MacLochlainns Weblog

What happens when your 16 year old doesn’t know he has a hole in his pocket, the iPhone slips down his pant leg unnoticed, and he runs over the device with a snowblower. It’s called instant shredded iPhone. You think that’s bad news but that’s why I purchased AppleCare for the device.

Then, you call Apple and discover that unless they can find and read the IMEI number from a chip, there is no warrantee coverage. That tells me AppleCare is worthless against EXTREME damage. It’s only of value when you drop it and break something while the unit remains more or less intact, or you have one of the growing number of iPhone’s with manufacturing defects that you can’t catch within the first year of ownership.

After three calls to Apple, the “senior” technical analyst said you can bring it into the local Apple Store. At that point, I asked, “Did you fail to hear that I live over 250 miles away from the nearest Apple Store?” The analyst said, “Yes, I didn’t hear that.” It was obvious that the situation didn’t fit inside the box that let them close the issue and move on with positive outcome on their staff metrics.

What Apple would like is: The customer pays $99 to replace the phone while they evaluate the pieces to see if they can find an IMEI number. They probably have that policy to avoid fraud on broken iPhones. If they can’t find an IMEI number though, they get to charge full price for the replacement iPhone. I opted for an alternative: they send me a box, I enclose the pieces for evaluation before pay $99 for a replacement iPhone, assuming they can verify from what’s left its was once an iPhone. This way, I can avoid getting soaked for the retail price when my plans support a less expensive upgrade of the now defunct device.

Ultimately, the likelihood of any value from AppleCare appeared to only occur when you break it without destroying it. However, I was wrong because Apple replaced the iPhone. 🙂