If you’re as clumsy as I am, you’ll know the value of AppleCare+. Apple’s insurance plan gives you deeply discounted repair fees and an unlimited number of claims while it’s active, putting your mind at ease and coming to the rescue if your Mac or iPhone makes an unfortunately rapid introduction to a dangerously hard floor.
Yet it looks like there’s a big change on the way, and it could make getting AppleCare+ more expensive in the long run. If you’ve been thinking about purchasing coverage for your Apple device, now is the time to make your move.
What’s the big idea? Well, according to Bloomberg reporter Mark Gurman, Apple is about to stop customers from taking out two- or three-year AppleCare+ plans in its retail stores and on their devices. Instead, you’ll only have the option to subscribe monthly or annually.
That matters because AppleCare’s multi-year options work out much cheaper than its subscription offerings. For instance, a three-year AppleCare+ plan for the 16-inch MacBook Pro costs $399, which works out to roughly $11 a month. Pay annually, though, and it’ll cost you $149.99 a year, or $449.97 over three years. That’s an increase of over 12% compared to the three-year bundle.
With the iPhone 16 Pro, the difference is even more stark, with the monthly option ending up over 20% more expensive than opting for a two-year plan.
So it makes sense to go for the longer options, providing you can afford the upfront price and know you’ll have your device for the duration of the coverage. But with Apple removing the ability to purchase the multi-year coverage options in its stores and on your devices, you might not have long to save money.
The secret AppleCare+ hack
The one bit of good news here is that Apple will reportedly continue to allow you to get the better-value coverage on its online store. But even then, we don’t know how long that situation will last. There’s also an interesting wrinkle that could make it harder to purchase, and it’s something I’ve got personal experience with.
I bought an Apple Watch Series 10 in September 2024, and I didn’t think I needed AppleCare+ at the time. Usually, you have two months to buy AppleCare+ for your new device, and you can do so from within the Settings app in iOS. After that, the option disappears.
That would seem to suggest that AppleCare+ is no longer available for your device, and everything I could find on Apple’s website simply said you’ve got to buy it within two months. When I changed my mind about AppleCare+ some five months after purchase, I assumed it was too late.
Yet I kept reading online threads claiming that you could take your Watch to an Apple Store, have it inspected by one of the in-store Geniuses and, if it passed muster, take out AppleCare+ there and then — even if your allotted two months were up.
With nothing but a few scattered Reddit threads to go on, I went down to my local Apple Store to see if this secret hack worked. Lo and behold, it did — Apple told me they generally let anyone take out AppleCare+ for their device within a year of purchase, even if it fell outside the normal two-month window. In fact, the employee I spoke to said they wouldn’t be surprised if Apple one day expanded AppleCare+ availability to every Apple device owner, regardless of how long they’d had their product, as long as it was in good condition. The idea was that AppleCare+ makes the company a lot of money, so expanding it is a logical next step.
Once the employee had inspected my device, the AppleCare+ option reappeared in my Settings app, and I hastily purchased the pre-paid two-year coverage option. That was just this week — fortuitous timing given Gurman’s latest news.
Leaving it late
How does that relate to Gurman’s claim about the changing AppleCare+ landscape? Well, I was only able to get AppleCare+ coverage this late because I had my Watch physically inspected by Apple. But if things change and you can only buy longer AppleCare+ plans online and not in Apple Stores or on your device, how will you be able to get the discounted plan and convince Apple that your device is still roadworthy if it falls outside the two-month window?
In other words, you’ll probably be fine as long as you purchase a multi-year AppleCare+ plan within the initial two-month window, as the online option (which doesn’t require device inspection by Apple) will remain. But if, like me, you later change your mind, you might end up being locked out once the two months are up because the online store route won’t let Apple check your device’s condition. With only subscription options available, that will be more expensive in the long run.
That means if you want to save money on an AppleCare+ purchase but your device is currently outside the two-month period, you’ll need to head down to your nearest Apple Store as soon as you can to get your device assessed. Don’t leave it too late.
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