Government should mandate that, as in does in other countries.
But many american consumers don't believe in government rules about consumer protection, lest some of this "innovation" we've witnessed is discouraged...
AFAIK It's mostly cheaper due to lower sales tax (aka VAT/GST which is ~10% vs 18-27% in Europe) and no China import duty. Finally being local currency helps somewhat because of currency stability I'd guess.
The purchase price is lower without a warranty, but the actual incurred risk cost is higher.
Absent a warranty, that's not only a risk shift from the manufacturer to the consumer, but a real cost shift, as steps which might increase reliability are not taken and the consequences of those decisions (made by the manufaucturer) accrue to the purchaser.
There is also the incidnece cost and the cost of liquidity or credit required to front a repair bill in the hundreds or thousands of dollars. Given that much of the US cannot meet an unexpected $400 expense in a month, this is a significant consideration. MacBook owners may represent a more affluent portion of the population, but a $10k repair bill over four years remains significant. That's a constant $208/mo reliability tax on that particular unit, for this owner.
Note that in this case, Apple did eat the cost as the repairs were covered under the AppleCare Protection Plan.
Those extra margin could have been repurposed to Service Revenue, getting Apple Care+ by default. ( May be having one accidental damage instead of two ). Just like how the Mac is putting money into services revenue for MacOS, iCloud, Map and Siris.
The consequence of that is instead of a possible lower cost Mac lineup with M1, you now have the same cost but longer warranty. Apple now also has an incentive to make the Mac last longer to minimise any AppleCare cost they get within three years.
Now, it only covers defects, but that’s what most warranties do.
In the EU, where a longer guarantee is mandaded, state tax aside, the prices aren't that different. MacBook Air $999 US (849 €) vs 1129 € France. Of that 188 € is the state tax (VAT), which means the price difference as far as Apple pockets is 1129-188 - 849 = $92 or $108 dollars.
So that $999 would be say $1109, a 11% increase, hardly 20-30%.
(And that's not even counting the higher cost of business in Europe aside the VAT, which also factors in that 1129-188 price).
I absolutely love the consumer guarantees act we have here, and the protection it gives.
Edit: NZ has 15% sales tax and this is missing from the above equation. It accounts for most the difference.
Considering all these other costs, I reckon a 20% markup is great value for a 3-year warranty.
Like others though, I really all Apple products globally should come with a 3-year warranty - you pay over the odds for Apple hardware, and should get high-quality, reliable kit in return.
In New Zealand you are getting a 3 year warranty and getting something guaranteed in return - and the extra price appears minimal once tax differences are included.
How is that vast majority of price increase?
I certainly have missed that.
A lot of add on warranties don't cover much more than this anyway, which makes them much harder to justify here.
Here's the inverse argument: it's absolutely ridiculous I have to pay 20-30% extra for my Macbook even though I don't care about the mandatory 3-year warranty. They should let me opt out for a discount!
Well, they do.
> you're practically forced to add extra Apple Care
Are you really pro-freedom (see argument above), or just anti-Apple?
I find it even more ridiculous that big items like fridges, ovens, and washing machines are also often only guaranteed one year. I think a ten year minimum would be reasonable for white goods.
Of course, legislators know this and that's why it won't happen unless it becomes much more economically feasible than it is today.
It might increase costs more for cheap and shoddy vendors, which is kind of the point — you want to rule out making cheap crap that breaks as a point of competition — but again I’d be surprised if the increase was anything like as big as that.
That said - its just ridiculous how much Apple charges for individual a-la-carte repairs. Or rather lack thereof - they’d just say replace the entire motherboard or display.
What I'm saying is, Macs should include 3 years of warranty at current prices. If Macs had the reliability of iPads and iPhones it would make more sense to not get the extended warranty.
They do. People who don't have problems don't complain so you have to be careful basing your impression on what people feel motivated to mention.
It was probably worse than 30% for the 2016 MBP models considering the keyboard issues though.
You sound pretty confident, but just think about this: do you really know more about how Apple should be run than all of their executives combined, or is there a false assumption here?
On the other hand I bought a refurb projector from BenQ and it was straight up junk. The focusing mechanism breaks easily. It's quite clear this is a design flaw, I assume a gear that's weak plastic that should be something more durable instead. I've sent it back twice now to have it fixed, paying shipping each time under their terms. The last time I got it back it died with just 15 hours of use. It's clear they knew this thing was a straight up lemon and just used their refurb program to dump the product. It certainly means I'll never touch another BenQ product so long as I live.
come to australia, consumer guarantees give you a 3 year warranty. In fact my MacBook Pro gave up the ghost a few weeks after the 3 years had expired, Apple replaced the bits under warranty.
Before 6 months it is assumed that if a defect develops, it was there when it was delivered.
After 6 months the onus is on the person who brought it to show that the defect was there when it was delivered.
Importantly - there is no expectation in law that the item has to last 6 years.
My machine for gaming and other hobbies is an AMD with Windows, and once this iMac dies I will probably switch to Linux for my work machine.
I've bought maybe a dozen macs in the last 15 years (for myself and the family) and while some have lasted many years without issues, some have died on me on the second or third year.
Because the initial investment is so high you're practically forced to add extra Apple Care to protect it because there's a 20-30% chance you will have problems during those first years.
And don't get me started on design issues and recalls which take years. When my 2011 MBP died because of Radeongate it took Apple 2 years to start a recall and replace the GPU. The honest thing to do would have been to take the machine and offer 60% of its value in credit towards a new Mac. Instead, Apple replaced the GPU on a machine that was already a couple of gens behind and I couldn't sell without practically giving it away because (rightfully) nobody wanted the 15'' 2011 models. That MBP was probably the worst investment of my life.