Hi, everyone! Man, April has been an extremely busy month for me. Our bout with the taxman left us seeing stars but we’ll be okay after a while. He’s a good egg in the long run but who likes long, runny eggs?! :^D
Alright, what can I tell you about this month? Let’s see, we’ve talked about batteries in your LC’s, LaserWriter II’s and their Power Supplies and PowerBook 150’s and their power problems. You know there is one thing that I would like to talk about but I’m afraid that you’re going to think it’s a commercial or infomercial or something but I am a true believer in AppleCare, Apple’s Extended Warranty Program. I know some of you are with me on this and I’m confident that there are people who grimace at the thought of having to hear about the glories of another extended warranty program.
Let’s face it, you hear that kind of lingo when you buy a washing machine, dryer or any other appliance. How about the car you drive? I’m a GM fan myself (please, no flames) and every time I’ve heard the term “extended warranty”, I’ve always pictured a fast-talking salesman with a loud tie trying to push my hand to sign a contract so that he can get a BIG commission and pad his wallet.
However, I want to tell you about AppleCare with a promise that I will not benefit in any way from the discussion. Promise. Here goes:
Let’s say Morty has a Quadra 630CD (remember: all names are changed to protect the ignorant) and he’s working on a term paper while listening to his favorite music CD, when all of a sudden he hears the CD start screaming (and it’s not a lead guitar solo) and grinding and making a horrible crunching sound. He stops what he’s doing, saves his document (‘cuz he’s a smart Mac user) and then tries to fish out his CD with a paper clip just to find that his former favorite CD has become a warped piece of round plastic. What’s he gonna do?? Well, there’s a reputable Apple Authorized Service Center in town, so he trucks it on in to have the CD-ROM drive replaced. The only thing they can do is to exchange the CD-ROM Drive module out and they give him the estimate. No, I can’t give the estimate for the repair but I want to assure you that there are two answers that I could give. One is that the repair is going to cost well
over $250.00 and the other is that the repair will cost $0.00. How can this be? It’s simple. AppleCare. No, AppleCare won’t replace the CD but if you had an AppleCare contract in place your repair for the drive would have been covered.
AppleCare covers all module and replacement parts in 99% of Apple’s product line. If you have an Apple III or Lisa, I’m afraid you’re out of luck. Module and replacement parts range from logic boards, hard drives, floppy drives, keyboards, mice, any cables…just about everything. It doesn’t cover absolutely everything though. The Apple label on the front of your Mac is not a covered repair. That’s an example of what is
not repaired so I’m sure you get the idea.
Whenever I’ve talked about AppleCare, I’ve always referred to it as an insurance policy. That best describes it. It’s a whole lot cheaper to have it in place than to get hit with a huge repair bill if your computer has a component failure. The local Apple Service Center gets paid from Apple for the repair, so everybody’s happy. If you have any questions, just give them a call. If they can’t help you, send me a note. I’m not the Wizard of Oz on the subject, but I’ve worked with AppleCare enough to be able to help you get set up. I just can’t replace your music CD. ;^D
Catcha L8r, Eddie
Ed Tobey (edtobey@earthlink.net)
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