Applecare Articles on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog

AppleCare now transferable to new purchases within 30 days

by David Winograd (Nov 3rd, 2010)

According to an Apple Internal memo not yet release to the public, Apple will now allow transferring an AppleCare agreement on a product bought within the last 30 days to a another product of the same type. Previously, the policy stated that AppleCare must be canceled and then repurchased if you ...

AppleCare has paid for itself

by TJ Luoma (Oct 28th, 2010)

My iMac is about three years old. I know this because my AppleCare is expiring on November 7th, and it extends the included one-year warranty by two years to give a total of three years of coverage. In short, I'm glad I've had it and wouldn't consider owning a Mac without it. In the last three ...

AppleCare Adventures: How to get a faulty MacBook battery replaced

by Chris Rawson (Oct 27th, 2010)

The old saying about cars depreciating the moment you drive them off the lot goes double for notebook batteries, which lose a bit of their maximum capacity with every charge cycle. The battery is the one component of your portable Mac that is all but guaranteed to fail eventually... though ...

iPhone 4 press conference, by the numbers

by Megan Lavey-Heaton (Jul 16th, 2010)

Apple dropped a lot of interesting numbers during the press conference this morning, from both their own research and AT&T's data. Steve Jobs also said that three million iPhone 4s have been sold to date, so let's put this into perspective. .55 percent: This is the percentage of iPhone 4 ...

What to do when your Mac dies

by Chris Rawson (Apr 30th, 2010)

In general, Mac hardware is very reliable. Like any complex gizmo, a Mac will have its quirks, but only rarely do those quirks turn into a full-on, machine-killing meltdown. When that does happen, as it recently happened to my wife's MacBook, there's a few things you can do to keep the death of your ...

Found: The iPhone prototype finder

by Chris Rawson (Apr 29th, 2010)

Wired has located and interviewed the man who "found" Apple's lost prototype iPhone in a Redwood City bar: 21-year-old Brian Hogan. With a statement from his attorney, Hogan has shed a great deal of light on the ongoing saga of Gizmodo's premature unveiling of Apple's next-gen iPhone. The story, as ...

AppleCare without Apple stores... still worth it

by Chris Rawson (Apr 18th, 2010)

Once upon a time, I worked for a major American retailer in its electronics department. The manager of that department, above and beyond all other considerations, wanted us to push extended warranties to customers. These warranties represented almost pure profit for the company, because they cost ...

Educational institutions: Get your discounted iPad 10-pack

by Michael Grothaus (Mar 20th, 2010)

MacRumors reports that Apple has begun offering iPad 10-packs to educational institutions at discounted rates. The discounts are relatively minor: $20 off of each iPad in a set of 10, or $40 off per iPad if they are ordered with AppleCare. The iPad 10-packs are shipped in a single box, which ...

iPad 101: iPad AppleCare pros & cons

by Erica Sadun (Mar 12th, 2010)

Considering AppleCare for your iPad? I know that I am. For $99, AppleCare extends your iPad warranty coverage to two years from the date of purchase. Although AppleCare tends to be expensive, for certain purchases it can really save you, especially for devices which run a higher risk of component ...

Smoking kills... your Mac

by Chris Rawson (Nov 21st, 2009)

It should be pretty obvious by now that smoking cigarettes is bad for your health. What's not as obvious is that it might be bad for your Mac, too. According to The Consumerist, two different people got turned down for AppleCare maintenance because their Macs were used in a house with a smoker. Both ...

Think those warranty parts are new? Think again

by Josh Carr (Nov 1st, 2009)

We received a question from one of our readers earlier this week that made me cringe, cower in fear, and heavily debate posting the answer. He had just been to the Genius Bar and they had replaced his under-warranty iPhone for a hardware issue. He then asked us what the quality of said iPhone would ...

Unboxing an Apple employee t-shirt

by Mike Schramm (Oct 23rd, 2009)

A little while back we posted about the unboxing of an Apple job offer, and now here's another unboxing having to do with becoming an Apple employee -- Mac Rumors has shots up of an unboxing of one of the t-shirt giftboxes recently given to AppleCare call center staff, and once again, even in ...

Dead Time Capsules can hang out together

by Josh Carr (Oct 11th, 2009)

We reported on the abundance of Time Capsule failure-to-boot after 18 months in September. A new site has emerged from the mist to help Time Capsule owners who are struggling to get Apple to acknowledge the issue. TimeCapsuleDead.org exists as a register for the owners of dead Time Capsules and has ...

Which peripherals are covered under AppleCare?

by Lauren Hirsch (Sep 11th, 2009)

In the wake of our earlier post on possibly time-bombed Time Capsules, there was some confusion as to whether or not the Time Capsule would be covered under any AppleCare Protection Plan you might have. The suggestion was made in the comments to Mel's post that extended coverage would apply, but we ...

To AppleCare or not to AppleCare -- that is the question

by Sang Tang (Jul 20th, 2009)

The following is a re-enactment of the mysterious and sudden failure of Megan Lavey's MacBook. It was the evening of Tuesday, July 14, 2009. Megan Lavey heads out to the movies to watch the eagerly anticipated Harry Potter and Half-Blood Prince. But the excitement of the night was short lived. Upon ...