Is it Worth Buying AppleCare+ for iPhone X?

[Archer1440]

Agreed. consumer law in the UK covers hardware defects for 6 years from date of delivery as long as the Apple product is directly bought from Apple, I believe. Therefore unless you require accidental damage, it is definitely not worth buying. They'll even replace you battery for free if it holds less than 80% charge, as long as it's still within the consumer law's 6 year period.

Well, I no longer wonder why British and Euro types are always whining about their higher Apple device prices. It turns out they’re actually paying for the equivalent of AppleCare but it’s being imposed on them by their socialist masters... no choice.

 

[Icaras]

I'll still get AppleCare for my X.

 

[The Game 161]

take care of your phone and you will be ok. It's a huge price for something you will likely never need

 

[simonmet]

If buying a carrier plan, they usually offer accidental damage insurance as well. Might be cheaper to bundle it all with the carrier.

Personally, I’ve never had a broken screen as I always use cases and glass screen protectors now are quite good so I don’t bother with accidental insurance.

 

[The Game 161]

mine is done through my bank and you don't need to register your device each year. covers damage, stolen.

 

[Artimus12]

You don’t have to get the warranty but you can’t cry and complain if it does break.

After claiming "it's the strongest glass in any iPhone" I'll cry & complain if it becomes the first screen I've ever broken.

 

[levans80]

Everybody always thinks insurance is a ripoff... until they are in the Apple store whining about the cost of their shattered phone. I agree a case is a must-have investment with these phones that are about as easy to hold as a wet fish. Gorgeous, but yet another example of Jon Ive's slow descent into the dark side of putting form WAY above function in recent years (the MacPro trash can has left Apple's former dominance of the high-end creative Professional market a bloodied carcass).

I'll still get AppleCare for my X.

Same here. I have two kids. And sometimes they will pickup my phone laying around the house and say dada phone and bring it to
Me. I’m taking no chances with my new iPhone X. And no way in hell I wanna pay 549 if the back glass cracks which is a full phone replacement. What’s worth it to
Me, might not be to the next guy or gal and that’s fine. We all gotta make our own choices in life.

 

[MrMister111]

It's not worth it..... until you need it and wish you had it...

Clue is in the name, insurance...

 

[DevNull0]

This article would be better if it mentioned that the SECOND breakage of screen/body means you’d be saving a lot of money with AppleCare+.

Anyone can have a string of bad luck.

But for someone who is going into this expecting a reasonable likelihood of needing 2 iPhone repairs, maybe they need to reconsider whether they're the kind of person who should actually use a $1000 phone.
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It's not worth it..... until you need it and wish you had it...

Clue is in the name, insurance...

If I need it on my current phone and have to pay full price for the repair...I'm still ahead from all the times I never bought or needed it in the past. Same rule applies for every extended warranty I've ever turned down.

 

[interstella]

Could you imagine your auto insurance was 20% the cost of your car for a 2 year policy?

For someone under 25 in the UK, that would be cheap!

 

[pjny]

The iPhone is a business/personal tool for me and applecare allows quick, worry free turnaround if something happens. I was thinking of other forms of insurance but nothing beats being in a different city/country knowing you can your device fixed or get a replacement.

 

[Apple blogger]

Prices seem kind of ridiculous

I completely agree.. I think Apple on purpose kept such highly prices, so that everyone would buy Apple Care... it's a very sleezy way to get people to pay the minimum..
[doublepost=1509324435][/doublepost]

Seriously, this greedy company is not the Apple I like.
View attachment 728864

They have gon back to the 90's era, where everything was amess, and everything was over priced, and there was a hole in the ship.

 

[MH01]

Well, I no longer wonder why British and Euro types are always whining about their higher Apple device prices. It turns out they’re actually paying for the equivalent of AppleCare but it’s being imposed on them by their socialist masters... no choice.

It's called consumer protection. Most countries actually have it. You should try it
[doublepost=1509325034][/doublepost]

For someone under 25 in the UK, that would be cheap!

We talking motorbike here ?

 

[Soopahdoopah]

As a consumer (and an adult) this is your decision. I do recall that the iPhone X isn’t the FIRST iPhone with a back glass. Walk with me down memory lane. The iPhone 4 and 4s had a back glass. Remember? And it was $29 to replace the back glass only. Now mind you, the iPhone 4 and 4s were great devices in 2010 and 2011. We are in 2017 and technology has advanced. We have wireless charging and facial recognition. If you owned a company such as Apple, would you charge $29 to replace the back glass on an iPhone X. Before you answer, make sure you have knowledge of how much it costs to develop a device and maintain production for millions of customers around the world. Also keep in mind you have thousands of employees to pay for their work. Employees that do and do not work for Apple might I add. Also keep in mind that you have buildings and manufacturers to pay for. You get the point...I’m sure you do. What price for a device replacement did you come up with after totaling all of this up?

Point is...there is no need for negativity and profanity when you as a consumer (and adult) have the OPTION of paying for an iPhone. Good day.

 

[dlondon]

As I've mentioned in this post, Apple has been very lax about this from my own past experience. I'm not saying that you're wrong, but simply that they don't seem to be very picky about whether the fault would have been present on purchase. From my experience, as long as you're Apple product has been well-maintained and looked after (LCI not activated, minimal if any scratches/damage on the product in question), any fault that is unlikely to be caused by the user (such as internal hardware failures) would be happily be repaired or replaced by Apple.

In regards to how long the phone should last, I'm only really expecting them to provide free service if any hardware failure does occur within that 6 years, such as any hardware malfunctioning issues etc. that would have been unlikely to be caused by the user.

As for the battery issue, again from past experience, they were willing to replace my battery for free based off the decreased battery capacity and the fact that it was still under the 6 year period.

I’ve generally had good experiences when when it comes to warranty and repairs at Apple but I have several issues over the last year relating to unsatisfactory repairs. The store couldn’t do anything because their system wouldn’t allow them to. I escalated to their executive relations team and their response was rather surprising and dismissive. They also refused to put anything in writing, even acknowledgement of the case being closed. It is likely that I will have to take it to court to resolve (hence knowing more about the consumer law than I want to know).

In visiting the Genius Bar several times, I have witnessed Apple rejecting customers for warranty issues, including batteries. Despite all the systems in place, Apple are rather inconsistent in their approach. For example, my MacBook battery was replace free of charge (I didn’t even need to ask) but others were charged. That said, Apple are generally better than most other manufacturers. I suspect the reason the disclaimers are prominent on their website and telephone operations is more to do with past compliance issues.

 

[dumastudetto]

I always purchased AppleCare for my computers but never for iPhones/iPads/watch. I just don’t think they are worth for the iDevices.
On the computer side is a different matter. It saved my a** few times having it.

Given the price of the iPhone X, and the fact you are carrying it around everywhere with you - I think the opportunities for needing AppleCare are far greater with the mobile device. Buy AppleCare+ it is backed by world class service and you'll never regret it.

 

[KaliYoni]

Strictly speaking, AppleCare isn't insurance because buyers don't receive a cash payment when a covered loss is incurred. For anybody who likes thinking quantitatively, AppleCare can be viewed as an option where the buyer of the option is paying to have the right to have a discounted repair delivered whenever the option becomes valuable (i.e. when damage occurs to the device).

So another way to look at the decision to buy AppleCare is to ask yourself how much you're willing to pay for the right to pay less than published rates for repairs. In other words, if you think it's highly likely you will damage your iPhone's screen during the first three years you own it, do you feel it's a good deal to pay $199 now in order to pay only $29 for the screen repair sometime in the future? Or do you have a better use for the money today?

Further, viewing AppleCare as an option allows those worried about unfairly enriching Apple to calculate how much Apple might value your contract.

 

[rotlex]

I never buy extended warranties on anything. Ever. I figure by now, even if I had to replace a whole phone, I'm still a few grand ahead. There is a reason they are pushed so hard by sales people. They are the most high profit item anyone sells.

Heck, many years ago when I was in sales, you made more commission on the warranty than the product.

 

[Rochy Bay]

AppleCare is the worst division within Apple. Not only with the customers but also with the employees. Terrible !

 

[stringbeanie]

I bought square trade insurance for $129. There is a $99 deductible but they also will refund part if the phone is sold sooner than 2 years. Given the price of the repairs for the X, it feels to scary to not have any kind of insurance IMHO

 

[doelcm82]

take care of your phone and you will be ok. It's a huge price for something you will likely never need

Caveat: if your child is about to wander into traffic, drop the phone and grab your child. Losing a child because you thought first about taking care of your phone is an enormous price. I buy AppleCare because I care more about them than about my phone (which puts my phone at more risk than those who think phone first).

 

[The Game 161]

Caveat: if your child is about to wander into traffic, drop the phone and grab your child. Losing a child because you thought first about taking care of your phone is an enormous price. I buy AppleCare because I care more about them than about my phone (which puts my phone at more risk than those who think phone first).

What a random thing to say

So you will have your phone out while your kid randomly runs into traffic? Cmon you have to think of a more realistic example than that

 

[ke-iron]

If you shatter your iPhone X's back glass, having AppleCare+ is even more worthwhile. Apple's flat rate is $549 for this type of damage


And that is because why? Apple decided to solder the black glass panel to the whole frame of the phone just so they can charge that kind of money, like they did on iPhone 8?

I totally understand screen replacement price, since its OLED, but back glass? For that amount of money you can get brand new Galaxy S8. This really is amazing how stupid Apple is becoming with that kind of pricing.

You should know Apple’s code by now. They like to have a seamless look where possible. This has nothing to do with wanting to charge more money for repairs. They encourage people to use cases for their phones. They even sell their own cases to promote protecting their devices.

 

[Baymowe335]

I've never understood people who feel the need to be nasty just to register a disagreement. What a sad way to live.


Though IF you're going to be nasty, you might try to have your own post make even a tiny bit of sense. I'm talking about a single company relying on its own R&D, not one company relying on the R&D of an industry competitor. If you think otherwise, you completely misread my post.


AND, you might also try to look at all of the meaningful numbers rather than just cherry-picked ones.

First, you don't know how much of that R&D is iPhone, so that's a pretty meaningless number. We know, for example, that apple still pours R&D money into iPads, watches, Siri, AR, a self-driving car project, and probably a lot more we don't know about.

But second, and even more importantly, if your contention is that Apple needs to raise iPhone prices to account for R&D, let's compare iPhone sales in 2007 to 2016. The answer? 1.4M vs 201M.

Meaning that in the same time that Apple's global R&D (not just iPhone) has increased 12.6x, iPhone sales have increased 143.5x.

So please, explain how a 143.5x sales increase fails to cover a 12.6x R&D increase such that they need to raise iPhone prices as much as they have.

Edit: I used 2007 because that's what you used, but 2008 would probably make more sense, since the iPhone was only on sale for half of 2007. In 2008, Apple sold approximately 11.5M iPhones, which still means iPhone sales have gone up 17.5x from 2008-2016, still outpacing R&D, though not by nearly as much as 2007 would make it seem.

Quit crying. All phones and everything else is more expensive than 10 years ago. The iPhoneX is literally 20 times better than the original iPhone too. The amount you can do on a phone now is worth $1000. More features, more money. If you don’t like it, don’t buy it.

Also, proof is in the numbers. While Apple makes more money because they sell more phones, Apple has made roughly the same operating margin for years.

 

[pratikindia]

I have bought a phone every year since the iPhone 3G and never bought AppleCare once, 9 phones. I have had two screen breaks which cost $150-$200 each to repair. I had the home button fail once but that was covered under warranty.

Cost of AppleCare was far greater than the cost of repairs. Not worth it in my case.

It was before X. The X repair prices are insane.