Does Apple know what iMore is?

[iMore Question]

I keep having this feeling they have no idea about sites like MacRumors. Do employees like Phil Schiller know about the site? Do they read the posts from time to time?

 

[Rob Phillips]

Re: Does Apple know what MacRumors is?

Welcome to iMore! Your guess is as good as mine, but I'm sure they know sites like iMore exist and have people that comb through the forums and articles.

 

[Ledsteplin]

Welcome to iMore! I don't know about Phil, but I do know some of the Apple Support personnel know about some of these sites like iMore. I don't think they frequent them though.

 

[Tartarus]

I agree with Rob. Apple most likely knows about these kind of sites. And as he stated, I'm also quite certain they have people monitoring these forums to know what their customers want. What I don't know is how many value they add to the people's wants and needs. After all, it's a company with its own mind.

 

[Just_Me_D]

I keep having this feeling they have no idea about sites like MacRumors. Do employees like Phil Schiller know about the site? Do they read the posts from time to time?

Yes. They are indeed familiar with sites that are Pro-Apple, especially those like iMore that offer assistance/support/advice regarding Apple products and services.

 

[Larry Cook1]

I am very sure that Apple knows what iMore is and that they have people dedicated to checking it out daily. Perfect way to keep tabs on what their customers and potential customers are interested in.

 

[Garz]

Considering Phil has reposted tweets from 9 to 5 Mac often and imore gets invites to press events, i guarantee they know imore.

 

[cuttheredwire]

'Constant Negativity' From Pro Users Led Apple to Develop Modular Mac Pro, Which May Not Ship Until 2019 - Mac Rumors

When articles are titled like that, you know they are read forums all over. The press has been subtle on the subject, questioning and reporting on the feedback from the community. They haven't been calling out for anything; the people on forums and Reddit have been the negative ones.

https://www.macrumors.com/2017/04/06/mac-pro-may-not-ship-until-2019/

 

[Matty]

I keep having this feeling they have no idea about sites like MacRumors. Do employees like Phil Schiller know about the site? Do they read the posts from time to time?

Welcome to iMore and thanks for the question!

I definitely think Phil knows about iMore and at least some of the other creditable Apple sites that post articles on a regular basis. It's important for them to see how their customers are seeing their products. So by possibly reading a review by Rene they can see the perceived pros and cons and maybe adjust according. I don't think they read often but maybe once a month or so just to see who things are going.

I know Blackberry's CEO even has a custom user profile on Crackberry. So its not unheard of for companies to read tech sites. Especially one as big as iMore.

 

[anon(10210323)]

Most of my smartphone forum experience is with Blackberry at an older community called PinStack. RIM (which is the old name for BB) was well aware of our forum and several others that had to do with BB and scanned the forums for feedback and ideas, and also contributed occasionally to answer tech questions. I'm pretty sure Apple keeps up with forums and community activity at its largest fan forums, especially in light of my next paragraph ↓↓↓↓↓.

Here's some trivia that most people don't know: At the time of Steve Job's untimely and tragic passing, the largest smartphone/tech "news source" on the net was Gizmodo. Link to it here. At the time I was writing articles for Pinstack, and we (along with a number of other tech sites like Phone Arena) were constantly scanning each other for news. When Steve Jobs passed, Apple released the news exclusively to Gizmodo several minutes before the news was released to the general press. Smartphone sites all over the net gleaned the news from Giz and and smartphone/forums were reporting the sad news for 10 to 15 minutes before it was reported by the "legitimate" press. The admin at Pinstack learned that this was done by Apple as a courtesy to the smartphone community. So, yes, Apple is well aware of the Apple and general tech communities like iMore.