Seven months after it announced that it would imbue its support pages with more 'social' relevance, Apple, Inc. went live with Apple Support Communites over the pre-easter weekend.

The new Apple support site has lost its clinical, almost sterile tech look that appeared to be a portal for asking the company tech and support questions although user participation and responses were allowed, albeit strictly moderated by Apple staff. It is now very obviously user-centric with a design that encourages discussion and interaction while retaining the old community-based paradigm with users of each Apple product slotted into specific communities. User questions are now posed to the 'community' of users although one would expect a few Apple geniuses lurking about ensuring responses to difficult questions and possibly killing non-sensical ones and critical non-questions.

A tagging facility quickly flags popular questions as with a bookmarking tool. Threaded discussions, personal RSS feeds, user-specific subscriptions and notifications are within reach.

Personal home pages within the community are now suported. Registered users can build their own home pages with user-customizable content that in typical Apple fashion is as easy as drag-and-drop. A hope page can be tailored to be anything from being highly support-oriented to one with a more social flavor focusing on community interactions rather than product fixes and how-tos.