How long has the Apple Community forum existed, and have there been any meetups since the iOS 26 update?

My profile shows Nov 2001 but I started here earlier, probably Summer 2000. The letter informing me that I'd qualified as a "Helper," the old Apple Discussions term for contributors that would today be Level 6 or higher, arrived in Feb 2001 An old forum software changeover reset a number of users' join dates to Sept-Nov 2001.

Tell me what are the meetups like?

That's a problem. Any who attended signed an NDA.

No_takers_taken (Author)

Perhaps an inquiry of deeper and longer term may be

required to know the details of Apple, which parts did

survive; and how those changes became what is now

known, where you seek references of; in today's term?

From a duckduck-go browser search, in my Late 2012

Mac mini quad-core 'server' (still has original Mavericks

10.9.5 on one of four partitions; in two 1-TB HDDs) and

a few topics 'from earlier years' may be found online.

An earlier name for then 'community' = Apple Discussions.

One of my posts appear; while not as author of topic. Here:

Apple community beginning - Apple Community (from 2015)

"Apple Support Community discussions.. as are the comments

and service incident reports from that time when I called Apple

direct to see about troubleshooting. I did most of the work myself,

without their help, and finally they told the AASP in Anchorage to just

do what I told them; and follow my..." the rest, continued per my link.

//discussions.apple.com/thread/6854942?answerId=27751898022&sortBy=oldest_first#27751898022

..That covers my general experience: Condensed from May 2003..

found within others here:

https://duckduckgo.com/?t=ftsa&q=when+did+Apple+Discussions+begin%3F&ia=web

Of most members who began back in the day ~ some are still active.

-IF they are still among those here, this side of the 'magic' curtain..!

Somewhere I've link that shows an unofficial list of ASC members

and dates of their participation; that is not quite complete, but OK.

No_takers_taken wrote:

Tell me what are the meetups like? In the Apple Store with the experts? I could have used this community years ago.

Meet-ups are a perk for members who have reached Level 6. So, participate, answer a lot of questions, earn points, get to Level 6 and find out. ;-)

Share what you know and get recognized - Apple Support

But my advice is always to participate here because you enjoy doing so, not to accumulate points. If you just do it for the points, you'll have a lot less fun.

No_takers_taken wrote:

Understood. Thinking that it was like a seminar.

Apple Stores offer workshops. I've been to a couple and they've been quite good, if fairly basic. For at least one of them, I was the only person who signed up for the session so it was basically a one-on-one training.

Apple also offers Personal Setup for new devices if you buy them directly from Apple:

Personal Setup - Online Personal Sessions - Apple

I've been here since Jan 2010 so "this place" has existed longer than 15 years. And yes there is moderation.

No_takers_taken wrote:

How long has this place existed? Has anybody experienced a meetup since the iOS 26 update?

I've been a member since April 2003. And it wasn't new then.

Why are you asking?

Hi @No.Takers.Taken -

Are you asking about local, in-person meetups?

Allan Jones wrote:

Tell me what are the meetups like?

That's a problem. Any who attended signed an NDA.

First rule of meetups - don't talk about meetups.

😂👍🏻