Have you ever broken your iPhone? Over the past decade of being an iPhone user, I’ve broken two screens and had one iPhone stolen while abroad. Thankfully, one service came to the rescue in all of those cases: AppleCare+.
The latest reporting from Mark Gurman at Bloomberg suggests that Apple is about to move from a prepaid model to a subscription-only model for its protection plan. Naturally, as subscriptions have become prevalent in our daily lives, and people have suffered from subscription fatigue, some people are concerned about another subscription.
Yet, having been a subscriber to AppleCare+ for several years, here’s why it’s not another subscription, but rather, an essential part of owning an iPhone.
The shift from prepaid to subscription
When AppleCare+ first launched, it was only available as a prepaid item that required you to spend 10% or more of your iPhone cost on protecting your new iPhone. For many people — myself included, at least then — it made an already-expensive purchase even more expensive and also meant that it was much harder to justify purchasing.
Alongside the launch of the iPhone 11 in 2019, Apple rolled out the option to pay for AppleCare+ monthly. This meant that instead of prepaying for two years, you could pay for it every month, as you do for your cell plan or other subscriptions. With this in mind, it should come as no surprise that Apple is planning to move to a subscription-only model.
It also makes sense given Apple’s priority around recurring revenue and the fact that AppleCare+ is included in the subscription-based iPhone Upgrade Program. Paying monthly also means you can keep it running indefinitely, an option that wasn’t available with the prepaid option for many years. Unfortunately, this subscription shift does likely mean you won’t be able to get AppleCare+ for cheap anymore.
AppleCare+ is far more than just an extended warranty
When you think about AppleCare+, it’s easy to think of it as an extended warranty, but to do so would be detrimental to the sheer value it offers to many people. Yes, it covers accidental damage — such as a broken screen, liquid damage, or even your phone being run over by a car — and allows you to fix or replace it for a fee that’s far cheaper than without AppleCare+.
However, it also covers much more than this. It offers two years of technical support via the phone or in-store Genius bar, which is ideal if you are elderly, or have an elderly relative who isn’t the most technologically advanced. If you keep your phone for a long time, it will also protect your battery when it eventually degrades as Apple will replace the battery and effectively give your phone a new lease of life.
By far my favorite part of AppleCare+ is the Theft and Loss tier, which does exactly what you’d expect it to. It’s essentially an Apple-provided insurance plan for your iPhone, and it means that if it is stolen or lost, Apple will replace it with an identical model. As I found out, this program can be a lifesaver.
Last February, my iPhone was stolen in Barcelona during MWC 2024, and it took a week for Apple to send me a replacement — mainly because I was using an eSIM-only US model in the UK where the iPhone still has a physical SIM card tray — it was the same phone that I had. Yes, it could be a smoother process, but in hindsight, it’s far better than any other insurance provider.
Does it make financial sense to have AppleCare+?
At $10 per month for AppleCare+ and $14 per month for AppleCare+ Theft and Loss, you may be asking whether it makes financial sense to have AppleCare+. Each year I find myself asking the same question, especially if I’ve had no claims in the previous year, but my iPhone getting stolen — and subsequently needing to also fix a broken screen a few months later — last year essentially made it ubiquitous with every future iPhone purchase.
That said, does it make sense for you? Let’s consider my last five iPhones and the various times I’ve had to use AppleCare+.
First, the cost. Assuming there are no future price changes — and discarding the current discounts over monthly pricing when you prepay for two years — AppleCare+ costs $120 per year without Theft and Loss, and $168 with the added protection. Over five years, this equates to roughly $840 in spending, although mine was less as I didn’t get the Theft and Loss protection initially, I prepaid for at least two of the years and the price was cheaper.
Each time I’ve had to use AppleCare+, there has also been an additional one-off cost for each claim. My Theft and Loss claim cost $149, while two broken screens cost $29 each and one more damaged iPhone cost $99 to replace. All in all, this cost me $306 in additional claim fees.
Now consider my iPhone 15 Pro, which was stolen in Barcelona. It was the 512GB model, and at the time, it had a replacement cost of $1,199. Yes, you read that right: the replacement iPhone would have cost more than I’ve spent in five years.
What if you have never had a phone lost or stolen? Let’s consider that scenario for a moment: without Theft and Loss, AppleCare+ would have cost me $600 over the past five years, plus an additional $157 in claim fees. My iPhone 13 Pro screen replacement would have cost $279, while my iPhone 14 Pro screen would have cost $329. The damage claim with a completely shattered back glass and a visible motherboard? That would have cost $649.
Let’s summarize: with AppleCare+ Theft and Loss, five years of coverage and three claims cost less than a single replacement iPhone. Without Theft and Loss, a single claim for excessive damage would have cost almost the same as five years of coverage and three claims for screen damage. To put it more succinctly: one screen replacement without AppleCare+ would cost more than two years of AppleCare+ with two screen replacements per year.
Why AppleCare+ is the ultimate protection for your iPhone
If you’ve broken your phone before, you’ll know that dreaded feeling when you realize it’s made contact with a seemingly irresistible force. Sometimes you get lucky and it’s fine, but as I discovered almost a decade ago, even hitting a floor covered by a thin carpet can sometimes be enough to break a screen.
Why I love AppleCare+ is that it’s the ultimate protection plan for that one time that something does go wrong. Unlike an insurance policy where it can take several days or weeks to fix your broken screen, most Apple stores can usually fit you in the same day or the next.
Apple Stores are prevalent throughout the world, so if you’re traveling and the worst happens, you can probably get it replaced even while you’re abroad. No waiting for a new phone or going without while you’re abroad, just a quick replacement and you’re ready to go. Unless they replace the whole phone, you likely won’t need to set it all up again.
If you’ve never broken a phone, you may not need AppleCare+, but if you’re upgrading to a big iPhone like the iPhone 16 Pro Max, or you’re eagerly awaiting the foldable iPhone, I’d wager that most people can benefit from AppleCare+. I don’t mind if Apple makes it a monthly subscription, I still think it’s an essential protection plan for all iPhone owners.
