I always purchased AppleCare for my Apple products that I kept more than one year. I will not, however, be buying AppleCare+ for ANY product.
AppleCare extends the premature failure warranty on the iPhone and iPad to two years total and (for the iPad) cost about $70 (you could get it at a discount from the normal $79.99 price. You could buy AppleCare at any time before the original 1 year warranty expired. AppleCare was a wonderful program because it allowed you to delay the purchase of the extended warranty and wait to see if you were going to sell the device to upgrade to a new one. If not, you could extend the warranty.
AppleCare+ adds accidental damage coverage to the above AND you are required to purchase it within the first 30 days. I don't drop my devices and, if I were to, I'm fully prepared to pay the full cost of repairing them. When Apple forces me to pay an additional $20-$30 for the "plus" part of AppleCare+ they are forcing me to subsidize the clumsy and stupid habits of those people that ARE careless with their devices.