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Everyone has made the stupid mistake of dropping an expensive device.Usually it's a phone, followed moments later with the awful sound of the display cracking into dozens of pieces. Sometimes - even worse - it's a tablet or laptop.
And then things get really bad: You've gotta pay whatever exorbitant price to repair your device. In the case of Apple's line of MacBooks, the price for accidental damage was especially high - in the ballpark of $500 for a broken display, and near $800 for liquid damage (like, say, a laptop falling into a swimming pool).
At least that was the case until Monday, when Apple quietly introduced AppleCare+ for Mac: An insurance program that already found popularity with iPhone owners that's now being extended to Apple's line of laptops.
The program is relatively simple:
- You pay a flat, one-time fee for AppleCare+ for Mac on your device of choice (from the MacBook Air all the way to the Mac Pro), ranging from $170 to $380.
- AppleCare+ automatically extends the one-year repair warranty by three years (for a total of four years repair warranty).
- Most importantly, AppleCare+ "adds up to two incidents of accidental damage coverage."
That last part is so crucial because, previous to this program, you were stuck with a huge fee for accidental damage - stuff like dropping your device (by accident!) or spilling a glass of water on the keyboard (also by accident!).
"There was no coverage for accidental damage in Macs," one Apple employee told Business Insider. "Even if you were under [warranty], if you broke your screen you paid $475 for that display. If it was liquid damage, it was a flat rate cost of $755."
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Now, with AppleCare+ for Mac, a cracked screen costs just $99 to repair. If you're dealing with liquid damage, you're looking at a charge of $299. Even with the most expensive AppleCare+ plan ($380 for the MacBook Pro) and the cost of the screen repair ($299), there's a drop in price.
And that's nice! If nothing else, it's nice that there's now an option for insuring against insanely high repair costs for accidental damage with Apple's most expensive hardware. You can learn more about AppleCare+ right here.