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This is a huge sampling space fail, but anecdotally, the other day I sent my macbook into Apple care. They replaced the logic board, heatsink arm, display, and

This is a huge sampling space fail, but anecdotally, the other day I sent my macbook into Apple care. They replaced the logic board, heatsink arm, display, and half the case (the latter for a cosmetic issue that was absolutely not under warranty). The machine was out of my hands for exactly 22 hours (fedex priority ftw). I paid $0 for this service (applecare was $300 several years ago). All of that to say, find me a manufacturer that will replace 70% of your system in 22 hours including courier time almost three years after it was sold. You can only do that if your reliability is way high, because you spent a lot of money on quality components to begin with, instead of poor-boying it with sweatshop chips.

fauigerzigerk 17y ago
So you basically what happened is that you bought insurance from Apple for the price of a cheap PC and they actually covered you according to contract. AppleCare for a $1700 MacBook Pro costs $350. Does that mean one in every five MacBooks is broken beyond repair within 3 years? Or does it mean that you severely overpaid for your insurance? I'm aware that AppleCare doesn't just cover the parts but the labor as well, but their margin on hardware is probably somewhere around %40, so that covers the labor easily. I guess all hardware vendors would absolutely love to sell you a luxury insurance like that and if they're not idiots they treat people paying like kings accordingly (e.g by doing it quickly and not saving on shipping fees).
- drewcrawford 17y ago
  > but their margin on hardware is probably somewhere around %40 Maybe, but remember there's a pretty big invisible hardware R&D cost. Things like unibody, multitouch, internal battery, displayport, etc. aren't free. And Snow Leopard probably cost a bit more than $29/seat to develop.
  - fauigerzigerk 17y ago
    Of course, but reported margins are _after_ all these costs.
lurkinggrue 17y ago
I did that with a dell laptop except they did all the work at my home.

fauigerzigerk 17y ago

So you basically what happened is that you bought insurance from Apple for the price of a cheap PC and they actually covered you according to contract. AppleCare for a $1700 MacBook Pro costs $350. Does that mean one in every five MacBooks is broken beyond repair within 3 years? Or does it mean that you severely overpaid for your insurance? I'm aware that AppleCare doesn't just cover the parts but the labor as well, but their margin on hardware is probably somewhere around %40, so that covers the labor easily. I guess all hardware vendors would absolutely love to sell you a luxury insurance like that and if they're not idiots they treat people paying like kings accordingly (e.g by doing it quickly and not saving on shipping fees).

drewcrawford 17y ago
> but their margin on hardware is probably somewhere around %40 Maybe, but remember there's a pretty big invisible hardware R&D cost. Things like unibody, multitouch, internal battery, displayport, etc. aren't free. And Snow Leopard probably cost a bit more than $29/seat to develop.
- fauigerzigerk 17y ago
  Of course, but reported margins are _after_ all these costs.

lurkinggrue 17y ago

I did that with a dell laptop except they did all the work at my home.