Do you plan on keeping and using your 3GS for two years while remaining activated? If so, it may not be a bad idea, which can be purchased and activated anytime before the standard one year warranty expires. Wait until the last month before the standard one year warranty expires to decide based on if you plan on keeping and using your iPhone while activated for an additional year.
Personally, I don't think its worth it for several reasons:
1) AppleCare just extends the normal warranty by a year - meaning that it only covers manufacturing defects and hardware failure due to those defects. The vast majority of problems that will happen to a mobile phone - damage due to scratches, dropping, cracked glass, etc - won't be covered.
2) If warranties didn't make businesses money then they wouldn't be sold. Clearly, phones replaced under warranty cost Apple less than the monies they pull in from warranty sales. Based on simple probability, you will have to replace items on occasion but you will cover that cost by your savings from not buying the warranties.
We bought two phones and put Apple Care on both. After 4 months one of them started to freeze every so often when playing music.
We took it in, 5 minutes later we had a new phone.
Best service I ever purchased. Normally I never buy extended warranties, but the service provided is well worth it. It was so painless that I purchased it on my new iMac.
Excellent point that it only covers manufacturing defects. I was planning on waiting until the end of the first yr if I did buy it. But I may stick with my normal strategy of not getting extended warranties. Thanks!
Ansuz82 hits the nail right on the head!!! If you feel the need for protection, you would be better off trying to find an insurance policy (3rd party provider) which might cover physical damage as well.
Again, this is a money maker for the provider, so odds are you won't need it, especially if you tend to be careful with your possessions.
darkfire.shadows wrote:
We bought two phones and put Apple Care on both. After 4 months one of them started to freeze every so often when playing music.
This would have been covered with our without Apple Care. You have a 1 year warranty against defects free of charge with purchase. Apple Care simply extends this to 2 years.
I think its also a good idea to figure how often you replace your phone. Personally, I get the "new" iPhone every time its released (since I'm a tech-junkie and AT&T gives subsidized pricing to iPhone customers with each new model). Apple Care would have no benefit for me since my phones have never been out of warranty.
1. Extends the warranty to two years
2. You can contact Apple via phone for tech support for two years instead of just 90 days if you don't buy the warranty.
The most important reason to have Apple Care, and is the biggest reason that I have it:
3. WHEN YOUR IPHONE BREAKS YOU DON'T HAVE TO WAIT FOR APPLE TO SEND IT OUT AND REPAIR IT, THEY WILL SIMPLY REPLACE IT RIGHT THEN AND THERE!!!
No, it was the subsidized price. Your account was eligible for upgrade so you paid the same subsidized price that existing 3G owners paid. Had you not been eligible for an upgrade it would have been a GREAT deal more expensive - in the $600 range.
