Apple's TIL site to be "deleted"?

Apple's Tech Info Library is the primary source where Apple posts troubleshooting information. Thus, it is obviously of importance to us here at MacFixIt.

According to this Go2Mac article, the Tech Info Library was scheduled to go "offline at the close of business" yesterday. As of this morning, we were still able to use the TIL links, so the article is technically incorrect as to the timing. However, we suspect that it is still correct in stating Apple's intent. Ever since Apple's recent "Software Update migration" (see previous item), we have been expecting the TIL to close. It's just a matter of time. If and when this happens, what does this mean for you?

The articles themselves will still be available (barring some that might get deleted in the transition). It's just that you will now be required to access them via the AppleCare KnowledgeBase rather than the former TIL site. One difference: the AppleCare site typically requires that you register to use it; the TIL site does not.

For us at MacFixIt (and others who may be similarly interested), it also means that it will be even more difficult to track new articles as they get released. [Yes, you can search for articles posted on a given date, but this does not distinguish new from modified articles and cannot be used to search a range of dates. It also does not yield the required generic URLs needed for posting on MacFixIt.] Apple could post a Recent Articles page, as it does for Recent Software Updates and as it used to do for Recent TILs, but it apparently does not want to do so. This has been a long standing complaint of ours, and the situation now gets worse.

Update: TILs are gone now! As of late this evening, the TIL site was indeed closed. TIL links (such as the ones in the next item on this page) are now redirected to the matching KnowledgeBase article. The old TIL links should redirect correctly even if you are not logged in to AppleCare. However, we have seen the links sometimes fail to work - even if you are logged in. In most cases, we found that simply trying the same link a second or third time got it to succeed. But not always. Clearly, there are still some kinks in the system.

In any case, as we noted here before in the context of software updates links, you can do your own conversion of a TIL link to a KB link - and it should work every time. The conversion for TILs is:

http://til.info.apple.com/techinfo.nsf/artnum/n#####

becomes

http://www.info.apple.com/kbnum/n#####