AppleCare+ Comes To Europe & iPods, But iPhone Users Get A Little Screwed

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Screen Shot 2013-09-11 at 7.37.00 AM

For Americans, AppleCare+ is a fantastic service that takes a lot of the background stress out of having an iPhone. For just $99 and $49 per incident, Apple will replace your iPhone up to two times for accidents or damages, due to clumsiness, accidents, or whatever. I replaced a completely watersoaked iPhone 5 through AppleCare+, and a screen-cracked iPhone 4s. It really takes a load off.

Until now, AppleCare+ was only available to Americans, and was only available for iPhones and iPads. But yesterday, Apple unveiled some big changes to AppleCare+ that makes it accessible to Europeans for the first time.

First of all, you can now purchase AppleCare+ for iPod touches and iPod Classics. These plans are less expensive than the iPhone plans at $59, and each incident will replace your device for just $29. Intriguingly, this plan seems to indicate that Apple intends on keeping the iPod Classic around, at least for another couple of years: much chatter this year indicated Apple would finally kill off the Classic at yesterday’s event.

In addition, AppleCare+ is expanding to the UK, France and Italy. It’s the first time AppleCare= has been available outside of America, and while it’s not even close to covering all the countries in Europe, it’s a start.

But here’s the bad news. AppleCare+ for iPhones now costs more per incident: the price has gone up form $49 to $79. That seems a little bit outrageous, frankly. Anyone who replaces a broken iPhone now will have laid out $178, which is roughly the same price as a 16GB iPhone 5S on-contract. That seems a little greedy for an opt-in plan, and makes the iPhone 5 a little less of a good deal. What do you think?

Via: Techcrunch

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