... what?
look it's not any huge secret that apple's in this to make money and is underwritten to do that, i'm just saying that one accident will often pay for itself and more- personally i've had issues corrected with applecare often enough, AND i've been stuck with a couple of $400+ charges when I didn't have it. so i'm just saying, personally, for complex machines that are constantly being moved around, thrown into bags, opened/shut daily as part of normal use AND are nearly impossible to repair by anyone but a specialist, i'm "betting" that out of the $420 i spent for 2 machines currently valued at $4500, one of them is going to have an issue that will cost me (not apple) about that much to fix or more. if I'm wrong then awesome. looks like i got "suckered" because apple made a very reliable and durable computer.
in the meantime i'll call applecare every time i have an issue that's likely user error or a software conflict and milk my purchase for everything it's worth from that angle.
I rarely buy the extended warranty on ANYTHING but i drank the kool-aid when it comes to applecare.
what didn't you understand? i get what you are saying. as you said yourself, you drank the kool-aid - but you feel you got your value so there's no problem.
I am saying that if you buy APP once, you're probably buying it every time. Otherwise where is the logic in only buying it once?
i remember when I was taking undergrad econ courses they loved asking this question:
if you purchase a CD, leave it on top of your car and drive home without it. Should you go back and purchase the CD again?
The answer is yes. unless you are on a fixed budget or you have time constraints or some other variable - you should do precisely that. Why? because you valued that CD at or above whatever you paid for it. Nothing has changed, so you should still value that CD at whatever you paid for it.
Granted in the real world, "common sense" or whatever might pass for it would probably kick in and i doubt most people would repurchase that item.
My point is, if you believe in buying Apple care, you're probably buying it more than once - at least for your Apple devices. So if over the years you purchase 5 apple computers you're looking at a substantial amount of money. If you don't use it or even if you only use Apple care once or twice, you are still likely losing money. There aren't many scenarios that would be covered by APP that result in a totalled computer. Covered, they might chose to replace it if repair costs outweigh its worth, but that doesn't mean YOU wouldn't be able to fix it for less than the total cost of a new machine.
Or maybe all 5 would fail and you've saved a boatload of money. As you said earlier, it's a gamble. But it's a gamble that is skewed, by design, heavily in Apple's favour. The cost isn't an accident. It might be somewhat subject to market pressures, but by in large that is a number where they are making money. By definition that means we consumers as a group would be "better off" financially not purchasing the plan. That is simply the math end of it though, some people put more value in the peace of mind aspect of the plan and obviously everyone who buys it would rather have the plan than whatever they paid for it. Remember that with things like student discounts, third party sales and its coverage of multiple items, the cost of the plan is also variable.
Look at it this way, the cost of applecare is X% of the total value of the item. The lower the value of X, the better the "investment" is.
So for the $600 mac mini - apple care is $150. that is obviously a vastly inferior deal than $250 for a $4000+ Pro or a $3 MBP. And all of this depends on what exactly breaks...
I had to pay $400+ for a logic board failure on my current MBP. So in that case I would have been better off had i purchased the protection plan. But i've never bought the protection plan, and this was my 3rd of 4 macbooks. So the way i see it, i'm still ahead about $600.
