Maybe you used them to talk, maybe you relied on other users to solve problems, and maybe, just maybe, Apple would answer questions on the support community forum. But nothing more.
Apple is shutting down the Apple Support Communities forum, and for all they might be frustrating, we will miss them. At least for now, they will remain online as a searchable archive of great answers to problems, terrible answers, and strange arguments.
But you will never again be able to start a real discussion about an issue you thought only worried you. You will no longer be able to talk about your positive or negative experiences with Apple there.
You don’t need to have used the forums to have an idea of the purpose they were intended to serve. You probably have to have used them to recognize what is perhaps the most common recurring refrain in them.
This would happen when someone would post an issue and say that Apple didn’t recognize the problem. The sentences would be different and so would the problems, but you got used to the complaints that there was this thing and Apple wasn’t talking about it.
One of the reasons could be this, second AppleInsider sources, Apple hasn’t even read those forums for at least the last five years.
Perhaps this made their closure inevitable, or perhaps John Ternus simply doesn’t want to have to keep adding storage space. But whatever the reason for their closure now and Apple’s loss of interest long ago, it’s all a far cry from when the company started these forums.
How it started
Strictly speaking, these forums began in 1998 under the name Apple Tech Exchange. But a strong case can be made that all this actually started even longer ago.
Apple first launched the forums when it opened AppleLink in July 1985, although it was initially a resource for resellers and support personnel.
According to “Apple Confidential 2.0” by Owen Linzmayer, a study at the time showed that Apple saved at least $100 million a year ($314 million today). This has come about through the need for fewer staff and greatly reducing travel, phone and even paper needs.
So Apple got very fond of the forums, although if you think that was an easy save, think again. Apple was paying more than $30 million ($94 million today) to GE to run it.
However, anything that saves you a net total of $70 million has to be good. Then Apple went further, went beyond its dealer, and announced AppleLink Personal Edition for users in 1988.
Bright and colourful, perhaps a little condescending, Apple’s eWorld which includes support discussions – image credit: Apple
You don’t want to go down the rabbit hole like Apple did with this, although if you remember AOL and ever wondered how it started, this was a key element. What’s important now is that Apple’s forum offering was ultimately part of eWorld.
Today the most notable part of eWorld is the fact that the limited Internet support it eventually added was codenamed Golden Gate. It would be 31 years before he reused that codename for macOS 27.
This eWorld was a flop and in 1996 then CEO Gil Amelio killed it. In an explanatory message to eWorld users, Diana Keith, then Apple’s director of Internet Production, said:
As we see it, the smartest move for Apple to make is to dramatically expand our Internet presence. And the best way to structure that presence is with a portfolio of websites and services for particular customer groups, not with a generic online service like eWorld.
As of March 31, 1996, eWorld was no more. And then, in 1998, the Apple Tech Exchange arrived.
From technology to consumers
“Apple Tech Exchange” was definitely a name for the time, as the company was exclusively a computer company back then. Its name then was also Apple Computer, Inc. But just as the company evolved, just as it became a consumer technology company, its online support also developed to match.
This move by the company would become obvious in 2007 with the iPhone and the name change to simply “Apple” in 2007. But it all started with the iMac and iPod, and in the meantime Apple has been repositioning its forums.
By 2000, Apple Tech Exchange was out and Apple Discussions was in. It’s unclear now whether this was simply a rebranding or whether Apple was actually starting over with its forums.
But whatever it’s done, Apple has been doing it for about a decade. It wasn’t until early August 2010 that users started to notice something was wrong.
Apple Support Community
This time Apple definitely kept all the posts published in Apple discussions. In 2010, the new Apple Support Community forums were the old Apple threads with a fresh coat of paint.
Whatever problem you have had with Apple devices, someone else has faced it too and would have answered your question – image credit: Apple.
That’s not really fair, since it was this August 2010 rebrand that gave users new capabilities. From this point on, they may have a personalized profile, as well as a personalized picture and avatar.
There may be more going on behind the scenes, too, as in the weeks leading up to this change, some users had difficulty with Apple’s discussions. Then Apple began to treat the move as a “major upgrade.”
“Apple Discussions” had a decidedly less technical sound than “Apple Tech Exchange” and Apple was certainly trying to attract more general users. But then “Apple Discussions” seems like it’s useful for chatting about the company, not for getting concrete help and advice.
So the name “Apple Support Community” tried to do both tasks. You would know what you would get, in the sense that there would be support.
You would also know that this was a hopefully welcoming space for discussions about Apple.
You can debate whether Apple thought that deeply about the name. And of course you can argue about how useful the service was. In 2026 it was a pretty good historical reference.
That historical record will disappear soon enough. Apple confirmed to us that not only will the forums be closed, but they will also be completely offline.
Apple support communities were not the most popular online forum for discussions about Apple. Probably not the best way to find answers through a sea of snarky comments.
And it was full of people pointing out all the people complaining about a problem they had, citing hundreds of posts. In reality, those hundreds were usually the same person complaining in 2/3 of the posts.
Yet, if there is no shortage of comments, it is also true that the Apple Support Communities have helped us out of trouble more than once.
And that’s why we will miss him.
