If you’re concerned about protecting your iPad for two full years, now may be a good time to purchase AppleCare. As of March 16th, Apple will discontinue normal AppleCare for iPad and replace it with AppleCare+. That means a higher purchase price compared to the current plan but adds a cheaper replacement option for damaged devices. We believe that AppleCare is absolutely necessary for a Mac, but for an iOS device… it’s a questionable investment.
Yes, we offer iPhone and iPad repairs, but we always give you the best advice even if it means less money for us. If we look at the current AppleCare+ option for iPhone, it’s $99 plus a $49 fee for each incident. Looking at a single incident, it’s always cheaper to have a repair company like us fix it for you. If you plan on breaking the device more than once… you may want to consider buying the warranty/insurance. 😉
If the iPhone pricing is any guide, we expect AppleCare+ for iPad to cost $199 (or more) with an $49 incident fee. This is purely speculation as Apple hasn’t announced the final pricing… but simple math could lead you to similar numbers. Apple charges $149 for the cheapest out-of-warranty iPhone replacement. One incident under AppleCare+ for iPhone costs you almost the same price ($99 plus the $49 fee). The cheapest iPad out-of-warranty replacement is $269. Using similar math as AppleCare+ for iPhone, you’d reach nearly the same price. If that ends up being the pricing structure for the iPad, you’ll definitely want to consider our repair options. Since Apple hasn’t decided what their prices are going to be, you can expect that it will be more than the iPhone plan.
As we mentioned before, if you’re a little accident-prone, it may be a good idea to pick up AppleCare+ for iPad. However, it’s something that we won’t recommend for the typical iPad user. iPads are well built and we really don’t see them fail prematurely. It’s also worth mentioning the limited warranty that comes with all Apple devices: everything but damage is covered for a whole year. With that said, we cannot justify the additional cost for a normal iPad user.
