Apple does not offer a reason for the decision in its announcement, nor did the company immediately respond. MacWorld request for comment. So we can only speculate on the basis.
Apple
An obvious problem with forums would be the same one encountered by all companies operating such a site: the owner has responsibility for the content without having control over it. If news of a hardware issue breaks, forum users will discuss it in a way that has consequences for Apple’s corporate strategy, potentially spreading awareness before the company is ready to release a statement or even sowing misinformation, and disgruntled device owners are unlikely to follow Apple’s intended messaging lines when they complain about the latest thing that went wrong. In the thread I linked above, for example, several commenters point out that the screen problem is rare and covered by warranty, but another advises the thread’s author to stick with conventional iPhones and avoid the Duo for now.
In other words, Apple probably didn’t like the idea of owners searching Google for a problem with their device, seeing the forums in a prominent search ranking and with official Apple branding, and then being exposed to unofficial messages. It is a company that is characterized by wanting to control the narrative at all times, and forums are a terrible medium for that.
On the other hand, forums are a brilliant way to generate large amounts of content without having to pay for it, and Apple is about to say goodbye to that. Apple’s community forums have been around for decades, dating back to 1998. Longtime Apple users will fondly remember browsing Apple discussion threads before Reddit or Discourse existed.
However, in the void left by the absence of Support Community, users will have to look elsewhere. Other sites may see an increase in traffic to their own forums (and Apple will have even less control over discussions there), while others with a preference for the official route will visit Apple Support.
But a site curated by in-house writers, even one funded by a multibillion-dollar company like Apple, can’t react as quickly to the latest news and emerging vulnerabilities as a forum open to the public; It’s not just about manpower, but also about having to get clearance from legal and public relations departments before publishing anything. Apple Support is a more trusted resource in many ways than the support community, but it can’t perform exactly the same function… unless John Ternus has an AI-based approach in mind.
