Advice From A Genius: Should You Buy AppleCare?

[elolaugesen]

Apple Care Works

bought apple care for my wife's mac book. on holiday in canada noticed a crack in lcd plastic by the hinges. walked in to Square 1 in Toronto to register problem. 30 minutes later we walked out with a new cover and LCD..

Bought apple Care for my refurbished early 2008 MBP. two new batteries, new LCD and now it is going in 60 days before end of Apple Care to be fixed (hopefully) for the dreaded bottom stage lights issue.

once again apple care is worth every penny.....


one question thought. should one really have so many issues with the apple machines??????

 

[doodguey]

i've got 4 years of best buy's warranty on my MBP mid 2010 do you guys think i should've got Apple Care's? I only chose best buy's because they said they would replace my battery after the 1000 full charges as I would still need it for school for at least 4 years and 5 hours a day at minimum on one charge. According to them, Apple doesn't cover that and it was about 150$ more than Apple Care's which is a bit less than how much it costs to get a new battery

Yes, you should have. Repairs done by the "geek squad" or whatever repair depot they send it to that takes weeks, rather than a day or so in store at apple; will void even the standard 1 year warranty if anything were to happen to the computer that would negatively impact it during their repair process. Also, the battery IS covered with the applecare protection plan. If you are concerned about your battery you should cycle it properly. The internal batteries in macbook pros are very resilient if cared for properly- its actually 10,000 full cycles- not 1000. This is why i hate bestbuy, the amount of mis-information they dish out and complete lack of product knowledge can at times put a stain on a truly remarkable product and brand. If you really want to get the fullest out of your next computer, contact the webstore, applecare or visit an actual brick and mortar. they dont hire dolts. just my two cents.

 

[Wapa18]

No hardware failure is normal if it happen within short period of time (as I said, it's two years for computers according to our consumer protection bureau). In fact, hard drives are actually rated three years by them. Apple is an OEM, they are responsible for the whole package. Our law obligates the manufacturer to guarantee a reasonable lifespan for the product and if the product does not meet that reasonable lifespan, the manufacturer must repair the product for free. It doesn't matter is it the HD, WiFi, GPU or whatever - failure is a failure and the manufacturer is responsible for it for certain amount of time.

Keep in mind, though, that the coverage you speak of is only applicable to products bought IN your home (European) country. If, like so many international customers do, you purchase an Apple product in the U.S. to take advantage of lower prices, you are subject to the U.S. consumer laws, since you're a U.S. consumer at that point. Hence, no free European 2 year warranty.

 

[maconservative]

Don't assume

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Warranties are pure profit for companies. I completely agree with the comment around NOT buying AppleCare for iPhones and iPods. Think about it for the iPhone. You get subsidized upgrade pricing every 18 months. The initial warranty lasts for the first 12. Therefore you're adding 90 dollars of cost by purchasing AppleCare to cover 6 Extra months? Not to smart.

Not everyone upgrades their phone every 18 months. That is a bad assumption.

Personally, I had my 3GS replaced once (bad speaker) and the replacement repaired once (debris in between glass and screen) through the Apple Care I purchased.

Ironically, I never needed the Apple Care I purchased for my 2006 iMac. It is still running like a beast.

 

[kingtj]

re: not as well made as they used to be

Yeah, they're NOT as well made as they used to be, but my question to you then is, what IS made like "it used to be" in the computer world?

The core problem here is that all the production is handled by one of only a handful of factories, all located in countries like China, Taiwan or S. Korea. The old Macs people talk about "still working as good as new after 20 years" were actually assembled here in the U.S.A. - and in dollars adjusted for inflation, cost quite a bit more than most current Macs.

It's not even a matter of saying the assembly line workers in the U.S.A. would do a "better job" putting a Mac together. That may or may not be true. But there are some guaranteed quality control issues that come up any time you ask a 3rd. party to make your product for you AND ship it half way around the world back to you, or to your customers.

When you look at what everyone else offers (Dell, Toshiba, Gateway, etc.) and you look at what Apple offers, Apple still comes out at or near the top of the heap at giving you a machine that's well put together. There's more attention to detail and a better overall grade of materials used. (Does *anyone* offer a workstation with a case made of a similar grade of metal to the Mac Pro's case? 95% of them don't use metal at all, from what I've seen. I know first-hand the HP TouchSmart all-in-one line of computers has FAR inferior build quality to an Apple iMac.)

Surely all those keenly advocating the purchase of Applecare because of their extensive use of it are missing the point. Apple's products aren't as well made as they used to be, and so you need the extended warranty!

Kind of makes you wonder why they still charge a premium for their wares in the first place.

 

[crunchyapple]

Quite an old thread, but thought I would throw in my two cents.

Stumbled upon this thread while looking up whether I should buy AppleCare for the MBP I plan on purchasing by year's end.. I have a 2006 MBP that I never AppleCare for, and personally have not needed once in the five years since I purchased this computer. Apple has always been more than generous in replacing things I needed, such as batteries and chargers.. haven't had a problem however with the computer itself, other than my optical drive being a little wonky (it loads/plays CDs and DVDs, but doesn't burn either anymore). I think having a computer for five years relatively problem-free is great and totally worth the price of a Mac (compared to the VAIO I had to replace less than two years in..). I'm only replacing because the harddrive (80GB!!) is much too small and the computer is running just a tad slow for me to use.. my parents are inheriting this MBP once I purchase a new one. Still, having read all the problems people have with their MacBooks now, I wouldn't hesitate to purchase AppleCare. As a previous thread stated, things aren't just made how they used to be!

 

[michellebaker78]

I think that it depends on how rough you are with your phone. I have the IPhone 4 and I have not had any problems.

 

[Obi Wan Kenobi]

I've just had my (replaced) iMac fixed for free under the one year warranty. I cannot imagine Sony doing that for me with my old Vaio. I will be getting Applecare once the warranty expires.

Very helpful advice from an insider.

 

[Saturn007]

Obi, you want to get it before your warranty runs out! Otherwise, you'll be ineligible.

 

[bryanc87]

Good thing I tend to upgrade my iPhone once every year so I won't have to worry about apple care for now pets hope the iPhone 5 will come before 16months

 

[miamijim]

I bought my iMac back in 2007, I did consider Applecare but decided against it.


Fortunatly I have bever had a single issue with the machine...

In fact I intend to keep using it until at least 2015. The machine is in absolute mint condition still.

Only thing I am upset about is that somebody went into my storage unit and stole the box it came in.... Grrrr

 

[Confuzzzed]

I would vouch for Apple care. Yes these machines are made to last but with Apple busy upgrading its OSs and general software all the time, there comes a need to get some software support. Not to mention 3 year hardware support is unimaginable in PC land. Very good value for money particularly for those with Educational discount

 

[skyy915]

Also, there are many cases where even though the person dropped their iPhone/iPad/iPod or put it through the washing machine, the Genius allows a free swap/repair because Apple Care was purchased. Apple Care can help you like this too. Of course if you had it repaired multiple times, this may not work. But then again, it probably means you treat your machines like crap.

 

[Avj]

I got the 3 years applecare with my MBA (Mid 2011) for £48 with education discount, which in my opinion will be well worth it, if i even keep it that long.

Anyway i was wondering does it cover the charger aswell? Heard they have a tendency to break. Cheers

 

[jward24895]

If you had asked me yesterday how I feel about Apple Care and their customer service I probably would've given you an answer like "They're the worst! It's a lot of money for no real help!" Today though, I will tell you that I've had Apple Care for 3 months and it's already paid for itself. One senior personnel at Apple Care spent 3 1/2 hours on the phone with me today working through a web of problems involving iTunes, my MacBook Pro, and an old PC. She was patient, polite, and very helpful. I totally screwed things up and she helped me put it all back together, even giving me her phone number and extension to call her back tomorrow if I have more questions. All I know is that her name is Jessica W and I'm so so so grateful for her and the others from Apple Care who helped me today. Now I have nothing but nice things to say. Apple really does care.

 

[JeffyTheQuik]

The irony of that comment makes me laugh.

I once used two to's in a sentence to explain what it meant, and to provide a bit of humor too.

 

[JeffyTheQuik]

That's a big assumption that people upgrade their phones like clockwork.

Or that they throw them away when they're done with them. They make excellent iPods for the kids when we're done with them.

 

[kevinjohnson20]

Very nice and useful information I got today from this discussion and it will really help me a lot because now my basic concept been cleared about this applecare.

 

[campyguy]

If you had asked me yesterday how I feel about Apple Care and their customer service ...

Or, if you'd have asked anyone in this thread 4 years ago, after the latest post, they'd offer how they feel. Always funny to see n00bs chiming in on years-old threads...