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This is so expensive, enough Apple of this "Premium Luxury" nonsense. Wake up Tim!! This is what happens when you hire people who for their entire lives have sold "Luxury Fashion Products". Since Angela came on board Apple Team we see these exorbitant pricing on everything. Apple Products are not "Luxury Fashion Accessories", atleast Steve didn't think that way. Have a reasonable pricing Apple, now you want everyone to cut an Arm and Leg and give you for every upgrade.
 
I don't know what AC cost for HomePod but it seems excessive to charge $78 for the repair to people who have already purchased AC. They are charging 22% the price of a new HomePod to the people who have "insurance". I only have to pay a 20% copay when I use my Anthem healthcare insurance.
The article's chart makes it more confusing than it needs to be, but the repair cost ("incident fee" in Apple legalese) is $39 for users that also purchased AppleCare+, which is a $39 add-on. So the total is $78.
 
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If it's truly not that expensive to repair these things, then you should see the 3rd party repair market come in and offer it at a far far lower price. If that doesn't happen, the market will have clearly shown that they are in fact expensive and difficult to repair, justifying of such a repair cost.

There's not a whole lot that could go wrong with it. No moving parts. It's basically an iPhone internal with a speaker setup. The cost of pulling it apart simply isn't worth it for Apple.

Cry about it but a business has to make money and if it's not worth the time to pull the thing apart to repair it, they're not going to do it.
 
I don't think I've ever seen a repair cost that close to the original purchase price.

What's the point?
On the other hand, if you break it (this is about damage, not defect) so badly it needs to be replaced, you get a new one for a $70 off, without any insurance, and just because you’ve owned one already. Not bad.
 
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Don’t get me started on that. I keep my phones 3-4 years as iPhones are expensive but they were built to last. I had an iPhone 6 less than 2 years old but because of the battery fiasco I was forced to buy 8 plus. I would have never bought a new phone if Apple didn’t refuse to replace the battery.
personally, I always found apple customer care to be quite reasonable with me once I asked them to take a look at the number of apple devices I had on file ...and for how long I have been an apple customer... I had a 5 year old laptop replaced with a current generation one after they realized it was a manufacturing problem with the heatsink for the GPU. It started showing up in year 4, they tried repairing it twice and when it was time for a third frequent flyer trip to the repair depot I called them and explained that I was a longterm customer and this computer was simply a lemon.
 
This is really annoying how they continue to make all of their devices virtually un-repairable and extremely expensive.

This can be said of every single consumer electronic device out there. Chips and electronics as a whole are becoming smaller in every device. This isn't just an Apple thing. Look at how repairable modern car issues are.
 
I don't know what AC cost for HomePod but it seems excessive to charge $78 for the repair to people who have already purchased AC. They are charging 22% the price of a new HomePod to the people who have "insurance". I only have to pay a 20% copay when I use my Anthem healthcare insurance.

AC for the HomePod is $39. So, if your HomePod spontaneously combusts, it will have cost you $117 for a new one - roughly 1/3 the purchase price of simply buying a new one outright. Based on the fact that this is a stationary item that will usually be placed out of harm's way, I'd take my chances and not buy AC on this. Of course, everyone's tolerance for risk is different and 'your mileage may vary'.
 
I predict the gnashing of the teeth will be start soon...
Speakers just don't break. Unless you break them. And if you think the amount that Apple charges is too much, then surely someone will repair them for less money if they ever need repairing.

Well, I wonder if this covers acts of nature; I have had lightning strike take out most of the electronics in the house (including reasonable pair of speakers) but that was covered by home insurance.
 
So because I will probably need the box when my Homepod breaks one day after it's one year warranty expires, Apple will graciously fix it for $300 or sell me a new one for $350. Thanks Apple.
 
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So basically HomePod is disposable. Anyone who pays $275 just likes to burn money for giggles. Nice job environmentally friendly Apple.

What could possibly make HomePod so costly to repair? It's basically a bunch of magnets, microphones, and a chip. Quality speakers last decades unless they are abused. I have a 30 year old center speaker on one of my TVs. The only thing I can see going bad with HomePod is the logic board. Think about it -- the iPad with it's RAM, touch screen, battery, A9 chip, packaging, shipping can be had brand new at retail for $279.
 
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I don't think I've ever seen a repair cost that close to the original purchase price.

What's the point?

Actually, it's similar for Apple Watch, too.

Yes, there are some products, that due to their design, are very difficult to repair cheaply. Either the parts cost is high, or the labor cost is high. Sometimes both. I'm waiting for an iFixit teardown. I'd expect, however, that there are probably no more than 3-4 major modules, each fairly expensive. If there is liquid damage, there's a high probability that more than one of those modules will be impacted (much like the likelihood that you need to replace at least the keyboard/trackpad assembly and main logic board if you spill on a MacBook). The outer grill cloth will have to be replaced... by the time it's done you may have a 50-75% new product, but hand-assembled by a trained technician, rather than built on an assembly line by semi-skilled labor.

I really don't know what people expect in the case of a failed keyboard. The only reason they're as cheap as they are to begin with is because they're uneconomical to repair - machine-assembled, single-circuit-board. Say you could isolate the keyboard failure to a single switch - it takes considerable time to open the case, ensure that switch is the only one that's failed, then desolder and replace the part, then reassemble and thoroughly test. By the time you add up the labor costs/bench time, plus shipping/handling/processing, you're going to be up over $100 billable. Most people would much rather have an all-new keyboard at that price.

Something many people don't seem to appreciate is that repair is a business, not a charity. Whether as an independently run repair shop, or as a repair shop owned by the manufacturer, there's little reason to offer out-of-warranty repairs unless there's some sort of profit to be made. Further, there wouldn't be independently-run repair shops at all if the manufacturer's repair prices significantly undercut the independent shops. Manufacturers need independent repair shops, as much as those independent shops rely on manufacturers to make the goods that will require those repairs.

People capable of doing their own repairs rarely put a dollar value on the time they put into the repair - not only the time spent with screwdriver and soldering iron in hand, but the time it took to learn enough to be competent at doing the repairs, researching, shopping for parts, etc. Employers have to pay for all those things and still be left with money in the till at the end.

When I ordered my HomePod I did think three times about buying AppleCare - I ended up doing it. The price is very low, reflecting the relatively low chance of having a reason to make a claim against it. The deductible charge to be paid if there is accidental damage also reflects that reality - if the expected incidence of claims was higher, the deductible would also likely be higher. But, since at least some people will be moving these things from room to room, setting them up in party environments, kitchens, bathrooms, etc. - even when taking care to keep them far away from the running water and punch bowls, all sorts of bizarre things can happen (does a drunk dropping a HomePod count as liquid damage?). They don't call Murphy's Law "the Law of Random Perversity" for nothing!
 
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Does warranty apply if you drop it?

Who drops a speaker? I've dropped a lot of things in my life being careless -- keys, phones, dishes, tools, cups of coffee. I can't say I've ever dropped anything though that was properly two handed -- babies, priceless antiques, football catches, watermelons, computers, or, yes, speakers. I mean, sure earthquakes can happen on the east coast, but not likely. It's why not too many Atlantic coast state homeowners have earthquake insurance.
 
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I have a couple of exceedingly well behaved cats but there is one insane cat who did knock my kitchen Echo three feet onto a tile floor. It was fine, despite my expectations of the plastic shell not surviving such an ordeal. I would hope the HomePod would be equally durable. But at those prices, it’s too rich for my blood. I’ll wait and see how everyone else gets along with theirs.
 
Speakers just don't break. Unless you break them. And if you think the amount that Apple charges is too much, then surely someone will repair them for less money if they ever need repairing.

This is no ordinary speaker. It's a speaker with a array of sensitive microphones on board. If ONE of them fails, your HP doesn't work anymore. It's a Speaker with a computer on board running iOS and a set of applications. Any of that can fail. A great time for that to happen is during a software update. I'm sure you've seen people here taking about having to do a iTunes restore because their iPhone went into recovery mode during a iOS update,or maybe it's even happened to you. If that happens on a HP, it's going to cost $300.

What other speaker is like that?
 
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Haven’t posted in years, but I thought it worth reminding folks that in the PowerBook G4 days, if you had a problem with an Apple product:
  1. You could troubleshoot the problem completely over the phone, with highly-knowledgeable technical staff. There were no Apple Stores, so maybe this is a moot point, but the closest Apple Store to me now is an hour’s drive (outer DC suburbs).
  2. If the tech determined the problem was hardware-related, Apple would overnight you a shipping box, prepaid overnight shipping to its repair facility, and then overnighted the unit back to you after repair. The cost of this was all covered under Apple Care (which was 3 years, not just 2; granted, it didn’t cover accidental damage). I took advantage of that service twice and was without my laptop for only 2-3 days each time. It was impressive.
Maybe it isn’t possible with so many users now, but I sure wish Apple would go back to that level of service. I loathe going to the Apple Stores for problems. The staff are less knowledgeable, the stores are usually chaos, and I often leave with the problem unresolved, and find myself more frustrated than when I started.
 
This is really annoying how they continue to make all of their devices virtually un-repairable and extremely expensive.

You mean Apple hasn't changed its approach since the early 80s (other than the dark ages in the mid 90s)?
 
I have a couple of exceedingly well behaved cats but there is one insane cat who did knock my kitchen Echo three feet onto a tile floor. It was fine, despite my expectations of the plastic shell not surviving such an ordeal. I would hope the HomePod would be equally durable. But at those prices, it’s too rich for my blood. I’ll wait and see how everyone else gets along with theirs.
I bet that nice fabric covering is going to attract the attention from more than a few less well behaved cats.
 
Speakers just don't break. Unless you break them.

I'm on my third pair of warranty replaced Audio Engine powered speakers in the past 5 years as they are known for overheating which results in a buzz.
Meanwhile my Paradigm bookshelf speakers I bought in 1991 are used daily and still in reasonable shape, though I expect I will have to replace the ferrofluid in the tweeters soon.

Prior to those Paradigms I do recall having to replace the paper surrounds on Bose 901's which were less than 8 years old.
 
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It seems to me that this thing has just hit the street and they are already thinking that it isn't going to preform all that well so it is going to require a lot of service! Makes my Alexa look good!
 
as somebody who lives alone and has no pets this thing will never get damaged with where it has been put.
 
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