The AppleCare might explain things. They want people to pay for Apple's high-quality care and get the great Apple experience that way, not get low-quality crappy free support from a forum. So the forum is only operated out of necessity - if Apple didn't run one, somebody else would - and it can't be a support avenue because Apple must always control the quality of the experience and you have to pay Apple for that.
It's actually consistent and reasonable when you look at Apple's obsession with quality.
Apple's obsession with quality should not include leaving user's in a lurch.
I find it surprising you are defending this forum behavior by Apple via their obsession with quality. I see it as the exact opposite.
If Apple was obsessed with quality they would not leave user's hanging dry in a forum. As I can imagine, the forum is a at resort for a lot of people. At a minimum Apple should have some type of escalation policy to help with issues that are not just single data points but seem systematic (as this WiFi issue seems to be).
Your statement basically boils down to if you cannot afford to get Apple's attention (via Apple Care) than don't bother. Also, having the inability to downgrade puts users in a unreasonable situation with no options. I am sure you are not suggesting that users with older phones and out of warranty just don't matter. At a minimum, when Apple offers iOS upgrades, don't dismantle functionality that is already there.
Apple offers two streams for any product - "good" and "perfect".
Tech support over a forum is "cheap" or "free". So they don't do it. This behaviour is perfectly consistent with everything else Apple does, and it protects their brand image that way - with Apple, you either get The Good Stuff or it doesn't exist. Forum-based support? Doesn't exist.
Which is one of the many reasons that I don't buy Apple products. Want Apple support? Pay for Apple Care. Don't like that kind of arrangement? Don't buy Apple.
> Which is one of the many reasons that I don't buy Apple products. Want Apple support? Pay for Apple Care. Don't like that kind of arrangement? Don't buy Apple.
Can you give me an example of another big company that offers better support then Apple does? From your comment it looks like you are on Android, so according to you - you can just call Google directly and ask a question if your android phone got a wifi issue?
That's crap. If you can't support your products at the price point you set, your price point is too low. This Apple Care business is like extended warranties at rip off electronics stores.
(Edit: Not that you're wrong, just that it sucks.)
Well, that's a nice way of spinning it. The simple fact of the matter though is that Apple want people to pay through the nose for AppleCare because it does wonders for their bottom line. In the EU they and all other sellers are required to offer certain minimum warranties with their products, but in order to make more money from AppleCare they lied to consumers about what was covered without it and got into legal hot water over it. This looks like another repeat of that pattern of behaviour.
It's actually consistent and reasonable when you look at Apple's obsession with quality.