3 ms·

At first thought I totally agree, and feel quite similar about many insurance offerings -- especially on relatively low-value items. That said, and heavily bas

At first thought I totally agree, and feel quite similar about many insurance offerings -- especially on relatively low-value items. That said, and heavily based on my wife's track record & the fact that two years is roughly the average life expectancy for her iPhones (commonly broken glass and poor battery performance at/before 'EoL'), I actually think it's not such a bad sell -- but she's a much "heavier" phone user than I am. I'll probably pick it up for her next iPhone, which likely will be a higher-priced one, but even at the lower end the variance reduction isn't the worst thing for a luxury item that is relatively prone to breakage.

pfranz 6y ago
I think AppleCare+ is one of the rare insurances that can sometimes be a good value, but after looking over the numbers for phones I scratch my head. Looking at a broken screen: $80 upfront and $30 per incident -> $110 [1] $129 out of warranty [2] Out of warranty battery replacement is $49. In warranty is $0 (but in this scenario you paid $80 upfront) and depending on your use-case it may not qualify. It also sucks to tie yourself to Apple for repairs. For me they've required a scheduled, in person appointment before accepting a repair. Both parts and appointments have often been pushed out weeks. Since iPhones are so common, almost any mall has a spot that will repair screens/batteries on the spot within a few hours. I wouldn't recommend it to the average person, but iFixit has walked me through doing many by myself. The math does change if you get multiple broken screens, but they cap incidents at 2. [1] https://www.apple.com/support/products/iphone/ https://www.apple.com/support/products/iphone/ [2] https://support.apple.com/iphone/repair/service/screen-replacement https://support.apple.com/iphone/repair/service/screen-repla...

pfranz 6y ago

I think AppleCare+ is one of the rare insurances that can sometimes be a good value, but after looking over the numbers for phones I scratch my head. Looking at a broken screen: $80 upfront and $30 per incident -> $110 [1] $129 out of warranty [2] Out of warranty battery replacement is $49. In warranty is $0 (but in this scenario you paid $80 upfront) and depending on your use-case it may not qualify. It also sucks to tie yourself to Apple for repairs. For me they've required a scheduled, in person appointment before accepting a repair. Both parts and appointments have often been pushed out weeks. Since iPhones are so common, almost any mall has a spot that will repair screens/batteries on the spot within a few hours. I wouldn't recommend it to the average person, but iFixit has walked me through doing many by myself. The math does change if you get multiple broken screens, but they cap incidents at 2. [1] https://www.apple.com/support/products/iphone/ https://www.apple.com/support/products/iphone/ [2] https://support.apple.com/iphone/repair/service/screen-replacement https://support.apple.com/iphone/repair/service/screen-repla...