Apple has been making a number of changes to their AppleCare scheme, which is now called AppleCare+, which includes reducing the price, offering annual plans and offering Applecare beyond 3 years. However not all the changes are available in every territory.
Until recently, Apple Mac computers come with a one-year warranty and up to 90 days of complimentary technical support, which you can choose to extend to three years by purchasing AppleCare, and more recently AppleCare+, which adds up to two incidents of accidental damage each year. albeit with an excess. Most claims will come with a $99 excess but for more damage (like water incidents) the excess goes up to $299.
AppleCare+ also provides 24/7 priority access to Apple's technical support representatives by online chat or phone.
Extend Applecare Beyond 3 Years
Now Apple is giving some Mac customers the option to extend to AppleCare Plus beyond the usual three-year limit. It is not clear how long you can continue to extend AppleCare+ but a delve into the small print reveals a clause that says Apple has the option to cancel your plan, with 60 days’ notice, if it no longer has the necessary parts.
Apple says the recurring annual coverage must be purchased “within 30 days of the end date of your original coverage.” Once you’ve moved to annual billing, it will renew automatically, until you cancel it, or they can no longer support your computer.
Currently, the only territory you can do this for Apple Mac computers is the US according to an Apple Support document.
“In the United States, if you paid upfront for an AppleCare+ plan for your Mac, you might be able to purchase new coverage that renews annually.”
Whereas if you have an iPhone, iPad or Apple Watch and you live in Australia, Canada, Germany, Japan, the United Kingdom, or the United States…
“If you paid upfront for an AppleCare+ plan for your iPhone, iPad, or Apple Watch, you might be able to purchase new coverage that renews monthly.”
In China where AppleCare is for 24 months, Apple say…
“If you paid upfront for 24 months of coverage, you might be able to continue coverage on an annual basis when the 24 month period is over. If you pay annually, your annual plan will renew each year until canceled.”
But it is not clear what devices this covers.
In reality, at the time of writing it is only possible to extended AppleCare+ beyond 3 years if you are based in the US.
AppleCare+ Plans For M1 MacBook Air And MacBook Pro Reduced In Price For Some
In the United States, AppleCare+ for the MacBook Air has been reduced to $199, down from $249. The new price applies to both M1 and Intel-based MacBook Air models, although Apple no longer sells the Intel-based model directly.
For the 13-inch MacBook Pro, Apple has split AppleCare+ into two separate plans for the M1 and Intel-based models, with pricing for the M1 model reduced to $249, down from $269. Whereas, the price of AppleCare+ for the Intel-based 13-inch MacBook Pro remains $269. This means that customers opting for the Apple Silicon model now receive a slight discount on AppleCare coverage.
We understand that the new lower prices are also available in some other countries we've checked, with discounts varying based on the local currency. For example in Canada and also in the UK, the lower AppleCare+ prices for the 13-inch MacBook Air and MacBook Pro powered with the M1 chip are now available.
Apple has said that customers who recently purchased AppleCare+ at the higher price can contact Apple Support for assistance with cancelling their current AppleCare+ plan and purchasing a new one at the lower price, but there s no indication of a cutoff date for eligibility.
What About The Other Apple Silicon Macs?
It will be interesting to see if this trend of reducing AppleCare continues as more Macs are transitioned to Apple Silicon. It is curious why Apple hasn’t reduced the price of the other M1 Macs, like the M1 mini and M1 iMac?
Buy AppleCare Plans Annually When Yo Buy An Eligible Mac Computer
Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman in his most recent Power On newsletter announced that Apple has now turned AppleCare+ for Mac into an annual subscription.
“Apple has quietly started allowing Mac buyers to pay for AppleCare+ on an annual basis instead of for a full three years at the time of purchase. Apple started allowing Mac users to do this from their new machine itself about a month ago, but now they can do it from an Apple retail store, the online store and app, and by phone.
We checked this out and in the same way, there is the option to extend a 3 year AppleCare plan, the option to buy AppleCare as an annual plan when buying a new Mac computer is only available in the US.
Apple’s Annual AppleCare+ Plan for the 13-inch M1 MacBook Pro costs $89.99 per annum whereas the 3-year plan costs $249. This means after 3 years of paying annually at $89.99, you will have paid $269.97 compared to paying $249 for 3 years upfront, a difference of $20.97.
With the 16-inch Intel-powered MacBook Pro it is $139.99 per annum or $379 for 3 years coverage, a difference of $40.97.
Good News Or Not? It Depends On Where You Live!
We have always recommended that people who earn their living from using an Apple Mac computer should take out the 3 year AppleCare plan, especially if it is a laptop. The security of not having any ‘surprises’ if something goes wrong is, in our view, well worth the cost of AppleCare. Do these recent announcements change that view? Let’s take each offer one by one.
Being able to extend the 3 year AppleCare has got to be good news, it has always irked me that just at the point things might start to break is when the 3 year AppleCare plan expires, so to have the option to extend the AppleCare plan is great news.
The reduction in the price of the M1 powered MacBook Air and MacBook Pro is also good news. After all, AppleCare is effectively an insurance policy and it would appear that Apple considers the M1 laptops to be more reliable and so can reduce the price of the corresponding AppleCare plans.
Paying for an Annual Plan from the start is probably more about putting it in place when you purchase your Apple computer and not having to remember to extend it after 3 years. Not having to remember to renew it, may well be worth the small additional cost.
The biggest issue I have with this is that all of this is only available if you are based in the US.. What’s more, it seems that you cannot go around it. When I used the US store, I was able to buy a Mac but the Add To Bag button for AppleCare was greyed out.
What is it about this that makes where you live, matter? Perhaps the difference in the plan offered in China might give us a clue. Maybe it’s about the different regulations in different territories? Apple. as usual. doesn’t explain it, but that is my best guess.
So good news for Apple Mac users based in the US, but not so much for everyone else. What a shame.
AppleCare - Is It Worth The Expense? One Person's Experience
When buying a new Apple computer, is it worth taking out the AppleCare extended warranty that Apple offers? In this article, AppleCare - Is It Worth The Expense? One Person's Experience, James Richmond explores his history of buying Apple computers to see whether AppleCare has been worth it.