AppleCare – is it worth it?

The high cost of out of warranty repairs

Should you buy AppleCare? In years gone by, the answer was a resounding NO!
It was always pushed heavily by resellers as it increased their “attach rate”. A higher attach rate meant a cheaper buy price for the reseller.
Previously, I was alway cynical of this approach but I have changed my tune over the last few years.

From when Apple released the Mac MIni Server and AppleCare also covered you for OS X Server support, to the new iMacs and MacBook Pros with sealed components, it now makes sense to take out AppleCare.

Issue with a hard disk in a iMac that is 13 months old?
You need to take it to a service centre to swap the drive – cost – approx $165 plus disk.

Motherboard needs replacing in an i7 iMac due to heat damage?
Another trip to the service centre – cost – approx $750.

Apart from the MacPro (which is due for a refresh any day now) the rest of the Apple range now have sealed components ranging from batteries for MacBook Pros to disks for iMacs and Mac Minis.

Whilst Apple agree to stock parts for every machine released for 7 years, they set the price of the parts when the machine is released.
This means if you have a 6 year G5 PowerMac, a replacement Superdrive is hundreds of dollars!

Considering the lifespan for a production machine in a creative environment is 3 years just like AppleCare – it is a no brainer.
These days, it is too expensive to NOT have AppleCare.