Tim Cook: How can we grow services revenue?
MBA: How about offering AppleCare+ as a subscription service?
Tim Cook: Genius!
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AppleCare+ Coverage for Mac Can Now Be Extended Beyond Three Years
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MBA: How about offering AppleCare+ as a subscription service?
Tim Cook: Genius!
As the population ages and more seniors need help with their computer, having AppleCare+ gives them the support when they are in retirement. I worked at a large retirement community and I was busy 8 hours a day 5 days a week helping them with technology issues. Having someone to talk to to figure out a problem is very valuable to that retired person, who might not have a family member to help them or support at a community.
I have a hard time believing the price would stay the same as the machine ages beyond 3 years. You'd reckon it'd be like paying for term life insurance - the older you get the more likely you are to die or have something breakdown and so the higher the annual insurance premium. Either the premium goes up, or the co-pay.
Apple has made money off you with the original hardware purchase, so AppleCare+ is a bonus for them, it keeps their AppleCare+ support reps busy and they get rid of all the extra parts they made for the old system. It is a win for Apple and a win for the customer.
Hooray... I would say if I didn't have an iMac for personal use, which I truly rarely use. But if I had a MacBook Pro (Like the one my company bought, but refuses to buy AppleCare for) I'd be quite excited.
For many people who use a computer for basic web browsing, a 2021 M1 Air is equally as good as a 2016 computer, or even a 2011 computer. For those types, which is basically everyone who doesn't use their computer for work or gaming, being able to extend a warranty indefinitely is more appealing than having to drop a grand or two every 3 years for no real reason.
I passed the 30 days after expiration on my iMac Pro's AppleCare 4 days ago on the 17th. I just called to see if they could make an exception to allow me to extend it, and after checking with the "agreements department" the advisor told me that no, the 30 deadline is set in stone and there's nothing they can do.
It's not a big deal, but this is my main work machine, and while it's been solid for the last 2 years or so, it spent a lot of time in the Apple Store after two separate random hardware failures in the first year that I had it, so I'm always dreading that it will happen again.
It's not a big deal, but this is my main work machine, and while it's been solid for the last 2 years or so, it spent a lot of time in the Apple Store after two separate random hardware failures in the first year that I had it, so I'm always dreading that it will happen again.
Sorry to hear that, I am sure they don't want a ton of people coming out of the closet with a broken Mac they bought on eBay and want to buy Applecare+ so they can get a cheap repair on their system. But now for your next Apple product you can get it extended.
Wish that would have been available last September when AC+ expired on my iMac
That’s too bad, but thanks for sharing... I guess I can save my time to get my iMac covered that had Apple are expiring last September
I got lucky and saw this news article. My 2017 27” iMac AppleCare had expired last month, so I went into the Apple support app, where it said I had one day left to extend AppleCare+.
I got very lucky, hopefully I never need to use it, but it is worth the peace of mind for $60 a year in my case.
I got very lucky, hopefully I never need to use it, but it is worth the peace of mind for $60 a year in my case.
I think this is good news and I hope they extend this to Europe.
Personally, I have for a long time been of the opinion that Macs are only worth owning with Applecare. They just become too expensive to repair outside of that.
Personally, I have for a long time been of the opinion that Macs are only worth owning with Applecare. They just become too expensive to repair outside of that.
Man, those white bezels on the iMac look so out of place in that picture. Looks like a product from a different company.
Same way they always have dealt with 'obsolete' products.
They will upgrade you to the newest model.
I'm not at all sure that is true.
Unless you just *have* to have the very latest technology, the progress that has been made in the way of processing has been modest over the past decade, in a pragmatic sense.
Before everybody gets on me, consider what most people use computers for. Even processing that is twice as fast as was a decade ago is kind of lost in many cases. Does it make email better? Web surfing? Word processing?
Certainly, if your job or serious hobby is processing intensive like editing videos or compiling hundreds of thousands of lines of code, then the improvements are worth it and can even pay for themselves. But, for most people, maybe not.
Over the past decade the biggest improvements for most people have been the use of SSDs - very noticeable improvement in actual use - and better displays like the Retina display. For laptop users, longer battery life is obviously important, too.
But, we're reaching a point where the pragmatic improvements have slowed down a lot.
What this AppleCare thing does allow is for people to consider spending more on a larger screen or something like that since they have a better feeling that six or however many years down the road, the computer will still be usable. Yeah, maybe not as snazzy or as fast as a new computer, but perfectly serviceable. It's like cars. You don't *need* a new car every two years to get yourself around.
It is very well received by me.
I don't usually keep any Mac beyond 3 years anyway, but this plan will now let me give my nieces my older Macs with the peace of mind that they can be repaired with no huge out of pocket expenses.
Wondering if this would absolve them from lawsuits for defects and free repairs, "Ah, well you should've purchased the extended warranty"
M1 is not intel.
Seems M1 is poised to really perform better than Intel chips over the life of the machine. This includes much less heat generated by intense CPU usage in Intel chips which in turn saves fan RPM's over the life of the machine. Looks like Apple in house chips is set up to really make Macs' shelf life longer.
They might end up giving you a newer machine that's available, this is true my friends have once been granted this treatment because the local authorized repair center doesn't have the original part available. YMMV
This is easy revenue for Apple. A lot of people will keep paying, even though the AC+ will meet or exceed the original price of the Mac.
Apple couldn't get my Mac Pro repaired once, and it was discontinued so they just gave me a new machine which was worth $6000 at the time of replacement when the original (problematic) one was worth $5000 when I had bought it new. So they didn't care about the difference in cost, they just wanted to make me happy.
They specifically wouldn’t offer this for mobile devices because they will always lose in an insurance policy like that. You need the batteries changed after 2 years, that’s for sure, not a risk.