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That doesn't mean that everyone has the same experience as you, though. All it takes is for you to damage your device 1 more time than usual for it to be worth

That doesn't mean that everyone has the same experience as you, though. All it takes is for you to damage your device 1 more time than usual for it to be worth it.

hot_gril 4y ago
Yeah but Apple has probably found that on average the insurance isn't worth buying, otherwise they wouldn't offer it at this price. I guess it's worth buying if you know you're gonna break your phone even more frequently than the average AppleCare+ user does (which is likely more than the average iPhone user), but those $30 fees and the waiting time to repair a phone aren't free.
- dkonofalski 4y ago
  AppleCare has always been a loss for Apple. The entire repair division is a loss for them. They don't make a profit from repairs. This update is partially marketing spin but, for a lot of users, it was worth buying before and is now even more of a value. If you look at the things that Apple prioritizes, they want to disincentivize self-repair because any quality variations reflect on them whether they did the repair or not.
  - goosedragons 4y ago
    Do you have a source for this? AppleCare+ for a MacBook Air is $250. You can get a 4 year 3rd party extended warranty for a similarly priced laptop off Amazon for $170. Presumably they make money off this but don't have advantages that Apple does like at cost repair parts. Are Apple products such garbage or so hard to repair that shorter more expensive warranties lose money? Seriously?
    - dkonofalski 4y ago
      Yes. You can look at every earnings statement they've released for the last 10 years or so. There are also articles that made a stink about it a while ago. Here's one but there are plenty more like it: https://appleinsider.com/articles/19/11/20/apple-says-repairs-cost-more-than-they-earn-in-charges https://appleinsider.com/articles/19/11/20/apple-says-repair...
    - dkonofalski 4y ago
      3rd party extended warranties don't work the same way as the repair program. With a 3rd party warranty, they don't have to fix it with an equal part and they can also swap out the machine for a refurbished one.
      - hot_gril 4y ago
        A swap sounds like it'd cost them more than it costs Apple to repair it.
        dkonofalski 4y ago
        Not if they're swapping with a machine that they refurbished. They can keep swapping them ad infinitum. That's what Asurion does with cell phone warranty claims. You pay a $150 deductible and you get a refurbished phone in exchange. They fix the part that was broken on your phone that you're returning to them and it gets refurbed to the next person.
        hot_gril 4y ago
        That just makes it faster. They still have to repair it either way.
        dkonofalski 4y ago
        Yes, but they don't have to use genuine Apple parts or verify any of it through Apple's services. With Apple's repairs, they disassemble the devices and re-use the parts for service. With these third parties, they don't have to use parts that are at parity with the originals.
    - hoorible 4y ago
      Admittedly this is anecdata, but here’s my take: I’ve been a Mac service technician at an Apple Store for almost a decade. I’ve had an extremely competitive wage for the entire time vs other jobs of this level, I get RSUs, and a very comprehensive benefits package even though I’m currently part-time. me and my team are expensive for what we are (essentially, just retail workers). The majority of appointments I take on the Genius Bar in a day have no charge; software/iCloud issues, data migrations, or just how-to questions are free and unlimited. Most, though certainly not all, repairs are done in warranty. Yes, repairs are often expensive, but when I think about the daily operating costs and salaries of my entire team vs how much revenue we bring in per paid repair transaction, I can’t see how repair costs & AC sales cover even half of it. That’s to say nothing of the extremely busy call centres that Apple waived the per-call fees for over five years ago. Take that for what it’s worth, but when you see how much traffic flows to and from the Genius Bar every day with no money ever changing hands, it would take a lot to convince me that AC is a profit centre, and not a huge loss leader.
  - hot_gril 4y ago
    I don't buy that Apple repairs are a loss given that third-party repairs can still be profitable at lower prices, but even if they are, it doesn't mean AppleCare is a loss vs making users pay per repair.
    - dkonofalski 4y ago
      Here you go: https://appleinsider.com/articles/19/11/20/apple-says-repairs-cost-more-than-they-earn-in-charges https://appleinsider.com/articles/19/11/20/apple-says-repair...
      - hot_gril 4y ago
        It's not clear there what counts towards the revenue and towards costs, since third-party repair shops are involved. I want to know if one user taking a phone to Apple for repair costs them more than the user pays, and they don't really say, nor is it a simple answer with all the fixed costs and shared resources involved (like, stores have footprints, and geniuses do other stuff too). Third-party repair shops are a much simpler situation since they only repair stuff, and at moderate scale. They're somehow profitable on their own, unless Apple is subsidizing them. Also, the title is from Apple's PR in one of those congressional hearings where they're responding to (often over-simplified) complaints of anti-competitive behavior. It's going to be spun like none other. Apple also claims a way higher effective tax rate in Europe than what they're regularly accused of, and calculated some way they're probably technically correct.
        dkonofalski 4y ago
        Surely those responses would be under such intense scrutiny, from several different angles, to say that it's simply nonsense being spun to its maximum.
layer8 4y ago
It’s exactly my point that everyone has to make their own decision based on their risk profile. It’s far from a clear case that AC+ always makes sense.
- dkonofalski 4y ago
  Then, in that case, I agree. I just felt like you were downplaying the number of people that actually do benefit from it and would benefit more with the recent change.
  - joshmanders 4y ago
    I don't know, the amount of people who aren't tech savvy that I know who contact me because they know I'm tech savvy tells me that a lot more "normal people" can find advantages in AC+ than us tech savvy people who take better care of our devices. I know since meeting my gf who is tech dumb, my device is more beaten up than it ever had been before due to just her using it randomly here and there.
    - dkonofalski 4y ago
      This is my experience as well. As I've stated elsewhere, I've never needed to use an AppleCare repair myself but I know at least 5 people that have had multiple repairs done within a single year.
    - Dylan16807 4y ago
      Unless the average "tech dumb" person is throwing things at walls out of frustration, I don't see why that would mean more damage. I can be very careful with something I don't understand, and I can be reckless with something I do understand.

That doesn't mean that everyone has the same experience as you, though. All it takes is for you to damage your device 1 more time than usual for it to be worth it.

hot_gril 4y ago

Yeah but Apple has probably found that on average the insurance isn't worth buying, otherwise they wouldn't offer it at this price. I guess it's worth buying if you know you're gonna break your phone even more frequently than the average AppleCare+ user does (which is likely more than the average iPhone user), but those $30 fees and the waiting time to repair a phone aren't free.

dkonofalski 4y ago
AppleCare has always been a loss for Apple. The entire repair division is a loss for them. They don't make a profit from repairs. This update is partially marketing spin but, for a lot of users, it was worth buying before and is now even more of a value. If you look at the things that Apple prioritizes, they want to disincentivize self-repair because any quality variations reflect on them whether they did the repair or not.
- goosedragons 4y ago
  Do you have a source for this? AppleCare+ for a MacBook Air is $250. You can get a 4 year 3rd party extended warranty for a similarly priced laptop off Amazon for $170. Presumably they make money off this but don't have advantages that Apple does like at cost repair parts. Are Apple products such garbage or so hard to repair that shorter more expensive warranties lose money? Seriously?
  - dkonofalski 4y ago
    Yes. You can look at every earnings statement they've released for the last 10 years or so. There are also articles that made a stink about it a while ago. Here's one but there are plenty more like it: https://appleinsider.com/articles/19/11/20/apple-says-repairs-cost-more-than-they-earn-in-charges https://appleinsider.com/articles/19/11/20/apple-says-repair...
  - dkonofalski 4y ago
    3rd party extended warranties don't work the same way as the repair program. With a 3rd party warranty, they don't have to fix it with an equal part and they can also swap out the machine for a refurbished one.
    - hot_gril 4y ago
      A swap sounds like it'd cost them more than it costs Apple to repair it.
      - dkonofalski 4y ago
        Not if they're swapping with a machine that they refurbished. They can keep swapping them ad infinitum. That's what Asurion does with cell phone warranty claims. You pay a $150 deductible and you get a refurbished phone in exchange. They fix the part that was broken on your phone that you're returning to them and it gets refurbed to the next person.
        hot_gril 4y ago
        That just makes it faster. They still have to repair it either way.
        dkonofalski 4y ago
        Yes, but they don't have to use genuine Apple parts or verify any of it through Apple's services. With Apple's repairs, they disassemble the devices and re-use the parts for service. With these third parties, they don't have to use parts that are at parity with the originals.
  - hoorible 4y ago
    Admittedly this is anecdata, but here’s my take: I’ve been a Mac service technician at an Apple Store for almost a decade. I’ve had an extremely competitive wage for the entire time vs other jobs of this level, I get RSUs, and a very comprehensive benefits package even though I’m currently part-time. me and my team are expensive for what we are (essentially, just retail workers). The majority of appointments I take on the Genius Bar in a day have no charge; software/iCloud issues, data migrations, or just how-to questions are free and unlimited. Most, though certainly not all, repairs are done in warranty. Yes, repairs are often expensive, but when I think about the daily operating costs and salaries of my entire team vs how much revenue we bring in per paid repair transaction, I can’t see how repair costs & AC sales cover even half of it. That’s to say nothing of the extremely busy call centres that Apple waived the per-call fees for over five years ago. Take that for what it’s worth, but when you see how much traffic flows to and from the Genius Bar every day with no money ever changing hands, it would take a lot to convince me that AC is a profit centre, and not a huge loss leader.
- hot_gril 4y ago
  I don't buy that Apple repairs are a loss given that third-party repairs can still be profitable at lower prices, but even if they are, it doesn't mean AppleCare is a loss vs making users pay per repair.
  - dkonofalski 4y ago
    Here you go: https://appleinsider.com/articles/19/11/20/apple-says-repairs-cost-more-than-they-earn-in-charges https://appleinsider.com/articles/19/11/20/apple-says-repair...
    - hot_gril 4y ago
      It's not clear there what counts towards the revenue and towards costs, since third-party repair shops are involved. I want to know if one user taking a phone to Apple for repair costs them more than the user pays, and they don't really say, nor is it a simple answer with all the fixed costs and shared resources involved (like, stores have footprints, and geniuses do other stuff too). Third-party repair shops are a much simpler situation since they only repair stuff, and at moderate scale. They're somehow profitable on their own, unless Apple is subsidizing them. Also, the title is from Apple's PR in one of those congressional hearings where they're responding to (often over-simplified) complaints of anti-competitive behavior. It's going to be spun like none other. Apple also claims a way higher effective tax rate in Europe than what they're regularly accused of, and calculated some way they're probably technically correct.
      - dkonofalski 4y ago
        Surely those responses would be under such intense scrutiny, from several different angles, to say that it's simply nonsense being spun to its maximum.

layer8 4y ago

It’s exactly my point that everyone has to make their own decision based on their risk profile. It’s far from a clear case that AC+ always makes sense.

dkonofalski 4y ago
Then, in that case, I agree. I just felt like you were downplaying the number of people that actually do benefit from it and would benefit more with the recent change.
- joshmanders 4y ago
  I don't know, the amount of people who aren't tech savvy that I know who contact me because they know I'm tech savvy tells me that a lot more "normal people" can find advantages in AC+ than us tech savvy people who take better care of our devices. I know since meeting my gf who is tech dumb, my device is more beaten up than it ever had been before due to just her using it randomly here and there.
  - dkonofalski 4y ago
    This is my experience as well. As I've stated elsewhere, I've never needed to use an AppleCare repair myself but I know at least 5 people that have had multiple repairs done within a single year.
  - Dylan16807 4y ago
    Unless the average "tech dumb" person is throwing things at walls out of frustration, I don't see why that would mean more damage. I can be very careful with something I don't understand, and I can be reckless with something I do understand.