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Apple Care are truly helpful beyond just replacing your product. My MacBook was damaged by a cast iron tonka truck dropped off the balcony above directly on top

Apple Care are truly helpful beyond just replacing your product. My MacBook was damaged by a cast iron tonka truck dropped off the balcony above directly on top of it, but it was about 6 months out of Apple Care. Much to my surprise, a few keys on the keyboard were destroyed, but apart from that it looked like it should have been fine. Anyway, it was not. It wouldn't turn on. I took it to the Apple Care team anyway, and they diagnosed it for over 2 hours before finally telling me that one of the RAM modules was faulty, but it wasn't an easy repair because it was soldered to the mobo. They gave me a quote to replace the mobo on the spot. It was around $900 and had a lead time of a few weeks, so I said I couldn't afford to wait that long. Even though my Apple Care was out of date, they gave me around a 25% discount on a brand new MacBook Pro 15". I was shocked because that's more than I ever paid on Apple Care. And had I walked away at that point, the Apple Care team would have spent 2 hours diagnosing my 3.5 year old broken MacBook for free just because it had Apple Care at some stage. Apple Care is a user experience, not necessarily just an insurance plan. I wish my car insurance were like that.. Someone rear ended my fairly new car the other day and it has been in and out of repair shops for 8 months with recurring quality problems. I would have loved if I could have said to the insurance company: please, fix up my old car, private sale it for the best price and get me a new one at a discount straight away. I'll pay the difference.

IkmoIkmo 5y ago
> It was around $900 and had a lead time of a few weeks, so I said I couldn't afford to wait that long. Even though my Apple Care was out of date, they gave me around a 25% discount on a brand new MacBook Pro 15". I was shocked because that's more than I ever paid on Apple Care. The discount is part of the procedure, and in fact it's part of your premium, too. Of course not 100% of apple pay customers execute their coverage due to a loss, so it's entirely normal that you'd get a payout that's higher than your premium, it's the point of insurance, and not shocking. > had I walked away at that point, the Apple Care team would have spent 2 hours diagnosing my 3.5 year old broken MacBook for free just because it had Apple Care at some stage. These costs, too, are being paid out by your premium. It's not free. The whole insurance package is modelled on probabilities of certain costs, including diagnosis. > Apple Care is a user experience, not necessarily just an insurance plan It really is just an insurance. The 'experience' you described is twofold: giving you a discount + diagnosing a problem. Those are both part of your insurance package, for which you paid. You're not getting any favours here. The fact Apple isn't shady is a user experience, which is great, but you're definitely paying for it through your premiums.
- alliao 5y ago
  I don't think he is saying he didn't pay for it, more like why can't other companies offer similar product with user experience this good?
  - aetherspawn 5y ago
    Also my laptop was outside insurance cover when it was finally destroyed, but they didn't seem to mind. Most insurance companies are very binary in how they treat their customers. 3yrs apple care => laptop destroyed 3yrs 6mo.

IkmoIkmo 5y ago

> It was around $900 and had a lead time of a few weeks, so I said I couldn't afford to wait that long. Even though my Apple Care was out of date, they gave me around a 25% discount on a brand new MacBook Pro 15". I was shocked because that's more than I ever paid on Apple Care. The discount is part of the procedure, and in fact it's part of your premium, too. Of course not 100% of apple pay customers execute their coverage due to a loss, so it's entirely normal that you'd get a payout that's higher than your premium, it's the point of insurance, and not shocking. > had I walked away at that point, the Apple Care team would have spent 2 hours diagnosing my 3.5 year old broken MacBook for free just because it had Apple Care at some stage. These costs, too, are being paid out by your premium. It's not free. The whole insurance package is modelled on probabilities of certain costs, including diagnosis. > Apple Care is a user experience, not necessarily just an insurance plan It really is just an insurance. The 'experience' you described is twofold: giving you a discount + diagnosing a problem. Those are both part of your insurance package, for which you paid. You're not getting any favours here. The fact Apple isn't shady is a user experience, which is great, but you're definitely paying for it through your premiums.

alliao 5y ago
I don't think he is saying he didn't pay for it, more like why can't other companies offer similar product with user experience this good?
- aetherspawn 5y ago
  Also my laptop was outside insurance cover when it was finally destroyed, but they didn't seem to mind. Most insurance companies are very binary in how they treat their customers. 3yrs apple care => laptop destroyed 3yrs 6mo.