Apple now allows AppleCare+ for Mac to continue beyond three years

Posted:
in Current Mac Hardware edited August 2021
In certain major territories, including the U.S., Apple will now let users keep AppleCare+ for Mac active beyond its original three-year limit.

AppleCare+ for Mac can now be extended
AppleCare+ for Mac can now be extended


There are arguments for and against paying for AppleCare+ when you have a Mac, but now Apple has added a new option. Where previously the maximum length of coverage you could have was three years from the date of purchase, it is now unlimited.

According to a newly updated Apple support document, AppleCare+ users can extend their coverage period if they choose to do so within a certain limited time, and if they are in a specific territory.

Users in the U.S. are eligible and can extend coverage so long as they do so within 30 days of their original coverage ending.

As first spotted by MacRumors, users who bought their three-year AppleCare+ coverage in full, have to buy within this window, they can't do it early. They also can't retrospectively extend an elapsed AppleCare+ agreement.

This is how AppleCare+ already works with the iPad, so it's not an entirely new departure for the company. It's possible that Apple may be moving to standardize how AppleCare+ works across all of its devices, as currently there are significant differences between, say, coverage of the Mac, of the iPhone, or of Apple Watch.

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Comments

  • Reply 1 of 8
    cpsrocpsro Posts: 3,189member
    It would’ve been nice to know or have this implemented 3 weeks ago, before coverage for my iMac Pro expired.
  • Reply 2 of 8
    darkvaderdarkvader Posts: 1,146member
    Nothing new about that at all.  AppleCare used to be an annual thing before Apple limited it to 2 years.  There were 15 year old printers that were still under AppleCare when they limited it.

    These days it's generally a bad deal anyway, particularly on desktops.  Warranty-related failures that don't result in a quality program are rare, and user-caused damage isn't that much of a price break once you add the cost of the AppleCare.

    Oh, and it's not 3 years now.  It's 2 years.  The warranty is the 1st year.

    And what do you want to bet that it's actually still going to be limited?  Unless Apple ends their asinine "Vintage" policy at 5 years after discontinuation, they'll be dropping you then anyway.
    dysamoria
  • Reply 3 of 8
    lkrupplkrupp Posts: 10,557member
    I’m paying $3.99/mo for my series 4 Watch and it’s well worth it. Keeping AppleCare+ on your Mac is a no-brainer.
    doozydozen
  • Reply 4 of 8
    neilmneilm Posts: 985member
    cpsro said:
    It would’ve been nice to know or have this implemented 3 weeks ago, before coverage for my iMac Pro expired.
    The article says you have 30 days to extend coverage.
    doozydozen
  • Reply 5 of 8
    pslicepslice Posts: 149member
    The AppleCare on my 2017 iMac died in June 2020. Dang. I could have protected this iMac (27") until they put out the iMac M1 27" or whatever it will be. 
  • Reply 6 of 8
    cpsro said:
    It would’ve been nice to know or have this implemented 3 weeks ago, before coverage for my iMac Pro expired.
    It would have been nicer if you had bothered to read the article before posting.
    spock1234
  • Reply 7 of 8
    barthrhbarthrh Posts: 137member
    lkrupp said:
    I’m paying $3.99/mo for my series 4 Watch and it’s well worth it. Keeping AppleCare+ on your Mac is a no-brainer.
    Genuinely curious as to why. Where do you see the $50/yr paying off? Is it on a future battery replacement (I haven't done the math)? I'm asking as someone who dropped their stainless AW3 onto a tile floor and had it pop open. I was forthcoming to the Apple team and the person at the store said "don't worry, the battery looks swollen to me <wink>". The watch came back with a replacement fee due to identifiable trauma, but the store waived it.

    I have mixed feelings on the device insurance. I've had generally no trouble, or been covered w/ a program (MBPro keyboard), or had amazing service where they just fixed stuff. In over 15 years, only one iMac truly died (the model where the nVidia cards tended to die). There are so few components in new Macs (did you so the motherboard for the M1 iMac?) it's hard to imagine what could go wrong.
    muthuk_vanalingam
  • Reply 8 of 8
    dysamoriadysamoria Posts: 3,430member
    Apple now “allows” us to pay them more money, for what likely amounts to no benefit, if you don’t have catastrophic hardware incidents.

    Though I am also curious about the so-called obsolescence issue. I assume there’s a cutoff.
    muthuk_vanalingam
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