Apple is continuing to improve the AI Support Assistant that it is testing in the Apple Support app, introducing new functionality in the latest update.
In addition to answering questions about Apple devices and services and providing device-specific help, Apple says the Support Assistant is able to help run diagnostics to show details about a device's health and performance.
The Apple Support app now has a more informative interface for the Support Assistant, and the tab for accessing the feature has an updated "Ask" label with a new icon instead of a "Chat" label. Apple is no longer calling the Support Assistant an "Early Preview," suggesting it is now available in a more official capacity.
Despite the update, the Support Assistant remains limited, and it is not yet available to all users. It's possible that Apple has expanded the feature to a larger number of testers, but not everyone will see it yet.
Apple began testing the Support Assistant last August. The tool uses AI to answer questions related to Apple support, and it is able to walk users through step-by-step solutions for common problems.
If the Support Assistant is unable to solve a problem, users are able to escalate a request to Apple's support staff for further help.
Tuesday September 29, 2026 9:11 am PDT by Joe Rossignol
Apple recently considered laying off about 5,000 support employees, but it has put those plans on hold indefinitely, according to Bloomberg's Mark Gurman.
The report said that Apple believed that AI-powered phone and web agents could take over some of the responsibilities performed by the employees who would have been let go, but Apple is no longer "currently looking to take such a step."
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Some Apple retail employees have been told to warn customers against visiting to purchase an iPhone Duo without a pre-order on Friday, October 23.
Apple Store employees told MacRumors that they have been advised that there will likely be no iPhone Duo stock available for walk-in purchases on launch day. Staff have been instructed to discourage customers without pre-orders from coming in...
Monday October 19, 2026 9:37 am PDT by Joe Rossignol
Apple today sent out invites for an experience in Los Angeles on Wednesday, October 28, and the "Pro and tell" tagline on the invitation likely means that the rumored MacBook models with touch-enabled OLED displays will stick with MacBook Pro branding instead of the once-rumored "MacBook Ultra" name.
The long-rumored "iPhone Ultra" ended up being named iPhone Duo, so speculation that Apple...
That's nice. The only discourse I've had with this thing is spamming "Live agent" until a real human being takes over and I can get my issue solved. But hey, keep wasting billions on this nonsense, Apple.
Having spent days with the AI «support» of Adobe and Adidas these past months, in endless loops of helplessness of the machine agent – this is not the way to go. Support is such an important part of your brandscape, you do not at ALL ever in any fashion give this over to digital agents that are much worse than even the free ChatGPT experience. It does not solve the problem. I think that making information available via AI, that having assistants online for simple problems, making support databases dialogue-based why not?
But when you **** up as a company and your client needs help, because your system is broken, you have a bug, you made an error... don't hide behind AI-crap.
In all cases I had, the best result was a real human, ideally of a higher support level with a certain experience, that solved the mess.
Except for Adobe, where a very simple problem was obviously too much and even after calling a number that is noooowhere on their site and which I found by googling in a forum and finalllllly had a human being in my ear... they could not solve a simple account-mess they did with my CC sub. I had to cancel my Adobe-Stock-subscription and lost 90 credits in the process, while the support dude actually still tried to hard-sell me on the Acrobat-AI-nonsense that really no one ever will need. Adobe is great, but they kill their brand with that kind of support.
When I want AI-support I can ask Gemini, GPT, Claude, whatever.
When I call Apple because they f*d up SMB or all the Electron Apps make my CPU go nuclear, I want a capable, experienced human being that at least can speak English and find a solution. Via Mail, in a Chat, on the Phone. But sure as hell not a roboChat that explains again and again how sorry it is that it cannot help me and that it understands my frustration that IT IS CAUSING. :-D
Apple's first foldable iPhone, with a book-style design featuring a 5.4-inch outer display and a 7.6-inch inner display with a minimal crease down the middle.
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