Apple customers who have recently visited the company's website to get support beginning Oct. 24 must have discovered that the Support Profiles has been replaced by a new "Get Support" page.
Right off the bat, users will not be able to immediately tell the difference. There is still the ability to check Apple devices' technical support, track repair tickets and warranty coverage status, among others. The longer users spend time with the service, the more likely they will discover one crucial difference.
"Get Support" is distinguished by the fact that while it still provides support for multiple products, it does not allow products registered under different Apple IDs. This change can prove frustrating for users who have been availing of the service in behalf of friends or family. The offshoot is that it is now more difficult to manage multiple Apple devices overall.
In order to check devices under different Apple IDs, the user will have to log out and sign in again using different accounts. This early, a number of Apple device owners have expressed displeasure with this change. Aside from families, this can also adversely impact how organizations and individuals overseeing multiple device deployment get support for their devices.
It is still difficult to determine Apple's objectives with the shift from Support Profiles to the Get Support platform. There are observers who cite that the company has migrated its online support service to increase security. Restricting support for one Apple ID does make sense from this standpoint but the usability is severely compromised. If this is not addressed, Apple is setting itself up for an increase in unhappy customers - some of them have already found dramatic ways to articulate their frustrations.
It also appears that the Get Support page is still not ready for primetime. There are complaints that some devices registered under one Apple ID fail to show up in the list of registered devices. Apple Insider has experienced this problem. The company cited that it has linked 11 devices to its Apple ID account but only three have been recognized thus far.
It also appears that some aspects in the new support page are still under construction. These purportedly include the back-end mechanism that evaluates Apple ID data with the support platform's range of web services. As of this writing, non-iCloud devices registered under one Apple ID are also not yet recognized.
For those who encounter similar problems, it can be fixed by manually adding devices through the Apple ID account page.
Apple has not released any official statement about the new support page. The platform only provided a feedback mechanism, serving as a sounding board for user experience.
