“When you buy an Apple hardware product such as a Mac or an iPad, you get a one-year hardware warranty and 90 days of free phone-based tech support, starting from the date of purchase,” Jonathan Seff writes for Macworld. “If something goes wrong—other than, say, you dropping your MacBook Air in a bucket of soapy water—Apple generally picks up the tab for repairing or replacing your hardware (at its discretion).”
“As most of us know, however, things tend to go south with hardware sometime after the included warranty expires,” Seff writes. “To ensure that your spiffy purchase continues to work without requiring you to pay for repairs and support as the need arises, Apple offers AppleCare Protection Plans as add-on purchases. But what do they give you? How much do they cost? And most importantly, are they worth it?”
Read more in the full article here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Lynn Weiler” for the heads up.]
You should only warrant crap. Apple hardware does fail, but by no means is it crap. Far, far from it. I have never had to use Applecare, but have had it on occasion. I have had to replace a retina LG display last week. I have a brand new one, took one full day. Works perfectly now (was ghosting). I will never buy any laptop that is not Apple for this reason alone, and the fact that you can resell Apple products for years after purchase for double or triple what you could sell any others for only months after purchase.
AppleCare is NO LONGER just an extended warranty program. For iPhone you get AppleCare+, which is not only for manufacturing defects (as covered by the standard warranty and old AppleCare) but also insurance against accidental damage, up to two incidents during the covered period.
http://store.apple.com/us/product/S4575LL/A/applecare-for-iphone
I’m not saying it’s worth it or not worth it, but for iPhone it’s not just a “extended warranty” program.
In Australia, we get two years included warranty on Apple products.
Well, aren’t you special.
We’ve always been “special” enough to be forced to pay much higher prices for Apple stuff, so a 2-year warranty is a kind of consolation prize.
Have you seen that in writing anywhere? Not calling you a liar, I remember hearing that it had to be changed to 2 years by law but the Apple website still says “Your MacBook Pro comes with 90 days of free telephone support and a one-year limited warranty”
My last macbook died at 18 months so I upgraded and bought AppleCare. Had I known it was still under a hidden warranty I could have saved myself a few $$$$
T&C on Apples site says 1 year too.
http://www.apple.com/au/support/warranty/homepage.html
No idea why there are so many down votes on a question??
Just to note that included warranty is not Apple care. The warranty is for manufacturing defects. Items that do not show up at first. A switch that fails soon after purchase.
Apple care covers most everything except down right focused breakage….. and sometimes even then. Also it covers full tech support for the full time frame. Warranty only covers 90 days. PERIOD> Hey, I use tech support all the time for pretty much any question.
Just saying.
I remember getting AppleCare with my PowerBook G4, and it was a lifesaver when I noticed my display giving out. Ever since then, I’ve gotten AppleCare with every Apple product I’ve purchased, be it a MacBook or an iPhone. Turned out to be a lifesaver again recently when I had an iPhone give me problems, and they replaced it free of charge.
Applecare is worth it’s weight in gold
For whom? Apple Inc. no doubt.
No doubt. I’ve had to use my applecare ALMOST on every iPhone. Just last week my wife’s speaker phone mic (which is also the mic for the video camera) went out and Apple replaced under a Manufactures defect. Her warranty was about to be up in Oct.
A few days before her I got my iPhone 5 replaced for the lock/sleep button quit working. I have AppleCare plus on that as well but ut was still under the one year app,e warranty.
I will buy apples extended warranty with every apple product I buy. Including the next iPhone. Which can’t come quick enough.
I had my iPhone 3GS’ mute switch stop working after it was about 20 months old. Got a new 3GS under AppleCare and upgraded to the 4S a couple of months later. That basically still new 3GS is now a music player/emergency backup phone.
Also had a few iPhoto corruption issues solved via tech support under AppleCare. Also had my wife’s PowerBook hard drive fail from being dropped at the airport and replaced under AppleCare. So it can be very worthwhile.
AppleCare is only worth the extra money on the ‘Big ticket’ products, like Macs, iPhones etc. otherwise ‘No thanks’ to everything else.
What does Apple offer AppleCare for that _isn’t_ a big ticket item?
Did you read the article?
There were a number of low cost items like AppleTV and iPod nanos mentioned, where the AppleCare is almost the price of the product.
In Canada iPod nano $49 AppleCare for nano $49
Okay, I saw the prices for AppleCare for the iPod Nano ($39.99 for a $149.00 Nano) and the AppleTV ($29.99 for a $99.99 Apple TV), which hardly seems “almost the price of the product,” but the question of whether it justifies the cost of the extra protection is a different matter. But yes, I agree, these are significantly smaller ticket items than iPhones or Macs.
I meant Shuffle $49 AppleCare $49
I don’t think you even need to bother asking the question of whether it justifes the cost with warranty pricing equalling the product price.
Oh yeah. I wouldn’t even bother getting the Shuffle at all, let alone getting AppleCare for it. When it first came out, I thought, “Why would I want to get an mp3 player where I can’t even choose which song I listen to on it?” Of course, other people obviously disagree with me, since it’s sold so well and continues to sell well. 😉
They are fine for gym rats that are well connected with their computers, and they don’t mind syncing new playlists all the time, but for the average person they suck.
What’s even worse is when you lose the USB to headphone cable that charges it. $20 for a new one.
What else is there idiot?
Few people recognize that AppleCare’s extra 2 years warranty on items covers their accessories, too.
I have had 2 AC chargers on my MB Pro replaced during the last 2 years of the warranty, a broken plastic part and cable strain relief coming apart with exposed wires. Those 2 replacements alone would have cost me more than Applecare
Then my trackpad started getting flakey on the clicking only a few months before the 3 years total warranted period was up. Fixed free.
I use my MBPro hard, so I have ALWAYS received more value from AppleCare than I pay. Terrific. Builds confidence & loyalty.
At year 4 I will buy the latest greatest MBPro again!
Yes, yes and Yes!
I almost always get AppleCare on laptops. While it may seem expensive it has saved my bacon more than once. My wife’s MacBook Air is currently having a very weird issue where it will intermitently not start up from sleep after opening the lid, or the screen will display weird colors. Apple has been very diligent in chasing down this strange issue by first replacing the screen and then the mother board. The issue is still not completely fixed yet (it’s a very strange one!), but with the AppleCare having kicked in over 1 1/2 years ago I am confident it will be soon. While this experience is atypical I consider AppleCare a small price to pay for good insurance that is well served.
I have purchase AppleCare on every laptop I’ve owned. I’ve needed it on each one. I have never purchased it on anything else and have never needed it on anything else.
Am3, your wife’s MBAir is perilously (for Apple) close to being called an official lemon. Apple knows they can’t waste their own employee’s & customer’s time over and over and over.
You are very close to a replacement. I don’t know how many states have “Lemon Laws”, but usually a use of the word “Lemon” on the 3rd time an item is back for ‘the fix’ is all it takes to get a new item.
… being more likely than desktops, suffer their first failure at the first power-up. If they make it past the first week of use, chances are they will last past the first year of warranty. Laptops, being more lightly built and being carried/bounced/put down/bumped tend to fail more quickly than desktops, which generally don’t move once set up.
My problem with Apple products has been that my tech-lust has me wanting a new computer every three or four years but the computer I have is still running fine and all my friends already HAVE Macs. They just refuse to DIE, even after becoming museum pieces.
Donate it to a local school/charity, take the tax deduction, get a new one, and know that your old Mac will serve another well for years to come.
How much can you collect in terms of a tax deduction for donating your laptop? Is there somewhere we can see the breakdown of how that works? Thanks! 🙂
For many years I didn’t bother with AppleCare because of the quality of their products. But, in recent years I’ve notice that I had a few defective items. iMac hard drive recall, a screen defect on another and a few problems with some MacBooks. Now, I take AppleCare only for my MacBooks because they move a lot and are more prone to get broken (and a few did). All my other products, if they have failed, it was within the one year warranty, so I don’t bother (or should I say, I’m risking it) to invest in a protection plan.
When you’re paying 3k for a spec’d out iMac, $129 for AppleCare is a no brainer.
Pro Tip:
Click on the education version. I always think that this is kind of an idiot check. Two clicks and everybody is instantly approved. I know that some will say that that is dishonest but I justify it in my own mind ….
Life Tip:
Justifying it in your mind doesn’t make it less dishonest or less fraudulent.
About 5 years ago I had a screen fail on my MacBook Pro. At the time, I lived a 6 hour drive from the nearest Apple Store, so I needed to call Apple directly. I appreciated speaking to a rep that spoke standard English, didn’t rely on a prepared script of questions and answers, and actually listened to what I was saying. I was told I would need to send my laptop in–literally within in hours FedEx was at my door with a prepaid shipping box. My MacBook was back in my hands within 36 hours. In addition to replacing the screen, they also replaced the keyboard because testing revealed a potential failure. I had no other problems with this laptop, and was able to sell it easily when the time came to replace it. Applecare is definitely worth it in my experience.
You hit the nail on the head. Its the full experience. Apple once considered getting tech from India. They broke ground but decided to cancel the whole thing. Go Apple.
Ps, If you live in India, there may be Apple support there but just saying about American tech support.
I’ve never had to use AppleCare regarding hardware, but have made several calls to AppleCare for Q-n-A’s and what is it to call Apple for customer care? Fifty a pop? Okay, $49.00/per incident. And still to have hardware covered also… to me, worth it.
http://www.apple.com/support/products/pay-per-incident.html
I bought 2 iMac 21″ in 2010. Almost to the day both imac displays began to fail. With less than a month left in the AppleCare I was able to get both displys replaced. Otherwise I would have been forced to pay the repair cost which far exceeded AppleCare cost. BTW the hard drive failed about a year into my ownership. AppleCare replaced. Thumbs up to apple care.
Just before AppleCare was to expire my wife’s laptop display broke. Got a new display and lid and the scratch MacMall made in the lid when they upgraded the ram at the time of purchase got fixed, too! Looks pristine, now.
18 months into ownership of my G4, both my hard drive and my logic board had to be replaced, amongst a few other things. AppleCare paid for itself.
Gruber says otherwise, but I couldn’t afford to self-insure.
Yes.
i bought a 2012 mac mini from B&H photo and they threw in applecare for only $50 more. yes it was worth it
I’ve had applecare on both of my laptops and they have paid for themselves many times over (first laptop was refurbished, they had to replace wifi card and battery, second laptop was brand new 2011 and thus far they’ve had to replace power distribution board and logic board).
I’ve also gotten applecare on my iPhones, that I haven’t needed. I’ve had an original iPhone, a 3g, a 4, and now a 5, thus far I haven’t used applecare on any of them.
Although I tend to agree Apple Care is worth something on larger items. I never actually use it.
I have an iMac and the screen flickers a bit and will even go completely black. However the effect is so unreliable as I can’t expect anyone to be able to fix it reliably. IE: They could make things worse than to actually replace the correct part. Therefore I have decided to wait until I buy a new Mac at an appropriate time.
Frustrating, but again another reason why I don’t use Apple Care.
It’s not clear whether you purchased AppleCare for your iMac from your post.
If so, and if I were you, I’d still have brought the iMac into the Genius Bar to see if they can reproduce the flickers; there are likely some diagnostics they could run to identify the issue.
Then you wouldn’t be so frustrated by your choice to not exercise a service plan you already paid for.
NO, it’s not an insurance policy. It is an extended warranty. If you physically break your computers Applecare does not cover this. Only with IOS devices Applecare Plus gives you coverage for breakage for 2 incidents which you will pay a $49 service fee rather than full cost of a replacement. Applecare for your computer is totally worth it. One repair can totally equal or go beyond the cost what you paid for Applecare.
Three weeks after Warranty Expired on my MBA, the thing overheated (??) while I was at work, causing the fans to run like mad, and basically fry the HD.
When I got home the screen was black, the fans were still running, and when I tried to reset the computer, I got the “Folder with a Question Mark”. Took it to the Apple Store the next day.
The worst part? I found out in about 2 minutes of research online that Apple was marking up the parts 80%. Cuz the best way for Apple to make a profit is, taking advantage of their loyal customers (I’ve been a Mac user since 1991). Total cost, almost $800.
But at least the Service was snapp– oh wait, it took them about 2 weeks to locate the parts. Think of that. The $999 MBA is clearly their go-to machine for everyday computing, they sell tons of them, and yet, there was NO replacement parts for the machine in their distribution warehouse (Tim Cook, this, I believe is the reason you are employed at Apple.)
Did I miss anything?
While I do like having Applecare, my experience with them is that Apple uses “fixed” parts to do the repair. So then the problem shows up again in a short time. This has happened on a iMac motherboard and a DVD drive on a MacBook Pro.
Yeah, the point. $800 – for a HD? Is that what you’re saying? That’s at least a motherboard or display replacement cost – after warranty. You didn’t buy AppleCare – for a laptop? You apparently also missed the boat.
No parts available for a one-year-old product? I worked for Apple and I assure you, it would never take two weeks to get either an MB or display for your MBA, not in North America. However, if you make an ass of yourself at the Genius Bar, I’m not saying you did, they may not have given you the best service they could.
Your story is not about how Apple takes advantage of their loyal customers – read any of the other stories here about AppleCare – it’s about you – and what it says, Ill leave to each reader’s imagination.
Cheers,
thx
I always get AppleCare, just for the tech support. It was always stellar and keeps finding ways to get better:
i.e. making appointments for calls, getting upleveled to senior tech whose phone number you have and can call.
I’m the guy everyone calls for Apple questions. AppleCare is the one I call. I would get it just for the support.
However if you have it all your misc devices get covered, like the airport extreme or other apple peripherals.
AppleCare’s big draw for me is the great phone support. When I got my first Mac, numerous years back, talking to the Apple techs taught me an enormous amount about the product itself, as well as troubleshooting and other things. Whether the product itself fully fails is (important, but) secondary to the wealth of knowledge I have gained over the years. I wouldn’t buy a Mac without it.
Apple employees get applecare on most if not all of their devices.
It’s not that they tell customers they do, they actually get it on their stuff.
I feel like a large majority of the most experienced apple users getting this service should be a big sign that it’s a legitimately useful resource for customers.