Is there anyone actually monitoring this forum?

I concur...... very annoying.... my post has been up for at least a week, and I've waited patiently for something.... anything.... and have noticed quite a few others have their questions go unanswered.... pathetic really. I bet if you used 'bad language' you'd get a bite.... Point being, I reckon they probably 'do' monitor this forum, but just couldn't be 'bothered' to respond.... which only makes it worse!

This is a user to user support community sponsored by Apple. There is very little Apple employee involvement in the questions and answers. They read few posts.

Many here with higher levels and points (see your username and the info below it) have been thanked by others for providing helpful answers. The higher the points, the more useful responses they have provided in the past.

Most of the questions that are well written receive a response. Most of the solution contributors abide by the rule of not providing guesses. So, if your question stumped all, you will not receive a response. Responses original posters mark as solved have a green check mark and green box around the solution. Helpful comments are noted with an orange box.

Most of the threads are concise and too the point. But sometimes threads get wildly speculative and long. When reading a thread like that I filter what I read completely by reputation points skim or skip others.

BangerT wrote:

I concur...... very annoying.... my post has been up for at least a week, and I've waited patiently for something.... anything.... and have noticed quite a few others have their questions go unanswered.... pathetic really. I bet if you used 'bad language' you'd get a bite.... Point being, I reckon they probably 'do' monitor this forum, but just couldn't be 'bothered' to respond.... which only makes it worse!

The Apple employees who monitor this form are not technical support people; their function is to keep the forums running and deal with posters who abuse it by using bad language, abusing others, or straying into forbidden areas such as jailbreaking or breaking DRM. They also don't permit speculation about, for example, Apple's future plans.

Apple's actual technical support staff don't on the whole look at the forums - I suppose they might do occasionally to monitor a trend - but they never post here. That's not the function of the forums.

I'm sorry you haven't received an answer to your post; unfortunately your question is about a very obscure corner of Apple products so the great majority of posters won't know anything at all about the subject. You can approach actual Support for help by going to https://getsupport.apple.com and navigating through the options.

Just for clarity, you asked a question about some obscure vertical software that is not made by Apple and you were expecting an answer? But you got a good one anyway which a lot of questions here are successfully answered.

actual customer service representatives involved here?

No.

(Would be nice though if we'd get paid rather than volunteer our time to be belittled.)

Sorry to be snarky but... Really? What’s the point here?

The point is that some of our long time contributors have an amazing amount of knowledge which they offer to share. However, since we must test our answers on our own equipment before replying (per the ToU), it can and does happen that no one either uses that software or has a definitive answer.

So, if you want an answer by a customer service representative, contact Apple.

Originally, this site was know as "Apple Discussions." There was very little confusion about whether Apple had an official presence or not--people seemed to understand they would interact with other users, not Apple personnel.

Then someone had the brilliant idea to change the name to "Apple Support Communities" and suddenly people focused on the "Apple Support" part of the name and not the "Communities" part. Something as simple as a name change can cause a lot of confusion.