Word of warning
Posted May 1, 2009
By The Macalope
Glenn Fleishman noted this on Twitter yesterday, but Apple is no longer sending reminder emails to sign up for AppleCare. This burned the Macalope as well, who had planned to sign up at the end of the one year of warranty coverage, expected to be reminded then missed the date.
The horny one can only guess that the company has realized that charging people for repairs is more profitable than insuring them. Which doesn’t seem reassuring.
UPDATE: The comments seem to indicate that others are still receiving emails. Rather odd. The Macalope’s experience has always been that Apple sends out several notifications – strange that he and Fleishman received none.
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Or they just don’t want to annoy people with emails for a product that they were probably already annoyed about when they bought the computer.
There’s no reason to wait until the end of the limited warranty to purchase the AppleCare (other than to lower initial cost perhaps). All AppleCare does is extend your 1 year service into 3 years (plus telephone support). It does not add 3 years on to the end of the period. It extends from the day you purchased your machine.
http://www.apple.com/support/products/faqs.html
Just yesterday I dodn’t get an email reminder. I got a phone call! Maybe the email system broke ‘cus Apple Care costs more than fixing and replacing machines in my company – we have 50 and multiply that times Apple Care is a big number vs. machines that acutually require hardware repair that would be covered after year 1.
Except the titanium PB’s – those were close to break even if Apple Care didn’t win by a small margin…stupid flaky hinges and key structural case screws that didn’t come close to staying tight (;
I never knew they did make reminder calls. I’ve always just set up an iCal email reminder for a couple of weeks before it expired.
It is kind of odd that Apple has stopped reminding people about AppleCare. But I can’t imagine that they stopped because they were losing money on it (or not making more on repairs). The only times I have bought AppleCare were when I bought Apple products that were new-new — the new MacBooks, the new Cinema Displays — products that didn’t have a history long enough to know if there would be problems. I’ve never made an AppleCare claim, and never had a problem with any other product that didn’t have AppleCare on it, so Apple certainly hasn’t lost any money on me. So it is a curious change, but not necessarily an alarming one to me.
When did Apple quit the reminders? I just received one on Monday for the MacBook Pro I purchased last May 17. Now I have two weeks to decide if AppleCare is worth the $349.00. I probably won’t purchase it though, since I no longer carry the MBP with me on my weekly travels. Only purchased AppleCare on one of the other three laptops I’ve owned and didn’t use it. $349 would be a good start on a new MacBook as a replacement.
I can only guess as to why the reminders have stopped, but it’s definitely not because they make more money on repairs than AppleCare. Repairs cost hundreds of dollars’ worth of parts and labor; AppleCare is a cardboard box with some paperwork and a CD; and only some of the people who buy AppleCare will redeem it for a repair.
(I do think it’s a smart investment by the way, especially if you need the phone support.)
I’ve had great success buying Applecare via eBay. MacBook Pro version is under $170 via eBay even now.
reinharden
I received an email from them last month reminding me to purchase Applecare for my Macpro. I doubt Apple has stopped sending out reminders, there must be some other reason you didn’t get the email.
I’m just an idiot. Often, I get multiple email messages from Apple, and even one or more phone calls (!!). When my Mac Pro neared the end of its first year, I think I had 4 or 5 points of contact. I opted to not spend the money on the Mac Pro because I’ve had nearly entirely perfect luck with desktop Macs, and because I haven’t spent the $149 to $349 for AppleCare across about five or six machines, I’ve already “self insured” the cost even for a major repair. Further, you can get spare parts for the Mac Pro not horribly expensively, and I could make a repair myself for many things.
The MacBook, I meant to buy AppleCare, and I should have just done it when I bought it. Stupid of me. But it’s weird that Apple made zero contacts with me, even though the computer was just as registered as the Mac Pro! And I even bought it from the Apple Store (online).
It’s my fault, but still….
I got an email from them. For the folks who say they didn’t get one, I wonder if it’s actually stuck in their junk/spam mailbox?
gotta wonder if there is a correlation between those who get email, and those who have .mac (me.com) accounts….
The spam filter theory is possible, but the Macalope gets all kinds of other emails from Apple. And he does have a me.com email account.