They should have BEEN repairing the phones!.
Mitch better option, also there's no good reason for Apple care not to cover loss and theft. That's the only thing missing and makes insurance a better value
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Apple to Update AppleCare with Subscription Service and In-Store Repair Options
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They should have BEEN repairing the phones!.
Mitch better option, also there's no good reason for Apple care not to cover loss and theft. That's the only thing missing and makes insurance a better value
If this subscription automatically covers all future devices you purchase, it's going to sway future purchasing decisions towards Apple products.
Clever move, if so.
Clever move, if so.
It's only clever if its a reasonable price. If they want to charge you $20 a month, thats unacceptable given that most people will never need to use AppleCare, its money down the drain.
The whole reason we buy Apple products is the high build quality, and the assurance that:
A) If anything goes wrong in the first 3 years, it'll be fixed no questions asked.
B) They have an amazing resale value, meaning you can spend ~$300 every 2 years and get a brand new mac.
If these two points vanish (which they will if they move to a subscription model) theres no incentive not to just buy some high-end dell for half the price and install OS X onto it. All you're loosing is a status symbol on the desk, and you're saving a but load of cash in the process.
But not at an actual Apple store, so you don't actually anything about how they are set up, how they run, or how they might have been and will be changed for this process, so you.
I at least have been in a real Apple store and experienced this several times from the customer point of view. So I know based on that that this isn't really a big deal. It doesn't hold up the appointments, it doesn't take that long and it is just as good if not sometimes better than getting a swap. You don't have to wait for a backup to restore, you don't have to worry that while your phone might have a great working speaker now it could also have a sheet camera, which sucks cause your other phone was perfect, other than the speaker.
Agreed.
Not necessarily. If you had a house full of Apple products, $20/month for the lot would work. Especially if some are ageing.
Of course, I can see that getting abused, so maybe a tiered pricing model would be better/fairer? Whatever, I can't see Apple covering ancient products, so they'll need to be very clear on when cover terminates. Maybe they'll just stick with two years after each device was purchased for simplicity?
Refurbished devices are sold at a discount, plus there is the cost involved in restocking. By repairing they likely will see fewer devices in total returned.
You assume that is what Apple does and only what they do. You could be assuming wrong
He was likely only in charge of sales, not service.
But why should I pay the same amount to cover my Mac as someone who has 5 iPhones, 3 iPads and 4 iMacs? The current AppleCare system has the "insurance" on the item, not on the household of Apple products. We don't pay for auto insurance based on our home / residence. Instead, we pay according to what is being insured. That's the way it should be.
btw- I have no AppleCare on any of my Apple products. They are past the AppleCare coverage period for each item - OR no AppleCare was ever purchased ('new' iPad, MBP). No repairs have been needed.
That's a good point. I've seen quite a few posters here brag about how they rejected a succession of replacement phones because of an errant pixel, a microscopic scratch or they just didn't like the color of the backlight. Making the customer WAIT for each repair will throttle some of that behavior.
1. Most appointments that I have seen and with 200 mobile devices and 70 computers I have the pleasure of being the one to always take in, I see a lot of them, the issues are software -- settings, 3rd party app etc -- or use questions. So there really aren't that many repairs. Add to this that roughly half the appointments can be iPad or iPod and those those get repairs. So that lightens the time crunch.
2. Techs set the time. If they say 30 minutes. It's 30 minutes. Cx deal with it.
3. At least at the stores i go to they make sure you have a backup before even a repair, just in case
4. No device, computer or otherwise, is opened on the floor. So no one is hanging over you nagging you to hurry up etc. it's done in back in a proper repair room.
But times change. Even if Steve were around things would be different. There is a tough new competitor in Samsung, and Jobs' strategy of suing everyone isn't panning out. Apple needs to adapt, and Cook is right to try to change things.
People said the same about Southwest Airlines when Gary Kelly took over from Herb Kelleher. Things have changed, and there was a lot of howling when they changed their frequent flier program, for instance, but 2 years out more people are taking reward flights than under the old program, and they have found other ways of differentiating themselves.
The bottom line is that what gets you to the top and what keeps you there are different. Apple isn't a scrappy startup anymore.
Doesn't matter, every country has similar laws and as we discovered with the recent original iPhone article the tops in most countries is 5 years. A couple have 6 from the retailer if you can prove it was defective when you bought it, and maybe 3 plus a couple of US states have 7 under 'out of warranty'.
So as I said, you won't get it repaired for decades. Not even one decade depending on when you buy it v when it stops being sold
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That's cause you got a whole unit swap. Had to with the way the 4a was assembled. They changed that with the 5 back to a removable display.
It is probably a combination of costs and revenue. Extended warranties are big money makers. That's where stores like Best Buy used to generate lots of their profits. Apple is probably looking for a way to lower the upfront cost in order to get more people to sign up for it.
and what about if someone only has 1 Apple product? Also, there would need to be a device limit on subscriptions, so that will also be a deciding factor.
One thing's for certain - one plan will not fit all. Not by a long shot.
Something more like a base price of say $10 /mo for 1 device, then $2/mo extra for each other device would be more fair.
Sounds like an issue with your local store. Cause I've done film work in 9 states and 6 other countries and never had issues like that with my personal gear or any of the work gear I am responsible for.
Seriously?? That is one of the things that makes apple a better company than others.. It's not just the phone i'm buying, it's the whole package. Also, i don't think they will earn more profit out of it because there will lose customers and also, the employees that repair the device have to get paid for their time fixing it. I hate it when i have to wait to get my devices fixed. It's convenient swapping a faulty phone for a working one. Whoever said to me that samsung galaxy is better, i used to say it's not, not just because of the hardware itself but for the service too. What am i gonna say now? Apple is being greedy?? 
Forstall was fired because no one liked him and he stopped doing quality work.
As for this repair thing. Tech like this doesn't come about in a few months, this design and this move to repairable phones could have started under Steve, it might have been his idea. There's no way to know.
That would fly.
When I mentioned tiered pricing earlier, I was thinking more like:
$10 for 1-3 devices
$20 for 4-6 devices,
Etc
Since that would provide an incentive to buy more devices if you had spare slots available in your current tier. However, if you don't, there's a disincentive, since you'd bump yourself up a whole tier for one measly device.
Your model's better.
Well then lucky for you, you don't. You drive. You wait maybe 30 minutes. You drive home. There's no going back unless you didn't back up before you went and its something that still requires a whole unit swap and you want your photos etc.
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So what? Have you been in the back room of an Apple Store? No.
Sure they aren't in super suits etc but that's not needed unless you are building computer chips. The photos are out there of what the rooms look like thanks to folks against the rules posting them. And they aren't the cesspool, back alley crap you are describing.
And these repairs are not new. It's been going on for several weeks if not months. Perhaps only select as as a test but it is out there. I've been through it myself. And it's not the snobby hipster kids that take the phone appointments doing the repairs. They paperwork it, take it to the repair room and move on. It's the folks that also do Mac repairs, who have been sent to Cupe or similar for training. Same folks that know me by name from bringing in my companies computers walking out with my repaired phones. Generally also cleaned of all the dust and fingerprints etc.
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Seeing how lightheartedly people on these forums alone talk about getting a free exchange (which means either a new or a refurbished phone, but I doubt anyone can really tell the difference by the outer appearance), I actually welcome this move. People have to learn to take responsibility for the stuff they own, be it an iPhone, a car, or a house. Getting a complete exchange because of something you're to blame for is just wrong.
Besides, other manufacturers don't have any comparable offers like Apple. And as long as the customer service doesn't get worse by that move, I don't see any reason to complain for anyone. And to make it clear, it's not bad customer service just because a company doesn't want to give you a new replacement product because you were too stupid (or just unlucky) to take care of your stuff. What matters in the end is that the company takes care of anything they were to blame for in the first place.
And for those who want some kind of insurance, well, there are either actual insurances or Apple Care(+).
Besides, other manufacturers don't have any comparable offers like Apple. And as long as the customer service doesn't get worse by that move, I don't see any reason to complain for anyone. And to make it clear, it's not bad customer service just because a company doesn't want to give you a new replacement product because you were too stupid (or just unlucky) to take care of your stuff. What matters in the end is that the company takes care of anything they were to blame for in the first place.
And for those who want some kind of insurance, well, there are either actual insurances or Apple Care(+).