PSA: AppleCare+ Now Covers You from the AC+ Purchase Date

TLDR; you can get up to an extra 60 days of hardware coverage by purchasing AppleCare+ for your device as late as possible to the end of the 60-day purchase window.

So, this is an interesting one. I’ve been a proponent of AppleCare+ ever since it was introduced, even though it’s more of a insurance policy these days rather than a better tier of warranty coverage.

For the uninitiated, you have 60 days to purchase AppleCare+ on your brand new Apple hardware. I tweeted about the possibility of extending your hardware warranty by purchasing AppleCare+ as close to this 60 day limit as possible, based on Apple’s website stating that “coverage begins on your AppleCare+ purchase date”, then deleted my tweet after discovering I was wrong based on receipts and the expiry date of AppleCare+ for my iPhone X. But wait, what? Surely Apple’s website can’t be wrong about this?

As it turns out, I was right. Well, sort of.

Apple’s terms and conditions for AppleCare+ has this really cool thing where you can go back and see the previous terms and conditions for any period of time. So if I wanted to know what the terms and conditions of AppleCare+ were on the 29th of December, 2017, when I purchased AppleCare+ for my iPhone X, I can do that.

When I purchased AppleCare+ for my iPhone X in late 2017, the terms and conditions at the time said that I was covered for two years from the original hardware purchase date, meaning that even if you purchased AppleCare+ for iPhone on the 59th day it was available, you were missing out on those 59 days of benefits, not extending the warranty of your device by 59 days.

You can probably see where I’m going with this.

But since October 30, 2018, the AppleCare+ for HomePod/iPad/iPhone/iPod/Headphones terms and conditions say that AppleCare+ coverage “begins when you purchase the Plan and continues through, unless cancelled, the date specified in your Plan Confirmation”. That’s two years of AppleCare+ hardware coverage from when you purchase AppleCare+, not when you originally purchase your device, meaning you can get up to an extra 60 days of hardware coverage by purchasing as close as possible to the 60 day AppleCare+ purchase window you get when you buy new Apple hardware.

This also seems to be the case for Macs and other Apple hardware

So, for you day-one iPhone 11/11 Pro/11 Pro Max owners who haven’t already purchased AppleCare+ for your device: set a reminder for the 28th November. Or 27th, if you’re paranoid.

It’s not much, but it’s something!

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Apple’s terms and conditions page for AppleCare+ has changed again. The new page is here, and no longer has the differences between the purchase date variations, just a PDF format T&Cs (boo!).

The good news is, anyone buying AC+ for their new iPhone 12/12 Pro/12 mini can still get an extra 60 days of hardware coverage for their device, if they’re willing to go without the benefits of AC+ for the first 60 days. 59 days, if you want to be safe.

Per Apple’s Terms and Conditions for AppleCare+ for Apple Watch, Headphones, HomePod, iPad, iPhone, iPod, if purchased after Oct 2020 (and much further back, as per the above post):

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It was mid-July 2020 when MacRumors noticed that monthly AppleCare+ coverage is now available in Australia, Canada, and Japan (along with the US, who have had it since September 2019).

This brings two significant benefits to AppleCare+:

  1. If you originally purchased the 24-month, fixed-term AppleCare+ service (say, for your iPhone 11 back in 2019, and didn’t upgrade to the iPhone 12 last year), you can now renew AC+ by going to a monthly plan within 30 days of your fixed-term AC+ period expiring, which brings us to…
  2. You can now have AppleCare+ coverage for much longer than the previous maximum of 24 months, for as long as you keep paying. Whether you start off with the fixed-term AC+ service and then renew onto the monthly, or start with the monthly, you can keep your Apple hardware under coverage for much longer than the standard ACL coverage that you get these days, which also includes up to two incidents of accidental damage coverage per year.

Both of these benefits are great if you want to keep your devices for two years or more.

Oh, there’s also theft and loss coverage now as well, which works under the same conditions, but at a slightly higher cost.

Disclaimers:

  1. It’s slightly cheaper to buy the fixed-term AC+, then renew onto the month-to-month offering.
  2. Depending on how your home and contents insurance works, it may be even cheaper to have your iPhone listed and covered under that. Or if you don’t have home and contents, it may be cheaper to specifically cover your iPhone, but either way, having instantly-recognised coverage from the manufacturer is probably easier when making a claim, if some tragedy does befall your iPhone/iPad.
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