The standard warranty and AppleCare cover more than just the Nvidia GPU. Apple did not double the 1 year warranty as a whole; the two-year period applies only to this one part. Asking them to double your whole AppleCare package is going way too far.
My original request to double Applecare was "for this problem". That coverage, like the 2 year extension only would cover GPU failure.
Without some sort of Applecare extension, Applecare buyers with 2 years or more coverage get no benefit.
This is a materials defect. Like bending a paperclip back and forth repeatedly, it will ultimately fail. If your carefully parse what Nvidia and Apple have said, the question is not "will it fail", rather it is "will the usage pattern (bends) be such that it will failure will be considered premature". Because the only issue is usage pattern, resale value on affected MBPs will be hit hard.
Extending Applecare to six years "for this problem" will increase costs. However, as someone noted above, the message that "Applecare really means Apple Cares" would go a long way to convincing buyers to get the coverage.
IOW: The positive press and word of mouth from the 6 year Applecare extension would lead to incremental sales of the profitable Applecare product such that profit from those incremental sales covers the incremental cost of the warranty extension. (Assumes Apple does not have to do these type of extraordinary extensions too often.)
I am not expecting Apple to do this, although I am pretty sure it would be a net gain -- and yes I did a lot of warranty NPV analyses in a previous life.
Also, as someone in from Europe noted, Apple's warranty there is two years, so it is also nothing more than the cost of lost resale value for *all* of them.
Sad. Come on Apple, support your customers, and look at more than one variable in your cost analysis.
Final possibility (shudder): Apple has determined that all units will fail, and that the majority of them -- given average usage -- will fail after 2 years. So this is only a means to gain some positive PR at some additional cost (failures for the additional year). Man I hope this is not the case.
In reality, there is zero transparency about what the risks are. When Apple clarifies what "early 2008" MBPs are, that will be a step in the right direction.
If, as some have suggested, early 2008 means everything up to the Oct 14 new models, then some one has some 'splaining to do. How do you continue to produce models after July when Nvidia took the extraordinary expense for expected warranty claims. You know Apple had data at that point indicating there were problems yet they did not halt production, and took Nvidia at its word?? That would be a real problem as it indicates fraud WTR customer notification and on-going sales.
