Comment by reaperducer | Hacker News Reader

Comment by reaperducer | Hacker News Reader

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Apple care has always seemed like an extortion scheme to me yet Apple owners seemed to feel it was a good deal, not realizing that you shouldn't even have to replace stuff before the 7 to 10 years mark appart maybe for the battery.

It's not about "having to" replace parts. It's for just-in-case. It's essentially insurance.

The battery in my M1 MacBook Pro went bad recently. But I have AppleCare, so I was able to walk into an Apple Store and hand it to someone, and the next day I picked it up all repaired. (New keyboard, too, since the keyboard and battery are considered one part.)

  Total cost without AppleCare: $250 + tax.
  Total cost with AppleCare: $0.
  Total I've spent on AppleCare: $150.

If I had some machine from Dell or Acer or even Microsoft, what would I do? Ship it back to China for six months? There's no store I can walk into to get it fixed the next day.

The value in AppleCare is the same value you have in fire insurance. Maybe you want to save a few bucks and take your chances that everything you own won't burn to ashes and you have to start over with nothing. I'm not in college anymore.

With Dell you can get next business day on-site warranties for a reasonable price.

The tech comes out and does the repair at your home or place of business. Because the tech is often a contractor, in my experience there’s not likely to be an inquest for the purpose of denying the claim.

on-site warranties

But now you're back to the parent's definition of "extortion."

The comment suggested Dell etc. require shipping to China and waiting months instead of making two trips to the Apple store when the reality is an online diagnostics and then a tech comes to your house or office the next business day.

Be very, very careful.

Lenovo’s on-site service has changed into a massive security risk. They changed the terms within the last year or two. You have to give one of their contractors full remote admin access to your computer to “run diagnostics” before they’ll dispatch the onsite repairman.

This used to be a service worth every penny. But now: read the fine print carefully.

That was my experience too with Dell.

They flew a tech next day to where I lived with spare parts.

Replaced mobo/cpu (which burned due my overclock shenanigans) without asking questions.

That was really impressive especially when compared to butterfly keyboard problems with Apple which was problematic to say the least.

compared to butterfly keyboard problems

No gripes from this decade?

If you have to dig back 11 years for something to complain about, that's pretty good for Apple.

They were still selling butterfly keyboards in 2020.

> Total cost without AppleCare: $250 + tax. > Total cost with AppleCare: $0. > Total I've spent on AppleCare: $150.

Hence my comment about extortion scheme, even $150 would be way too high a price for a keyboard + battery but they kind of forces you subscribe to it by having absurdly high parts replacement prices. It is like a mafia asking you to pay for your protection yet you still think you made a good deal.

In what world is $150 “way too high” for a battery and a keyboard replacement on a laptop, including installation? Ever looked at pricing from OEMs on their batteries?

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