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$249 Apple Care, debating...

I'm talking about the fact that Apple is going through all of their AppleCare registered machines and unregistering machines that were already approved for coverage without notifying the owner that any change has been made.

If they have new policies regarding AppleCare and eBay they should Grandfather owners into it and just apply these new practices to new machines.

It is crazy to have Apple remove your machine from coverage without notifying users and providing no way without talking to Customer Relations of reregistering their machine!
 
Aranince said:
How is Apple able to recognize which AppleCare serial numbers were bought off ebay? Seems impossible to me.
Click to expand...

They can certainly check the serial numbers against the legitimate ones that they have generated.

My understanding is that the people who sell "codes via email" on Ebay have cracked the algorithm to generate counterfeit codes.

I think it is smarter to buy your AppleCare on a site like Amazon which ships you the sealed AppleCare box. They are not quite as inexpensive as the counterfeit ones on Ebay... but they are legit. If you are a student... Apple discounts are usually similar or a bit cheaper than Amazon.

/Jim
 
JimmyTheKnife said:
The advice I've gotten in regards to Apple Care is that it makes sense for a laptop, and not so much for an iMac.
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I'd give exactly the opposite advice. 16 months after I bought my iMac 27" from the Apple Refurb store it would not boot, black screen, no noise of a hard drive spinning, nothing. I thought it was the power supply. It wasn't. Apple replaced the LCD screen, the motherboard and the power supply, all at no charge.
 
While this is revision C in the one sense, its actually a revision A machine, given the radical redsign and brand new components. With that said, its a safe bet to get applecare.
 
netdog said:
EVERY portable should have AppleCare.
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Wrong.

You know Applecare is sold because it's in Apple's favour? Just take conditional probability of it failing in 3 years, given that it hasn't failed in the first year. It's tiny.

If you buy 1 Mac, and only one, and it fails, then it was worth it. You are highly unlikely to have multiple macs fail. We've had about 20 macs, never bought Applecare, so that saving has paid for many possible mac deaths in the future.

Just keep savings, never buy Applecare, and you will always come out behind. (The more Macs you buy, the more even the distribution of failures is, ie. the more you approach Apple's tiny distributed proportion of failures.)

Edit: You can also "cheat" the probability by waiting a year and seeing if your machine has persistent problems. If so, get Applecare as the benefit outweighs the cost.
 
miles01110 said:
Which warranty is sold that isn't in the manufacturer's favor? Straw man argument if I've ever seen one.
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Your argument? (Yes.)

I didn't claim that any other warranty wasn't in the seller's favour. You could say I'm arguing (with common sense) that extended warranties aren't worth it.
 
iEdd said:
Your argument? (Yes.)

I didn't claim that any other warranty wasn't in the seller's favour. You could say I'm arguing (with common sense) that extended warranties aren't worth it.
Click to expand...

That's true, if you don't account for risk. Suppose I try to sell you a stock option that has an expected return of 5% but a 90% chance that you lose everything. By your logic, you should buy the option because of the positive expected return. The truth is, you should buy the option only if you can buy it enough times to guarantee a positive return with some sufficiently high probability.

Apple has the volume to do this. A single person generally does not.

Here is a layman's argument: Health insurance companies make a profit. Why do we buy health insurance? Because we can't afford cancer treatments.
 
Aranince said:
How is Apple able to recognize which AppleCare serial numbers were bought off ebay? Seems impossible to me.
Click to expand...

Because Apple tracks everything they sell by serial number. It's called inventory, usually.


While others say to save your cash, I say it is a small price to pay for piece of mind.
 
Capt Crunch said:
That's true, if you don't account for risk. Suppose I try to sell you a stock option that has an expected return of 5% but a 90% chance that you lose everything. By your logic, you should buy the option because of the positive expected return. The truth is, you should buy the option only if you can buy it enough times to guarantee a positive return with some sufficiently high probability.
Click to expand...

Whoa, whoa. Don't do the "by your logic" thing. I specifically said it is worth it if you only ever buy 1 mac, and not if you buy multiple. The more you buy, the greater volume and the better the distribution, as it tends towards the expected value (roughly the % failure rate of a mac).

So the questions are:
a) Do you plan to buy more macs after this one? and
b) Can you afford the capital if something goes wrong with one of the earlier Macs? (Note that the money saved by not getting Applecare with your series of macs will more than pay for the first one dying.)

If yes to both, then don't get Applecare.

Insurance for car/contents/health is a perfect example of (b) failing.

Don't get me started on the US healthcare system. No-one should have to pay a cent for the benefit of "not dying" from cancer. :(
 
netdog said:
EVERY portable should have AppleCare.
Click to expand...

Wow, Apple must love customers like you.

AppleCare (like every other warranty) is offered because it is profitable. They always take in more money than they spend in repairs. This means that the odds are always against you. Just like gambling.

If you play roulette, you may get lucky and win once. You may even win few times. But if you play long enough, you are guaranteed to lose. In the long run, the house always win.

If you buy AppleCare on just one laptop, you may get lucky and find that you needed it. But if you bought AppleCare on EVERY portable you get from your first computer as a kid until you die (like you have advised), you are almost GUARANTEED to lose money (meaning AppleCare will have cost more than paying to repair your mac every time it fails).
 
This topic has got me thinking: how cheap would AppleCare have to be to be worth it? Let's crunch some real numbers:

www.eweek.com/c/a/Desktops-and-Notebooks/Asus-Toshiba-Have-Lowest-Failure-Rates-Says-Study-488979/

According to SquareTrade, Apple laptops have a failure rate at 17.4% within three years and 4.2% within one year (when warranty is already included). 17.4 - 4.2 = 13.2%. Already this looks like a bad deal. Would you make a bet in Vegas if there's a 87% chance you would lose all your money? Most likely not.

Does this mean if AppleCare is below 13.2% of the price, it's worth it? Not exactly. Telephone technical support is worthless so AppleCare only kicks after 12 months. It's important to remember you are not insuring a new laptop. You are insuring a 1-3 year laptop.

After 1 year, an Apple laptop is worth roughly 75% of it's value. After 3 years, roughly 40%. That's an average of 57.5%. And I'm using high estimates based on the highest completed auctions on eBay. So if you buy the $999 macbook air, the average value of your insurance from AppleCare would be $575.

13.2% of 57.5 = 7.59%. So if you find AppleCare for less than 7.5% of your purchase price, only then could it maybe be worth it, and that's using optimistic numbers.

I didn't even take into account that a) not all failures are expensive and b) out of warranty problems are covered if it's a known issue. Few examples: The sound stopped working on my old MBA. I bought an audio flex cable online for $19 and replaced it. The hinge of my Rev A MBA broke and Apple replaced it out of warranty for free. The bezel of my wife's white MacBook has two bumps and it cracked the area in front of the palm rest. Apple replaced it out of warranty.
 
Get it off eBay for cheap.

From Apple, Apple Care for my mbp would have cost an eyepopping £276. Bought it off eBay for £100, registered fine, and have since took the mbp over a trackpad issue.
 
This hasn't been mentioned yet, so I will.

When you do have applecare on a machine (iMac/Macbook etc) you do realize it covers any/all peripherals you own that are apple as well. For example, my Airport extreme died, have Applecare on my MBA--> replace airport extreme under that agreement, >12months.

I believe this to be true for keyboards, mice, cables- etc.

FWIW.
 
iEdd said:
Wrong.

You know Applecare is sold because it's in Apple's favour? Just take conditional probability of it failing in 3 years, given that it hasn't failed in the first year. It's tiny.

If you buy 1 Mac, and only one, and it fails, then it was worth it. You are highly unlikely to have multiple macs fail. We've had about 20 macs, never bought Applecare, so that saving has paid for many possible mac deaths in the future.

Just keep savings, never buy Applecare, and you will always come out behind. (The more Macs you buy, the more even the distribution of failures is, ie. the more you approach Apple's tiny distributed proportion of failures.)

Edit: You can also "cheat" the probability by waiting a year and seeing if your machine has persistent problems. If so, get Applecare as the benefit outweighs the cost.
Click to expand...

Probabilities aren't especially important to me if I lose big enough. I know for a fact that I can't buy a new MBA if this craps out on me in 13 months. I can, however, afford to pay a $100+ premium to give myself the extended warranty. $100+ is a very fair price to guarantee three years of performance on a machine with essentially no user serviceable parts.

To make a somewhat exaggerated analogy... Would I play Russian Roulette, if I knew there was only a 1 in 10 chance the gun was even loaded with a single round? No, because even if the odds are 60:1 in my favor, the cost of losing is still too high.
 
So a little update on this whole eBay scandal thing - apparently the person I bought it from got a refund from Apple a few months after I had registered my machine!

So beware of eBay the sellers can be VERY bad!
 
musicpenguy said:
So a little update on this whole eBay scandal thing - apparently the person I bought it from got a refund from Apple a few months after I had registered my machine!

So beware of eBay the sellers can be VERY bad!
Click to expand...

This make zero sense. How/why would apple issue a refund on apple care that is registered? In your name no less, with your machine serial number. Sounds fishy to me.
 
I too got the 13" with 4GB of RAM, same as the OP. I did opt for Applecare direct while ordering so it is preregistered. It was $183 with edu pricing. Expensive, risky, but a nice piece of mind particularly as this machine is using novel flash memory controllers, batteries, etc. What if the flash performance degrades too much over time? What if the machine overheats in tropical climates etc. I also like the no hassle mail-in repair options from anywhere in the world.

Last time I got Applecare off of ebay for my MBP - and used it to repair a loose fan wire no problems. It's who you buy from on ebay. My girlfriend used hers to fix her failed 8600GT, 4 times! She now has a brand new 2.53GHz uMBP.

I realize the soundness of the statistical arguments but our minds are not designed to naturally think in probabilities. If you cannot afford to replace your machine in 3 years, or are not technically capable of replacing soldered RAM on the new Air, then APplecare "seems" worth it.
 
drjsway said:
This topic has got me thinking: how cheap would AppleCare have to be to be worth it? Let's crunch some real numbers:

www.eweek.com/c/a/Desktops-and-Notebooks/Asus-Toshiba-Have-Lowest-Failure-Rates-Says-Study-488979/

According to SquareTrade, Apple laptops have a failure rate at 17.4% within three years and 4.2% within one year (when warranty is already included). 17.4 - 4.2 = 13.2%. Already this looks like a bad deal. Would you make a bet in Vegas if there's a 87% chance you would lose all your money? Most likely not.
Click to expand...

I would if I had a 13% chance to win, and the return was really good.

Would you buy a $2 lottery ticket if you had a 13% chance to win $1 million?

Not that that is a realistic example, but your statement above provides insufficient information to draw the conclusion that you do.
 
tigres said:
This make zero sense. How/why would apple issue a refund on apple care that is registered? In your name no less, with your machine serial number. Sounds fishy to me.
Click to expand...

The guy told me that since he had the serial number of the AppleCare and all of the info on the AppleCare it didn't matter - so I would say to those on eBay have them mail you the box and original receipt - something just to think about
 
Gasu E. said:
I would if I had a 13% chance to win, and the return was really good.

Would you buy a $2 lottery ticket if you had a 13% chance to win $1 million?

Not that that is a realistic example, but your statement above provides insufficient information to draw the conclusion that you do.
Click to expand...

Did you even read the rest of my post? If you bought a $999 MacBook Air and paid the retail price of $249 for AppleCare, you would've insured an average value of $575. So you have 13% to win 2.3x your bet.

It's like if you bought a $2 lottery ticket and had a 13% chance to win $4.60, giving you a profit of $2.60.
 
One thing that everybody is leaving out though is the cost of the repair if you don't have AppleCare. We can't assume every single problem that will arise to faulty laptops will be a total loss. If the cost of the fix for more common problems is $300 or less, you essentially get one fix for the cost of AppleCare in years 2 and 3. So for people who have had issues with their Apple Laptops in the past, do you know what the cost would have been if you didn't have AppleCare?
 
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