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>It's absolutely ridiculous that Macs don't come with a 3 year warranty by default.

Government should mandate that, as in does in other countries.

But many american consumers don't believe in government rules about consumer protection, lest some of this "innovation" we've witnessed is discouraged...

I doubt everyone would want to pay the extra 20-30% more that Apple would charge to cover this.

Apple charges more like 15% for extended warranty.

OP seem to pay this premium indirectly anyway. So I guess people would pay that premium. Like they pay premium for mac's anyway. The regulation for warranty just means sellers need to actually provide the quality the brand induces

Thats why apple would eat most or all of the cost without passing it on to consumers or would make more reliable laptops. The laptops are already priced at what the market would bear and apple makes huge profits.

Nah. You're forgetting that that this is Apple. There would be an announcement that for new Macs you will be required to purchase 3 years of AppleCare+ to have the best possible experience. People will bitch for a few months but eventually it'll die down and Apple will get to market the current price as the base price while charing 30% more.

Hard to say. Apple is often able to release new products at insane price points, but to reprice existing products is more dicey, especially when laptops are one of their most expensive products on offer. I think you have something of a point: Apple products are mostly aimed at people with lots of disposable income, but raising the price still reduces the total addressable market size. The only way to know is to run the experiment.

What Apple does is they make a new model or add a big feature to the latest model and drastically increase the price. You can see that with the iPhone X, the iPad Pro, and with the introduction of the retina macbook pro's, or even with the touchbars. Apple knows how to increase prices and keep the vast majority of their customer base.

You're right, but the iPhone X is well below the price point of their Macbook Pros (closer to Macbook Airs though). Their flexibility is reduced the higher the absolute price point goes. At a certain point, people really can't spend that money.

Over here we have a 2 years mandatory warranty, and most if not all of the price difference can be explained by the displayed prices including VAT and dollar -> euro conversion.

Now, it only covers defects, but that’s what most warranties do.

They do offer 2 years in the EU (iirc 3 in the UK) and the prices for most of their products are pretty close to the ones in US (if you subtract VAT)

This is done for all items sold to consumers in New Zealand. A base MacBook is US $999 in the US and NZ $1749 in New Zealand, which is approximately US $1200. Your maths checks out. The tiny market, currency fluctuations and long shipping route probably factor in the price too, but our legislation is surely the prime reason for the cost.

I absolutely love the consumer guarantees act we have here, and the protection it gives.

Edit: NZ has 15% sales tax and this is missing from the above equation. It accounts for most the difference.

I think you're forgetting VAT, which in NZ, I think, is 13%. Not sure if there are import tariffs/duties to account for too.

Considering all these other costs, I reckon a 20% markup is great value for a 3-year warranty.

Like others though, I really all Apple products globally should come with a 3-year warranty - you pay over the odds for Apple hardware, and should get high-quality, reliable kit in return.

I have missed tax differences.

In New Zealand you are getting a 3 year warranty and getting something guaranteed in return - and the extra price appears minimal once tax differences are included.

You're forgetting about the high sales tax of 15% in NZ. That explains the vast majority of the price difference.

No, that explains precisely $150 in price increase. We can do math: $1000 base price + 15% sales tax = $1150.

How is that vast majority of price increase?

"...which is approximately US $1200"

There is zero sales tax on US Apple store sales? Where is tax paid?

I certainly have missed that.

Sales tax can vary depending on state (among other things), see for example Oregon where it's 0%, vs Washington, where it's 6.5% (and my jurisdiction adds additional couple percent for a total of ~10%).

I don't think the odds of a replacement or repair are that high. 20% means one-in-five chance of total replacement.

That can easily be fixed if they're also kept on a watch by legislators and consumer rights groups for pulling such shit up (as opposed to sucking up the cost)...

In the EU, where a longer guarantee is mandaded, state tax aside, the prices aren't that different. MacBook Air $999 US (849 €) vs 1129 € France. Of that 188 € is the state tax (VAT), which means the price difference as far as Apple pockets is 1129-188 - 849 = $92 or $108 dollars.

So that $999 would be say $1109, a 11% increase, hardly 20-30%.

(And that's not even counting the higher cost of business in Europe aside the VAT, which also factors in that 1129-188 price).

Apple are already making higher margin on M1 Mac than on Intel Mac. Did you notice the higher discount rate running on all M1 product compared to old Intel Mac?

Those extra margin could have been repurposed to Service Revenue, getting Apple Care+ by default. ( May be having one accidental damage instead of two ). Just like how the Mac is putting money into services revenue for MacOS, iCloud, Map and Siris.

The consequence of that is instead of a possible lower cost Mac lineup with M1, you now have the same cost but longer warranty. Apple now also has an incentive to make the Mac last longer to minimise any AppleCare cost they get within three years.

Companies exist to maximize profit. The only thing that matters in pricing is supply, demand, and perhaps goodwill/brand power. Apple's already positioned itself as a luxury brand, so they would have no problem raising prices in the face of a supply shock.

Which is a good reason why everything in US is cheaper. Sure, you get more service and better guarantee is you pay for it, there is no reason to force it.

Note that apparent cost and actual cost are not the same thing.

The purchase price is lower without a warranty, but the actual incurred risk cost is higher.

Absent a warranty, that's not only a risk shift from the manufacturer to the consumer, but a real cost shift, as steps which might increase reliability are not taken and the consequences of those decisions (made by the manufaucturer) accrue to the purchaser.

There is also the incidnece cost and the cost of liquidity or credit required to front a repair bill in the hundreds or thousands of dollars. Given that much of the US cannot meet an unexpected $400 expense in a month, this is a significant consideration. MacBook owners may represent a more affluent portion of the population, but a $10k repair bill over four years remains significant. That's a constant $208/mo reliability tax on that particular unit, for this owner.

Note that in this case, Apple did eat the cost as the repairs were covered under the AppleCare Protection Plan.

Which is probably negates by all the legal and lawsuit costs...

AFAIK It's mostly cheaper due to lower sales tax (aka VAT/GST which is ~10% vs 18-27% in Europe) and no China import duty. Finally being local currency helps somewhat because of currency stability I'd guess.

Yes that makes a difference too but its also stuff like house prices and food which have no sales tax.

In the EU, there's a _seller_ obligation for 2 years for items in the same class as laptop to ensure they are free from defects and fit for purpose. It won't help you if _you_ break your laptop, and after 6 months the burden of proof in the event of a dispute switches from the seller to the buyer, but I feel like pretty much all the issues the OP encountered would be covered under this.

A lot of add on warranties don't cover much more than this anyway, which makes them much harder to justify here.

> Because the initial investment is so high you're practically forced to add extra Apple Care to protect it because there's a 20-30% chance you will have problems during those first years.

Here's the inverse argument: it's absolutely ridiculous I have to pay 20-30% extra for my Macbook even though I don't care about the mandatory 3-year warranty. They should let me opt out for a discount!

Well, they do.

> you're practically forced to add extra Apple Care

Are you really pro-freedom (see argument above), or just anti-Apple?

Or, you know, it's absolutely ridiculous that they sell broken stuff and then want to charge you more for you to receive a working product that you paid for in the first place. Maybe they should try to engineer things so that they don't break within a reasonable time frame under normal wear&tear. Would save money for both themselves and the customer in the end.

> Maybe they should try to engineer things so that they don't break within a reasonable time frame under normal wear&tear. Would save money for both themselves and the customer in the end.

You sound pretty confident, but just think about this: do you really know more about how Apple should be run than all of their executives combined, or is there a false assumption here?

If you make them guarantee it for three years (or perhaps five) you give them a stronger incentive to build it to last, and you can be sure it’s going to last that long. There’s a strong environmental (public good) aspect to this, so no, you should not be able to opt out.

I find it even more ridiculous that big items like fridges, ovens, and washing machines are also often only guaranteed one year. I think a ten year minimum would be reasonable for white goods.

Why stop at 10? Is there some mechanical threshold we can't design around at that point? I'd propose 20 years should be the minimum.. unless you hate the environment.

The irony in these 'demands' is that this would simply serve to further entrench Apple in its market position, since if you legislated for increasing the cost of doing business tenfold like this, you'd shut out any competitor that wasn't flush with the cash to make it happen.

Of course, legislators know this and that's why it won't happen unless it becomes much more economically feasible than it is today.

I don’t think it would increase Apple’s cost of doing business anything like tenfold, partly because my experience is that Apple’s products usually last.

It might increase costs more for cheap and shoddy vendors, which is kind of the point — you want to rule out making cheap crap that breaks as a point of competition — but again I’d be surprised if the increase was anything like as big as that.

I’d much rather save $$$ than to pay everyone else’s repair bills.

That said - its just ridiculous how much Apple charges for individual a-la-carte repairs. Or rather lack thereof - they’d just say replace the entire motherboard or display.

I'm not anti Apple at all. I'm using an iMac right now and I also use an iPad Pro daily.

What I'm saying is, Macs should include 3 years of warranty at current prices. If Macs had the reliability of iPads and iPhones it would make more sense to not get the extended warranty.

> If Macs had the reliability of iPads and iPhones it would make more sense to not get the extended warranty.

They do. People who don't have problems don't complain so you have to be careful basing your impression on what people feel motivated to mention.

it's true, ggp's claim of "20-30% chance you will have problems during those first years." is not based in data. if that was the rate, the cost of the extended warranty (apple care) would be much higher.

and further OP would never have been able to squeeze $10k of repairs/replacements out of an original $3k? outlay.

Obviously that was my personal anecdotal experience. Apple doesn't publish this data.

It was probably worse than 30% for the 2016 MBP models considering the keyboard issues though.

My experience with Dell laptops seems to match up with your experience on the MBP. If something is going to fail, it will usually fail immediately or last the "lifetime" of the device. Batteries being the main exception as those age out fast ..

I'm actually becoming a fan of factory refurbished for these same reasons. I'd rather have something that's been shaken down, repaired for the problems that appeared, recertified, and shipped back out.

Depends on the manufacturer. I've had good luck with Dell's refurbs and outlet store over the years.

On the other hand I bought a refurb projector from BenQ and it was straight up junk. The focusing mechanism breaks easily. It's quite clear this is a design flaw, I assume a gear that's weak plastic that should be something more durable instead. I've sent it back twice now to have it fixed, paying shipping each time under their terms. The last time I got it back it died with just 15 hours of use. It's clear they knew this thing was a straight up lemon and just used their refurb program to dump the product. It certainly means I'll never touch another BenQ product so long as I live.

+1 from me for Dell's refurbs (from their outlet).

The one thing I really miss about my Dell laptop is being able to call support and having them overnight ship replacement parts so the tech can come over to my place the next afternoon and fix it. The next available service appointment for someone at the Apple Store to take a look at my MacBook Pro’s malfunctioning keyboard won’t be until 4:20PM next week.

My significant other owned a 2011 MBP and experienced the same thing... She didn't know about the recall and I didn't get a chance to investigate and find out until after the recall window was closed. I can't really avoid using a Mac for work, but for personal use it has definitely trained me to avoid Apple products when at all possible. She would concur with you that her 2011 MBP was a terrible investment.

It's just anecdata, but I've been using Mac laptops since the mid 90s, have never bought AppleCare, and have never regretted that. I've never had an out of warranty repair. On a couple I have replaced the battery myself after several years, at a cost much lower than what AppleCare would have been on that one machine. Yes, it's possible that some day I will end up with a lemon that needs a ton of work. But I think that over 20 years of savings on not buying AppleCare more than covers it (I would have bought a new machine before sinking in anywhere near $10k in repairs).

> a 3 year warranty by default

come to australia, consumer guarantees give you a 3 year warranty. In fact my MacBook Pro gave up the ghost a few weeks after the 3 years had expired, Apple replaced the bits under warranty.

Yep and they still try to push applecare+ onto customers.

My macbook air died one month out of the yearlong warranty. In their troubleshooting at the apple store they managed to wipe the device and still couldn't breath life into it or figure out what happened. >$400 flat rate repair and they didn't even offer me a loaner in the mean time while the computer was mailed off. I would think apple could compete on customer service with the shade tree mechanic and their loaner car but I guess not.

I had the opposite experience. My macbook air battery was dying, so I paid the $129 to replace it. When I got the computer back, it wouldn't charge. So, they replaced the motherboard. I got it back and it still wouldn't charge - so they handed me a brand-new next-gen macbook air. Inconvenient, sure, but exceeded my expectations. I've found they've been generous with battery replacements.

I've found the opposite. Before that computer bricked itself I noticed capacity was fading fast. Apparently apples threshold was if you are under 85% within a year of ownership you have a defective battery, according to the customer service agent I was chatting with. So they had me open up system profiler and we confirmed my battery was well within threshold for replacement, and they set me up with an appointment. I took it to the apple store and told them what the Apple customer service representative told me about the battery being defective. They ended up running a battery test using their internal tooling and surprise surprise, it turned out a different capacity number than system profiler said I had, and it happened to be just above the threshold for replacement. 1 year of use for full time work should not mean losing 15% of your battery capacity, but evidently according to apple this was in spec.

This is why I either buy Applecare or equivalent (depending on product) if it's mission critical, or buy using a card that extends the warranty by at least one year, such as the Chase Sapphire cards.

They have a 14 day return on all laptops, you can pick your own loaner off the shelf.

I'll have to keep in mind the $1200 deposit for loaner computers next time I am in need of a critical repair

Charge it to a credit card and then the charge will get reversed when you return the item, and you won't have to worry about it. Just providing a solution here that works easily (not that the problem and solution need to exist).

Credit cards should be 30 days to invoice you, will be returned before that

And if 14 days isn't enough, it's 30 days when ordered online depending on the country.

Is it really? People still buy them in droves. As much as I hate devices I can't fix (and this makes the short warranty times problem even worse), many people don't seem to care.

IIRC you can now buy AppleCare as a subscription which you could possibly try gamle - buy only after something breaks..? Or just buy 1 year a piece.

The most relesellers in my country give 3-5 years of warranty for MacBooks. I guess things are good here.

6 years in the UK.

Not quite - I'm from the UK too and I believe we have 6 years to file a claim that shows that the item was defective when we received it, not that it developed a defect.

Before 6 months it is assumed that if a defect develops, it was there when it was delivered.

After 6 months the onus is on the person who brought it to show that the defect was there when it was delivered.

Importantly - there is no expectation in law that the item has to last 6 years.

This. I have a 4 year old MBP with a screen issue that's obviously not my fault. Apple refuses to fix it.

Why did you keep buying macs then?

It took a long time for me to understand all this. I bought my last Mac 3 years ago. I'm still using an iMac which I'm really happy with, but I will most likely not buy another Mac again.

My machine for gaming and other hobbies is an AMD with Windows, and once this iMac dies I will probably switch to Linux for my work machine.