4 ms·

It boggles my mind why Apple doesn't have any engagement at all with the community. Their community Q&A is full of questions like "How do I play notifications

It boggles my mind why Apple doesn't have any engagement at all with the community. Their community Q&A is full of questions like "How do I play notifications through the phone speaker instead of bluetooth speaker" and the answers are just community members with the same problem, also wondering how to do it. Zero engagement from Apple.

Someone1234 7y ago
This is one area where they could learn something from Microsoft. Microsoft use UserVoice for product feedback. Outdated list of UserVoice product sites: https://blogs.technet.microsoft.com/o365guy/2018/01/02/submit-product-feedback-or-feature-requests-to-microsofts-virtual-suggestion-boxes/ https://blogs.technet.microsoft.com/o365guy/2018/01/02/submi... UserVoice allows voting on what issues impact people most and allows the company to provide feedback to those issues/ideas. This isn't to say that a company must do all upvoted ideas, Microsoft certainly don't, but it is a useful outlet for both parties. Microsoft aren't the only major company using UserVoice: https://www.uservoice.com/customers/ https://www.uservoice.com/customers/ and there are competing services offering similar benefits. The concept is maybe more important than that specific product. Apple seems to lack basic communications channels in both directions. This is a problem regardless of company policy.
- musicale 7y ago
  There are multiple input channels (feedback.apple.com, support.apple.com, twitter, etc.) but few if any official replies from Apple. Also bug reports are private (due to personal and/or proprietary information as well as potential security issues) so it's hard to gauge whether other people have run into similar issues or if Apple has uncovered the same bug in their own testing. I'd like to see a vetted "parent bug" that would be publicly visible, but Apple would never do this because they don't want third parties to mine their bug reports (which could potentially be exploited maliciously against Apple or its users, or for financial gain.)
hnick 7y ago
Every time I look up a Macbook problem for my wife it's 16 pages of this.
musicale 7y ago
I kind of wish they'd deploy a posse of geniuses to support.apple.com to address some of the more prominent issues with thousands of "I have this issue too" upvotes.
- saagarjha 7y ago
  There are rumors that Linc Davis is a cover for exactly that.
- asveikau 7y ago
  This leads to an interesting, possibly reusable turn of phrase: a few geniuses short of a posse.
Razengan 7y ago
It's sadly the same even on https://forums.developer.apple.com https://forums.developer.apple.com - a lot of questions just collecting cobwebs without any responses. :(
- saagarjha 7y ago
  There are engineers who answer questions there.
  - Razengan 7y ago
    Recall this though: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15800676 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15800676 Which was posted on their forums but apparently went unnoticed: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15803700 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15803700
asdff 7y ago
Absolutely painful. Commenters with staggering post numbers come in to see if they've tried restarting their computer. I've resorted to appending my google searches with site:reddit.com or site:forums.* just to filter out all the fucking noise.

Someone1234 7y ago

This is one area where they could learn something from Microsoft. Microsoft use UserVoice for product feedback. Outdated list of UserVoice product sites: https://blogs.technet.microsoft.com/o365guy/2018/01/02/submit-product-feedback-or-feature-requests-to-microsofts-virtual-suggestion-boxes/ https://blogs.technet.microsoft.com/o365guy/2018/01/02/submi... UserVoice allows voting on what issues impact people most and allows the company to provide feedback to those issues/ideas. This isn't to say that a company must do all upvoted ideas, Microsoft certainly don't, but it is a useful outlet for both parties. Microsoft aren't the only major company using UserVoice: https://www.uservoice.com/customers/ https://www.uservoice.com/customers/ and there are competing services offering similar benefits. The concept is maybe more important than that specific product. Apple seems to lack basic communications channels in both directions. This is a problem regardless of company policy.

musicale 7y ago
There are multiple input channels (feedback.apple.com, support.apple.com, twitter, etc.) but few if any official replies from Apple. Also bug reports are private (due to personal and/or proprietary information as well as potential security issues) so it's hard to gauge whether other people have run into similar issues or if Apple has uncovered the same bug in their own testing. I'd like to see a vetted "parent bug" that would be publicly visible, but Apple would never do this because they don't want third parties to mine their bug reports (which could potentially be exploited maliciously against Apple or its users, or for financial gain.)

hnick 7y ago

Every time I look up a Macbook problem for my wife it's 16 pages of this.

musicale 7y ago

I kind of wish they'd deploy a posse of geniuses to support.apple.com to address some of the more prominent issues with thousands of "I have this issue too" upvotes.

saagarjha 7y ago
There are rumors that Linc Davis is a cover for exactly that.
asveikau 7y ago
This leads to an interesting, possibly reusable turn of phrase: a few geniuses short of a posse.

Razengan 7y ago

It's sadly the same even on https://forums.developer.apple.com https://forums.developer.apple.com - a lot of questions just collecting cobwebs without any responses. :(

saagarjha 7y ago
There are engineers who answer questions there.
- Razengan 7y ago
  Recall this though: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15800676 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15800676 Which was posted on their forums but apparently went unnoticed: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15803700 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15803700

asdff 7y ago

Absolutely painful. Commenters with staggering post numbers come in to see if they've tried restarting their computer. I've resorted to appending my google searches with site:reddit.com or site:forums.* just to filter out all the fucking noise.