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When you buy an Apple product, you receive a one-year AppleCare warranty. It’s often not entirely clear what this entails. In this practical guide, we explain what it’s all about and how the Apple warranty differs from the statutory warranty.
AppleCare and the statutory warranty – here’s the difference
When you buy an Apple device, you’re covered by the basic warranty for one year from the date of purchase. In addition to this, the statutory warranty of two years applies.
- Apple calls the one-year basic warranty ‘AppleCare’. With this, you can have faults rectified free of charge and relatively easily by Apple Support. This also applies to faults that only arise after purchase.
- The statutory two-year warranty applies in addition to AppleCare. The difference is that the statutory warranty only covers faults that can be proven to have existed before the purchase.
- Whilst Apple thus offers a voluntary additional service that appears consumer-friendly at first glance, after the first year it is often difficult to prove whether faults arose before or after the purchase.
- Other retailers, such as Microsoft, usually offer a two-year warranty. Such a warranty is voluntary and, in principle, similar to AppleCare.
- So, with Apple, you only get a one-year warranty, whilst other retailers offer a two-year warranty.
- However, there are faults that are excluded from AppleCare and other warranties for smartphones, tablets and computers. These include water damage and screen damage. You can ensure that such damage is also covered by upgrading to AppleCare+ at Apple, for a fee.
- In another practical tip, we explain the difference between a warranty and a guarantee in more detail.
AppleCare Protection Plan and AppleCare+
You can optionally extend the one-year warranty to up to three years.
- This warranty extension is called the AppleCare Protection Plan and can be taken out no later than one year after purchasing the product, i.e. whilst the AppleCare cover is still valid.
- However, even the AppleCare Protection Plan does not cover screen damage or water damage to your Apple device.
- For that, you’ll need AppleCare+. With this, you can have your device replaced up to two times, even in the event of damage caused by your own actions – such as water damage or a broken screen – subject to an excess (iPad €49, iPhone €69, iPod €29) for up to two replacements.
- AppleCare+ is therefore a kind of insurance for your Apple device. However, it does not cover theft or loss.
- You can obtain information on prices and the scope of AppleCare+ cover directly from Apple.
- You can take out AppleCare+ up to 60 days after purchase.
