PSA : Get AppleCare for any new Mac you buy

[Arkaign]

https://www.theverge.com/2018/10/4/...imac-pro-third-party-repair-lock-out-software

This is just asinine IMHO, but as always : get Apple Care and keep backups. Factor it in to the price. Use the strong resell value to swap up to new when the coverage ends. Otherwise you can end up paying up to ~$500 for a keyboard replacement, or $1000+ if your soldered-on SSD goes.

 

[KeithP]

Actually, I would sell 6-12 months before the coverage ends. It will help the sale go quicker and make the price a little higher than other used Macs selling without any warranty.

But yeah, never own Apple hardware that isn't covered by warranty.

-KeithP

 

[Arkaign]

Nice input Keith, and probably wise considering that boost to the selling price and buyer confidence "Still under AppleCare!"

 

[Exterous]

Apple is on a role. DEP changes, filevault changes and now this? Its like Apple doesn't want businesses to use them

 

[Arkaign]

Apple is on a role. DEP changes, filevault changes and now this? Its like Apple doesn't want businesses to use them

It's interesting to see that, one of my larger clients is a sizable corporate law firm. Amongst the 4 partners and top ~10 associates, as of 2015 about half had Macbooks as their travel devices. This entails connecting to various projectors and storage devices at other firms, depositions, and so on. As they dropped more and more ports and started having to buy dongles with various levels of success, most of them have now relegated the things to junior staff or family members, and have gone with Lenovos since.

Back in ~2011 they were using laptops exclusively, docking in office, and going through all of that hassle. Now, they have Synology local shares, cloud mirror, and 365 email, so they now run nice full workstation rigs with multiple displays, and they don't need to dock anything, simply go out the door with their laptop in the bag, and hotkey lock their desktops instantly.

Even our CFO, who was previously using an imac, has gone to PC. QuickBooks Enterprise is no longer available on Mac, and the CSM file manager we had developed doesn't particularly work well with Mac either. So her last build has been a windows box, and we sent her iMac home with her as a work from home email and document rig.

Apple makes many fine products, though it seems that they're regressing in the business arena of computing. Of course iPhone is nearly ubiquitous, and works perfectly for their needs.

 

[Exterous]

Apple makes many fine products, though it seems that they're regressing in the business arena of computing. Of course iPhone is nearly ubiquitous, and works perfectly for their needs.

Agreed. This is really hurting academia as they tend to be heavy Apple users but the changes have added a significant overhead to imaging and deploying - not to mention the need to deal with all kinds of dongles in disparate classroom and office environments

 

[secretanchitman]

Yep I always buy AppleCare for any Mac, but going forward with any new machine I buy I will sell it before the warranty expires. Too expensive to get it repaired out of warranty!

 

[Oyeve]

We just don't buy macs. When I took over the IT dept at my job I got rid of the macs. Just not worth the hassle of lugging a 27 inch Mac desktop to the apple store for any work. 95 pcs and only a couple of failures in 5 years.

 

[Shmee]

I don't buy Apple anything. I would consider an iPhone, as they are pretty good devices, but the apple software for Windows is kinda a pain from what I recall from others. The older macbook pros are pretty good and easy to work on, but they don't fit my needs. I would recommend them if someone wanted a decent general use laptop though, just pop in an SSD!

 

[ZipSpeed]

I have a 2010 Macbook Air that is very long in the tooth, and looking at current ridiculous pricing, I'm not dropping $1729 CAD for a Macbook. And the current Macbook Air needs a serious update. I'm not spending $1200 CAD on that either when the damn shell and display is pretty much the same as my 2010. I have a very basic Chromebook that I spent $150 on that I use at work and it's pretty decent. I may end up getting something like the Asus C302 Chromebook @ $500 to replace my MBA.

 

[capsulej]

I have always bought AC and it has saved me a lot of headaches, was worth every penny.

 

[Oyeve]

Everyone I know who has a macbook or iphone has HAD to take it in to apple for one thing or another. Why? Why can't they make these things not fail so much?

 

[dave_the_nerd]

Everyone I know who has a macbook or iphone has HAD to take it in to apple for one thing or another. Why? Why can't they make these things not fail so much?

Well, part of it is, if you pay that much for something you want it to be perfect, so you're basically looking for an excuse to do warranty work. And they're basically single-board computers at this point, which means Apple doesn't have a lot of options for repair.

Some Rando: Hey, it looked at me funny and hesitated while playing porn! Fix it!
Apple Not-So-Genius: Okay, sir, our standard protocol for funny looks and video playback issues is... umm...
**tappitytappity**
Apple Not-So-Genius: Huh. Looks like we need to replace the logic board.
Rando: Hooray, I'm getting my money's worth out of my warranty!

Another part of it is their repair policies - in 2014 I had a bum charger for my then-new MBP that would overheat and shut itself off when I was gaming (so, pulling pretty close to the max load of the charger.) Easy enough to get a replacement charger under warranty, but I had to take the laptop in and let them run diagnostics on it before they'd swap the adapter for me.

Also, my iPhone and iPad have never needed service. Now you know somebody whose Apple product hasn't needed servicing. So there.