45
    irelandireland Posts: 17,798member
    Check your privacy settings. You'll find your phone number is currently set to "visible to everyone".
  • Reply 11 of 45
    djsherlydjsherly Posts: 1,031member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Twelve View Post


    My profile defaulted to "Yourself." Apple is very protective of its customers.



    Not so protective of me, however. Home address and phone number public? Really?
  • Reply 12 of 45
    nvidia2008nvidia2008 Posts: 9,262member
    I only had real name and email address filled, both were set to "yourself". All other info was set to "everyone" but they were blank fields.
  • Reply 13 of 45
    noirdesirnoirdesir Posts: 1,027member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by alienzed View Post


    *gasp*, it's also in the phone book!



    Really? My username is in the phone book?
  • Reply 14 of 45
    magicjmagicj Posts: 406member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by alienzed View Post


    *gasp*, it's also in the phone book!



    Only if you gave them permission to put it there.
  • Reply 15 of 45
    noirdesirnoirdesir Posts: 1,027member
    The global timeline is pretty much nonsense, it is about as useful as the global timeline of Twitter, way too much traffic. Well, at least they have not added a Dickbar yet.

    Instead of the global timeline they should have kept for space for selecting the categories which now requires a lot more scrolling.



    Which is a general problem of their discussions, way too much traffic. Whenever you post something, it will last only a very few hours on the first page even if you drill down to their lowest category. Maybe if you are lucky you will get one or two replies before the thread gets washed away into the history. Only issues which affect a lot of people (and thus people will start to search for) are really discussed there. But even then, the threads very often get out of hand (ie, reading through hundreds of posts is just not practical).



    And now all their pages prompt a browser warning about mixing secure and insecure elements, great job.



    So, ok what did they add (improve)?

    - documents and announcement categories

    - life search

    - searching for strings, except naturally that it still does not work properly, eg, searching for 'raw images' still shows results which contain only the single words not the whole term (and not just behind all posts which really contain 'raw images' but intermingled with them)

    - thread view

    - and they increased the font size as their slow contribution to compensate for ever higher dpi displays
  • Reply 16 of 45
    estyleestyle Posts: 201member
    "Avoid speculation and rumors."



    good thing they put that in there or we might all be on their site whispering about what we think they might do next...

    and AI could be out of business
  • Reply 17 of 45
    noirdesirnoirdesir Posts: 1,027member
    I see no rule about not discussing third-party software (I was told previously by posters there that I should not discuss third-party software on Apple's discussion forums to which I answered, tough luck, I discuss there what I want to discuss as long as it is a technical problem about using Apple products).
  • Reply 18 of 45
    estyleestyle Posts: 201member
    Ireland, do you realize you have more posts than Kasper's Automated Slave, and it joined nearly ten years earlier than you...

    That's awesome, simply awesome
  • Reply 19 of 45
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by alienzed View Post


    *gasp*, it's also in the phone book!



    What's a "phone book"?
  • Reply 20 of 45
    MacProMacPro Posts: 19,718member
    The interface is certainly very web 2.0 or is it 3.0! I like it. Now give us the wysiwig tools to create sites liie this will ya Apple!
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