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Apple's Genius Bar takes to Twitter with @AppleSupport

Date

Gadgets on the go

Adam Turner is an award-winning Australian freelance technology journalist with a passion for gadgets and the "digital lounge room".

View more entries from Gadgets on the go

We're ready to believe you – Apple's blue-shirted geniuses have discovered Twitter.

We're ready to believe you – Apple's blue-shirted geniuses have discovered Twitter.

Rather than line up to speak with a genius in a blue shirt, Apple users can now turn to Twitter with their iTech queries.

Encountering a technical problem with your iGadgets can often leave you trawling the forums in search answers, especially when Apple has a habit of dragging its feet when it comes to acknowledging bugs with its products. Now the tech giant has taken a proactive approach to tech support for people on the move, launching @AppleSupport with support staff on hand to offer advice and troubleshoot tech issues.

The Blue Tick-certified Twitter account launched promising "tips and tutorials" for Apple customers...

... but after 12 hours it already has 90,000 followers and has replied to more than 1500 support queries.

Thankfully Apple is handing out more than scripted platitudes such as "have you tried turning it off and on again?". The online genius bar is offering a wide range of practical advice such as pointing to buried iOS settings or recommending a NVRAM reset on a Mac. Tweets include links to Apple support pages with detailed instructions.

The vast majority of requests are met with a variation on "We're here to help, please DM us more information on the problem" rather than fleshing out the details in long public conversations. While this might protect people's privacy, it obviously also helps reduce messy public acknowledgements of iOS and MacOS bugs, hardware faults and other issues Apple would rather keep out of the spotlight.

Due to the inundation of tweets, the service is currently taking several hours to reply to requests for help. It's only accepting requests in English and it is unclear at this point whether the US-based service will answer support requests 24 hours a day to cater for Apple users in different time zones.

So far the service has been swamped with a wide range of technical support questions, ranging from iPhone battery faults and screen repairs to MacOS parental controls and iCloud storage issues. Apple ID related requests are forwarded to telephone support, which is likely better equipped to deal with scammers attempting to break into iTunes accounts.

Considering Apple's reluctance to publicly acknowledge new bugs and product flaws, it will be interesting to see how the service handles the next #iPhoneGate scandal.

Meanwhile, not everyone is taking Apple's offer of help seriously;

7 comments so far

  • My biggest frustration with Apple is "...Apple's reluctance to publicly acknowledge new bugs and product flaws". Particularly as these issues are often caused by products being rushed released to marketing deadlines rather than when the product has been adequately tested. Which is, by the way, is the how Microsoft has always done business. Windows 8 anyone?

    Users like me are left to look to user forums for solutions and workarounds. I suspect that the Twitter service will be not much more than a human assisted search engine for Apple's support site articles.

    Commenter
    Madam
    Location
    Melbourne
    Date and time
    March 04, 2016, 1:41PM

    • Lets consider this. IOS and OSX get released on specific built hardware by the same people who mac the software, they have an enclosed eco system so bugs and flaws should be a minimum. MS creates the OS that is installed on hardware platforms that have unlimited possibilities and combinations. They are unable to test every scenario with the software hardware setup. So the ability to develop an OS like Windows and even Linux to work on any configuration is an achievement. Flaws and bugs are to be expected due to that reason, not because it is rushed software. If Apple has flaws, which it does, that is due to lazy untested coding.

      Commenter
      Sliverin
      Date and time
      March 05, 2016, 9:16AM

    • "they have an enclosed eco system so bugs and flaws should be a minimum."

      What's the evidence for that?
      For software bugs and flaws to achieved minimal, open and closed system is relevance, it's about software engineering methodology.

      Commenter
      Gerson
      Location
      Sydney
      Date and time
      March 05, 2016, 11:10PM

    • Being in a specific environment tailored for one OS allows testing on all available hardware options as their is no third party hardware manufacturer of MAC. Same as IOS, their is only about 8 phones they need to test OS on so any amendments, adjustment or fixes to the code should be weeded out allot easier before release. E.g apple do not care for third party hardware through their OS updates, this means they can focus on solely getting the OS to work on the 50 or so different variation of hardware out their today.

      Commenter
      Sliverin
      Date and time
      March 07, 2016, 8:25AM

  • The Twitter account says it operates 9-5pm PST.

    Commenter
    Dogfrmparkdale
    Date and time
    March 04, 2016, 3:08PM

    • These people at the "Genius Bar". Are they the same ones that are currently earning less than the checkout chick at your local supermarket?

      Commenter
      Tony B
      Location
      Melb
      Date and time
      March 04, 2016, 4:37PM

      • Too little too late...
        Reasonably good products (but no better than their competitors) are spoilt by automated customer service and the bane of my life - iTunes; easily (in my view) the least intuitive web site ever created by man.

        Commenter
        iGuy
        Date and time
        March 06, 2016, 2:23PM

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