How AppleCare has changed with AppleCare+

If you haven’t bought a new Mac in the last year or so, you may not be aware of the changes that Apple has made to its AppleCare scheme with its replacement by AppleCare+. This article explains how these affect those who give way to the temptation to buy a new Mac with AppleCare+. Because of differences in national legislation and the availability of local service, both AppleCare and AppleCare+ do vary around the world in their availability and details, and you should check local pricing and conditions.

AppleCare past

In the past, AppleCare has functioned as a three-year extended warranty, paid in a single lump sum at the time of purchase or soon afterwards. Under AppleCare, repairs are made to covered Mac hardware at no cost, but only when a defect or problem is the result of a fault in the product. This explicitly excludes damage, whether it occurs by accident or is intentional, including most importantly water damage.

Apple’s notebook models and its keyboards include sensors that detect whether liquids have entered the case, and if they indicate that Mac has at some stage become wet inside, then you’ll normally be expected to pay for any repairs yourself. In case that appears specific to Apple, it’s almost universal for notebook and laptop models from other manufacturers.

AppleCare has also only been available to cover the first three years after purchase, and there has been no option to pay charges annually, or to extend cover beyond three years.

AppleCare+ present

AppleCare+ combines an extended warranty on defects arising in your Mac with insurance cover for accidental damage. It’s worth teasing those apart, as their terms and conditions are quite different.

The extended warranty element is essentially similar to previous AppleCare, and provides free repairs for any defects that arise while AppleCare+ is in force for that Mac. So if the chip or SSD inside your Mac fails and its logic board has to be replaced, then that shouldn’t incur any cost to you, provided that you have fulfilled the requirements of the warranty, and the failure hasn’t occurred as a result of damage to your Mac, such as water ingress, or your attempts to dismantle or modify it. One common sticking point in the past was whether that included performing upgrades such as adding or replacing memory or internal storage, but those don’t apply to Apple’s current product range any more.

The insurance element covers an unlimited number of incidents of accidental damage, which does include that resulting from water ingress, or physical damage to a display or case. However, repairs to accidental damage incur a cost: for example, repairs to a display or case will cost you $99 each time, and those for water or other damage cost $299 each time. Those aren’t applicable if the damage has been deliberate, though: you can’t run your MacBook Pro over with a truck and get away with paying just $99 for its repair! So you’ll have to curb any ideas about taking your Mac diving with you.

AppleCare+ can now be purchased with either a lump-sum payment when you buy your new Mac, or shortly afterwards, or by annual subscription, which continues “until cancelled”. Although Apple doesn’t explain this explicitly, I gather its intention is that AppleCare+ can be extended for a total period of six years following purchase, which should enable you to renew an initial three-year term with a second. Apple provides further details about renewals on this page, although that doesn’t mention whether you can extend current AppleCare with a term of AppleCare+.

Cost

One of the oddities about both AppleCare and AppleCare+ is that their cost isn’t related to the cost of the original Mac, but is determined only by its model. It costs the same for an entry model MacBook Pro as it is for a maxed-out version costing thousands more. This makes it relatively expensive for base models, but a real bargain for those with maximum chip, memory and storage options. When I bought AppleCare on my iMac Pro, for example, I paid exactly the same for it as I would have for an entry-level iMac.

Current prices are listed on Apple’s AppleCare+ front page, and range from $34.99 per year for a Mac mini, to $149.99 per year for a 16-inch MacBook Pro, or $179.99 for a Mac Pro.

Apple Support

There seems to be a misapprehension among some that Apple Support is only available for those Macs that are currently covered by AppleCare or AppleCare+. While extended warranty support does only apply to Mac hardware that is covered, any Mac user can ask for help from Apple Support. Those whose Macs are covered by either AppleCare scheme are given priority, but in my experience, Apple Support will always try to provide software support when they can, and I haven’t heard of them turning anyone away. This applies particularly to problems with iCloud, for which you have no other option.