When I bought the iPad Pro 13-inch 2 years ago, I decided to try the AppleCare+ subscription and paid every month. I also set a reminder to cancel after 2 years. This is what AppleCare+ normally covers and I didn’t want to extend it beyond that. If it breaks after 2 years, I’d rather upgrade to the newest iPad instead of getting a 2 year old device repaired.
One thing I didn’t expect is that my iPhone put a reminder in Settings to renew the AppleCare+ subscription for my iPad! Come on guys, it’s one thing to remind me on the iPad, but I don’t need this on every device I own.
When I bought the iPhone 17 Pro I opted for the 1 time fee for AppleCare+ and I think I will continue doing that. I’m generally very organized but don’t want to have to remember to cancel yet another subscription after 2 years.
Does anyone think it is worth continuing this AppleCare+ subscription beyond 2 years? I guess Apple is trying to push this as a benefit of the subscription, you can cover the device beyond the 2 years of an upfront payment, but to me it doesn’t make sense. It’s a depreciating asset and computing devices depreciate faster than most things. It’s not like a stove or refrigerator which I expect to last 10+ years.
One more addendum, I set the reminder 2 weeks before the next monthly payment. When I went to cancel it said the coverage would end immediately and they would give me a partial refund for the 2 weeks. This seems particularly aggressive, this is not how App Store subscriptions work or Apple TV subscriptions, they normally allow the subscription to run until they end of the term. Is this some kind of tactic to get you to keep paying?
I think immediate cancelation with a refund is fine. I was planning on suspending a Netflix subscription, but I was traveling and missed doing it by one day. So I canceled, but I have an unwanted month and no refund.
I typically actively use Macs, iPhones and iPads for five or more years.
I generally cover those devices with AppleCare for 4 years.
I’m an edge-case since I have low tech requirements (mostly I deal with text), I’m pretty gentle, and buy the most RAM I can when I buy a device.
I’ve had really good support in terms of Apple covering devices and repairing and / or replacing them. Apple has gone above and beyond in terms of what they’ve covered. Years ago they sent me home with a loaner MacBook so I could finish printing my dissertation.
Not so much a fan of Genius bar dudes, who see a visually disabled middle-aged woman and are astonishingly arrogant and dismissive.
I’m also keeping Macs and iPad for at least 5 years. As Lisa, I do get a wicked good configuration at purchase and that usually last for a very long time.
Phones, I keep generally for 2 years now. My orange 17 ProMax will be hard to part with, I feel, unless Apple keep their focus on providing some good color options. Mainly, I upgrade for the camera enhancements, but at the current level, it’s kinda “feature complete” I feel.
That said, the September event may persuade me. I’m a sucker for those.
Also @LisaSpangenberg , sorry you need to deal with that. Society ain’t right.
I plan to keep my devices for at least 7 or 8 years since I’m not doing anything that requires massive compute power. With new purchases I get the default 2 or 3 year AppleCare+ and when it ends I switch it over to monthly on my phone and iPad which leave the house with me on occasion.
I’ve only ever paid Applecare once for a year in the early days. I’ve not had applecare+ on any product in 10 years and see no need for it. I have bought devices from John Lewis as they do a 2 year warranty as standard, but only when they have a sale offer on what I need.
My philosophy is if it leaves the house it gets AppleCare+.
My current iPhone, iPad Pro 13", Macbook Air, and Macbook Pro all are covered. It’s easy to say why pay for two years when it’s better to just get a newer model if something happens and that may have held water a few years ago but with ram and storage costs now, you will pay more to just get the same. I also no longer trade in older devices. They become backups in case there is a delay fulfilling my AppleCare needs. The world is different now, secure your base and build out. (Command & Conquer reference )
Two previous Macbook Pros both needed AppleCare repairs, nVidia failure in my 2010, spicey pillow in my 2017… you better believe I laughed as I was filing the AppleCare…
Not a bad plan. When my company decided to switch to Macs, I purchased around 60 iMacs the first year. I didn’t buy AppleCare for any of them, and seven years later all but (2 or 3?) were still in use.
This is a good point that I need to ponder. I bought a iPhone Air recently and Settings tell me I have 50 days left to decide if I want to buy Apple Care. I am pretty careful with my iPhones - all these years since 2007, only one iPhone Xs failed (the FaceID camera parts get hot and I cannot have FaceID) but that failed after 3 years so I traded in for a iPhone 13 Pro. The price of the AppleCare, which is almost 1/3 of the price of the iPhone and only for 2 years, does not make it an easy decision.
Personally, I think the decision is whether you are going to pursue the iPhone AI train. If AI is going to be important to you then the life cycle of you phone will drastically reduce. Just look at how many Apple watches have been deprecated and how many iPhones won’t get the new AI. In this scenario I would not subscribe to Applecare+ as in two years your phone is already behind the curve. If you only want a pre OS26 phone and are happy with those features, then the life cycle of your phone can be much longer.
I also think at this stage our need of AI is going to be the biggest driver. I would also add that IMO the AI iPhone feature is going to cost way more going forwards and going to introduce massive security risks.
I don’t think we know that yet. The fact that the more powerful of Apple’s two on-device AI models isn’t backwards-compatible with Apple products running anything other than the more recent iterations of Apple silicon doesn’t mean that that will necessarily be the case going forward.
There are five models in the Apple Foundation 3 family of models. Two are on-device models: AFM 3 Core and AFM 3 Core Advanced. Only the latter requires an A19 chip (the one in the iPhone 17). The three cloud models—AFM 3 Cloud, AFM 3 Cloud (Image), and AFM 3 Cloud Pro—will all run on earlier models. And, both on-device models will default to one of the cloud models for many tasks regardless of which chip your phone has. The AFM 3 Core Advanced model uses a clever twist on Mixture of Experts architecture to pack a 20 billion parameter model onto a phone, but it’s still a small model with a small context window. You only need to upgrade to get that model
I think Apple’s made it clear that it’s going to cap usage on AFM 3 Cloud (Image) and AFM 3 Cloud Pro because those models require more compute, and compute isn’t free and even Apple can’t afford to hand it out for free. So, while you may not need to upgrade your device to access Siri AI and Apple Intelligence, you likely will need to pony up for a paid tier of iCloud to take unlimited advantage of it.
TLDR: Siri AI and Apple Intelligence needn’t drive whatever decision you make about an investment in Apple Care.
The risk management rule-of-thumb—“Never insure a risk you can afford to take”—is still a good one.
I had a logic board failure repair w/ a MB Air that was out of warranty - when it came back from the service center I noticed some function keys weren’t fitting through the holes in the aluminum block, and couldn’t seem to be popped into place. The service person took it into the back, came out and said it would require another trip to the service center. She felt bad about this so waived the normal $250 fee. Evidently this fee was something called ‘depot service’ - which I don’t think they offer any more.
Any way, when the unit returned I swear to God they had replaced the keyboard and trackpad and the screen! It was like brand new.
Then we sold it and bought two Chromebooks LOL (it was a short-lived experiment where I installed linux on them, used it about a year I think).
Needless to say, ever since then we put AppleCare+ on everything, even though we live in Mexico.
This has been my experience as well; I take a laptop in for one thing (non functioning optical drive, display issues, a keyboard problem, etc.) and get back a Mac with much more replaced.
I had to take an Intel MacBook Pro in for AppleCare+ service some years ago. I was using it outside on a hot, humid day, and saw a big drop of condensation roll off my glass onto the power button just before the machine died and wouldn’t power on again. I actually told the Apple person that was what happened, and that I knew it was an out of warranty repair. He looked at it, said that I had not tripped the “water damage” sensor, and repaired it under AppleCare anyway.
That was the last time I’ve needed AppleCare but I always buy it; it’s also let me fix two phones and a watch. These days, everything leaves the house, and I want the peace of mind that my devices are all covered. Especially when I’m traveling with my Vision Pro.
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