Apple Care and Batteries

[Pax]

Post a link to those stats?

http://www.electronista.com/articles/09/11/17/reliability.study.has.apple.4th.place/

3 year malfunction rate is about 17%, assume that's evenly distributed among the 3 years. Applecare covers years 2 and 3, so that's about 12% fail and are covered by Applecare, that's one in 8.

Assuming Applecare purchasers are randomly distributed among Mac purchasers, I correct my previous statement to "Yeah, but for every you there are 7 Mac users who bought Applecare but never used it.

So if you buy Applecare for $300 with a 12% chance of using it, the average repair cost would have to be $2500 for it to make economic sense. You could buy a whole new laptop for that. Hmmmm.

 

[GGJstudios]

http://www.electronista.com/articles/09/11/17/reliability.study.has.apple.4th.place/

3 year malfunction rate is about 17%, assume that's evenly distributed among the 3 years. Applecare covers years 2 and 3, so that's about 12% fail and are covered by Applecare, that's one in 8.

Assuming Applecare purchasers are randomly distributed among Mac purchasers, I correct my previous statement to "Yeah, but for every you there are 7 Mac users who bought Applecare but never used it.

So if you buy Applecare for $300 with a 12% chance of using it, the average repair cost would have to be $2500 for it to make economic sense. You could buy a whole new laptop for that. Hmmmm.

The article you linked does NOT support your earlier OR revised statement. You may as well have posted a recipe for Aunt Molly's Christmas Cookies! That data had nothing to do with AppleCare. Quoted at the beginning of the article:

A new study published by SquareTrade revealed that the smaller name brand notebook manufacturers are usually more reliable than their larger rivals.

And from the first response:

Not quite reliable data 11/17, 09:08am (1 reply) reply
The numbers here are gathered by people that bought an extended warranty from SquareTrade. Considering I have never heard of them I would think that the results could be somewhat skewed. I mean, how many people would actually buy a brand new Apple Laptop and buy a 3rd party extended warranty instead of AppleCare? There has to be something going on here that we can see.

You make a lot of erroneous assumptions and back it up with unrelated and unreliable data. Your "mathematical" reasoning is extremely flawed, as well. I've had two batteries replaced under AppleCare after the warranty, which paid for AppleCare, not to mention the phone support I've used to great advantage. If you want to factor statistics, add in the failure rate for defective batteries in years 2 and 3.

Statistics are meaningless when it comes to making an AppleCare buying decision. Peace of mind, inconveniences and the ability/willingness to pay for a repair are more meaningful factors than some unrelated, biased statistics on some website.

The fact remains: You have absolutely NO idea what percentage of AppleCare buyers actually use it.

 

[Pax]

The article you linked does NOT support your earlier OR revised statement. ...

Statistics are meaningless when it comes to making an AppleCare buying decision. ...

The fact remains: You have absolutely NO idea what percentage of AppleCare buyers actually use it.

Hey, I didn't expect a flame war. You asked me to post some statistics which showed that around 1 in 10 (or 1 in 8) users use Applecare. I posted a widely-quoted study which seems to support that idea. Yes the original study might be flawed. Yes I have made assumptions which I clearly stated. But yes I think I have a reasonable idea of what percentage use Applecare.

All I have been trying to say all along is that it is naive to assume that, just because you have got value for money out of Applecare, that everyone who buys Applecare will get value for money. As an example I presented myself, who bought Applecare but got zip out of it.

Statistics are meaningless when it comes to making an AppleCare buying decision.

Not meaningless, but part of the buying decision. If the chance of your Mac failing was 1 in 10,000, Applecare would probably be poor value. If the chance was 1 in 3, then it would be excellent value. You personally also get value from the phone support etc, good for you. Others might get value from the paying up front rather than for the repair. Good for them. But the chance of having a failure which is covered has got to be part of the equation.

But I'm really not evangelising about this, if you want to get really angry with me for posting a fairly simple hypothesis estimating how many Macs malfunction in three years, then go ahead. I thought it might make an interesting talking point, is all.

 

[RaceTripper]

There is another aspect to AppleCare for some that makes the purchase meaningful. For those of us who depend on a Mac for our livelihood, AppleCare is worthwhile in the sense that you don't have to worry about a large immediate expense as the result of catastrophic failure.

I fall into that category for one, and for another I use a MacBook Pro and just know it's probably going to fail in some way within the 3 years of my warranty with AppleCare. I've never had a laptop from any manufacturer that didn't have problems with at least failed batteries, power supplies, and hard drives. Some have been far worse. My August '09 MBP already had it's hard drive replaced.

I generally don't go for extended warranties for other types of products (cars, electronics, etc), but I do get AppleCare for my Apple computers.

 

[GGJstudios]

Hey, I didn't expect a flame war. You asked me to post some statistics which showed that around 1 in 10 (or 1 in 8) users use Applecare. I posted a widely-quoted study which seems to support that idea. Yes the original study might be flawed. Yes I have made assumptions which I clearly stated. But yes I think I have a reasonable idea of what percentage use Applecare.
...
But I'm really not evangelising about this, if you want to get really angry with me for posting a fairly simple hypothesis estimating how many Macs malfunction in three years, then go ahead. I thought it might make an interesting talking point, is all.

I'm not flaming or angry at all. You made a statement that "for every you there are 8 Mac users who bought Applecare but never used it." I asked you to back that up with statistics. The link you posted had absolutely zero information about AppleCare, AppleCare buyers or AppleCare users. If you want to say, "I'd guess that 1 in 8 AppleCare buyers actually use it", I'd have no argument, because that would be a guess or an opinion. Just don't try to make it sound like a fact, unless you have something to back it up. There are too many who read this forum who are naive enough to be misled by opinions phrased as facts.

 

[Pax]

I'm not flaming or angry at all. You made a statement that "for every you there are 8 Mac users who bought Applecare but never used it." I asked you to back that up with statistics. The link you posted had absolutely zero information about AppleCare, AppleCare buyers or AppleCare users. If you want to say, "I'd guess that 1 in 8 AppleCare buyers actually use it", I'd have no argument, because that would be a guess or an opinion. Just don't try to make it sound like a fact, unless you have something to back it up. There are too many who read this forum who are naive enough to be misled by opinions phrased as facts.

Absolutely correct, fair play to you. Mea culpa and all that. If you look at my other posts on here I also try to get away from the opinion-dressed-as-fact stuff. I missed the word "probably" or "perhaps" as you say.

In fact I was responding originally to a post saying "I used it so just get it" and I was trying to balance that post with a more nuanced one saying, remember the other guys who bought it but didn't use it. My post was wrong, it was an opinion expressed as a fact. Thanks for picking it up.

In the same vein I would pick you up on a few points you made:-
"Statistics are meaningless when it comes to making an AppleCare buying decision".
demonstrably false, and an opinion dressed as a fact. The statistics must have some bearing on the economics of the warranty purchase. You don't get extended warranties on kitchen knives, do you? Because they never fail. If you were a professional accountant or risk analyst, you would probably find great meaning in the failure statistics of Macs. Do you think the accountants who run Applecare look very carefully at the failure statistics? I do.
"Peace of mind, inconveniences and the ability/willingness to pay for a repair are more meaningful factors than some unrelated, biased statistics on some website."
I'd say that's an opinion dressed as a fact, you forgot to say IMHO before it 🙂 Peace of mind is a purely personal feeling, there's no objectivity to it. Ditto inconvenience, it's in the eye of the beholder. Some people wouldn't miss their Mac for a week, others need it 24/7.

 

[GGJstudios]

In the same vein I would pick you up on a few points you made:-
"Statistics are meaningless when it comes to making an AppleCare buying decision".
demonstrably false, and an opinion dressed as a fact. The statistics must have some bearing on the economics of the warranty purchase. You don't get extended warranties on kitchen knives, do you? Because they never fail. If you were a professional accountant or risk analyst, you would probably find great meaning in the failure statistics of Macs. Do you think the accountants who run Applecare look very carefully at the failure statistics? I do.

Of course statistics are important to Apple when pricing AppleCare. My statement had to do with their value to a buyer making a buying decision. That's why I said "Statistics are meaningless when it comes to making an AppleCare buying decision", not when it comes to pricing AppleCare. You don't buy extended warranties on kitchen knives because they have no moving parts, are not complex, don't contain your valuable personal data, are easily replaced, cost MUCH less, and are not computers. 🙄

"Peace of mind, inconveniences and the ability/willingness to pay for a repair are more meaningful factors than some unrelated, biased statistics on some website."
I'd say that's an opinion dressed as a fact, you forgot to say IMHO before it 🙂 Peace of mind is a purely personal feeling, there's no objectivity to it. Ditto inconvenience, it's in the eye of the beholder. Some people wouldn't miss their Mac for a week, others need it 24/7.

That reinforces my point. People are more likely to use personal, subjective, "eye of the beholder" factors when making an AppleCare buying decision, rather than statistics. Those who "wouldn't miss their Mac for a week" may elect to pass on buying AppleCare, while those who "need it 24/7" may be more likely to buy it, regardless of what some statistics may say.

 

[Pax]

Fair play, we understand each other perfectly then 🙂

"You don't buy extended warranties on kitchen knives...."

Exactly. Using my absurd example, if computers were statistically as reliable as kitchen knives, you wouldn't bother with an extended warranty. Therefore statistics have some meaning, at least for some people.

My brother in law is an accountant and I know damn well he thinks very hard about the failure probability before deciding whether, or not, to buy an extended warranty. My sister on the other hand would buy an extended warranty on a pencil if they offered it. It drives him crazy.

Therefore it's your opinion to state that statistics have no meaning. For some people (me, my brother in law at least) they do have a meaning and affect the buying decision. You're welcome to tell me your opinion is more valid than mine, but it's an opinion, not a fact.

"Peace of mind, inconveniences and the ability/willingness to pay for a repair are more meaningful factors than some unrelated, biased statistics on some website."

I'd still say that's your opinion:- it's your opinion that the statistics are biased (unless you have clear evidence of this, I'd be interested to see it not being an expert in the field). It's your opinion about what's more and less meaningful. It will depend on the person. Again I am the counter-example of your opinion. I (rightly or wrongly) considered the statistics on the website a meaningful factor in my decision not to purchase Applecare. Again you can tell me your opinion is superior to mine, and you might well be right, but it's an opinion not a fact.

 

[GGJstudios]

it's your opinion that the statistics are biased (unless you have clear evidence of this, I'd be interested to see it not being an expert in the field).

SquareTrade analyzed failure rates for over 30,000 new laptop computers covered by SquareTrade Laptop Warranty plans and found that one-third of all laptops will fail within 3 years.

The study was done by a company who's purpose is to sell warranty plans. You can't get more biased than that. Also, if you had actually read the study, rather than just the article, you would know that your assumptions were inaccurate about the distribution of failures.

There is also a notable acceleration of malfunctions in the second and third years. While fewer than 5% of laptops failed from malfunctions in the first year, an additional 8% fail in each subsequent year.

And that the study is further flawed in that it counts accidents as failures, considering the fact that AppleCare doesn't cover accidents.

Accidents cause a further 11% of laptops to break over 3 years, making the total failure rate nearly one-third of all units.

In addition, the study only includes SquareTrade customers, which is not necessarily representative of the entire AppleCare market.

Only malfunctions reported directly to SquareTrade are included in the data.

Overall, the study is a poor example to use when discussing AppleCare.

 

[Pax]

You make some good points, particularly re the 8% + 8%, and some stuff I disagree with, eg re accidents, I think they're excluded. Well done & thanks.

Back to the OP, s/he asked re Applecare "....because really how many ppl actually end up using it [?]". I tried to put some evidence into the mix to counter the flawed logic of people saying "I used it therefore everyone must use it.". My evidence was limited but seemed to indicate that one in six, or one in eight, or one in ten actually use it. I hope that helped the OP with her/his decision.

I'm happy to agree that I didn't caveat my argument well enough or present my sources for discussion. Well done for picking me up on that.

Anyway, to the OP, I've had 3 Macs now and my girlfriend's brother has a 4th. 1 is too new to tell, of the other 3 none has had a problem which has occurred in Year 2 or 3 ie a problem which would have been covered by Applecare.

So my family is 0 for 3 re the financial side of Applecare. Now of course I didn't buy Applecare on my new Mac, so I'm sure that's gonna come back and bite me big time. I can smell frying logic board already 🙂

Cheers

 

[GGJstudios]

You make some good points, particularly re the 8% + 8%, and some stuff I disagree with, eg re accidents, I think they're excluded.

From the introduction to the study:

SquareTrade offers warranty plans that cover accidental damage as well as standard hardware failures, and we consider malfunctions from normal usage (“malfunctions”) separate from accidents (“accidents”) in our analysis. We refer to “total failure rate” as the sum of failure rates due to malfunctions and accidents.

 

[Pax]

@GGJstudios.

No, I quoted the malfunction rate of 17.4% for Apple taken from Figure 5.

"Figure 5 shows the 3 year forecasted malfunction rates for the 9 brands (excluding accidental damage)" [my bold]

As you said, "if you had actually read the study....". Ah well.

Have fun, and OP, enjoy your Mac with or without Applecare.

 

[gwsat]

http://www.electronista.com/articles/09/11/17/reliability.study.has.apple.4th.place/

3 year malfunction rate is about 17%, assume that's evenly distributed among the 3 years. Applecare covers years 2 and 3, so that's about 12% fail and are covered by Applecare, that's one in 8.

Assuming Applecare purchasers are randomly distributed among Mac purchasers, I correct my previous statement to "Yeah, but for every you there are 7 Mac users who bought Applecare but never used it.

So if you buy Applecare for $300 with a 12% chance of using it, the average repair cost would have to be $2500 for it to make economic sense. You could buy a whole new laptop for that. Hmmmm.

The article you linked does NOT support your earlier OR revised statement. You may as well have posted a recipe for Aunt Molly's Christmas Cookies! That data had nothing to do with AppleCare.

I agree with you that neither the linked article nor the data cited support his position. Also, the OP misstated the true cost of AppleCare to be $300. Actually, AppleCare coverage for both the Macbook Pro and Macbook Air is available for less than $250. The OP also seems to assume that AppleCare coverage is a bet with Apple that his covered MBP will need repairs, which would have cost more that the AppleCare coverage. It's clear that he thought he lost his bet because his MBP didn't require repairs after the first year. That's wrongheaded, it seems to me.

AppleCare is protection against the risk of having to pay out of pocket for a bunch of expensive repairs. Even if there are no expensive repairs, AppleCare nevertheless provided peace of mind during the period of its coverage. I believe that anyone who views AppleCare as a bet that the cost of repairs of the covered machine during the first three years will exceed the cost of AppleCare should avoid AppleCare and just go to the track, instead.

 

[mach42006]

I had a previous generation MBP, and ran Leopard on it for 2.5 years. The first thing I noticed when I upgraded to Snow Leopard was the "Service Battery" message under the battery indicator. Don't have any idea how long my battery had been "bad" or in need of service. It definitely didn't hold a charge as long as it used to, but it was 2.5 years old and had plenty of cycles on it. I took it in to my Apple store and they replaced it on the spot. That's a nice little feature in Snow Leopard that makes any question about the health of your battery pretty straightforward.

 

[oliverb]

I have a 3,1 refurb MBP 17" bought Feb '08, and the battery did that bulging out of its case about three months ago - it was replaced under AppleCare, no questions asked.

 

[RaceTripper]

Just got back from getting a battery replaced under AppleCare for my wife's 2007 MBP. It had 65% capacity. They replaced it and updated the battery firmware, no questions asked. Easy-peasy!