Today marks the three year anniversary of buying my first mac.  If it doesn’t make sense to you why I’d celebrate this, you’re a PC.  Its okay, I was a PC once too.  My first Mac was a 17″ iMac 1.83 Ghz Intel Core Duo.  I bought Applecare on the machine for an extra $169.  So, was it worth the extra cash?  Yes, definitely.  About a year and a half in the hard drive failed.  I took it to the Apple Store and had it back a couple days laters.  The total savings was easily a few hundred dollars.  Though annoyed that my Mac’s hard drive failed so soon, Apple made it right.  In addition to great service, I came home with my repaired machine to test out Time Machine.  I was amazed.  It worked like a dream.  An hour of loading later and my iMac was identical to pre-crash state.

But what if I didn’t have the hard drive crash.  Would it still be worth it?  Yes.  I’ve called Applecare several times for tech issues.  Mostly to get their help figuring out how to do something not because the iMac wasn’t working.  I’ve become pretty efficient at learning advanced Mac tricks on my own, but there are still times when having the ability to get a Mac genius on the phone is needed. I called just last week to get help with tweaking my home network.

Here’s my biggest annoyance with the Mac.  I’ve been on a long cycle of buying a new computer every three years.  Usually two years in I’m cursing the machine and longing for the day when I get a new one.  The longing for a new one is still there.  I’d love to get a new 24″ iMac.  The only problem is I can’t justify it.  My Mac works fine.  In fact with the upgrade from Tiger to Leopard and an easy RAM upgrade my iMac works faster than when I bought it.  My guess is I’ll have to wait another two years for that shiny new 24″ iMac.  Maybe by then they’ll have a 32″ screen with a built in Blu-ray and TV-tuner.  Whatever it is, it will be like Christmas day when I open it.

Update:

Two weeks ago the logic board had a sudden death on my Macbook Pro.  (See post: Is MobileMe Worth It?)  I called Apple and they diagnosed the problem in two minutes.  I took the store to an Apple Certified Technician (there’s no Apple store near me).  40 hours later I had my Macbook Pro back as good as new.  I was impressed.  The Technician didn’t have the part in stock so it had to be shipped overnight.  They even replaced a stick of RAM that had gone bad.  The crazy thing was I had purchased the RAM from Crucial and upgraded myself.  So Apple replaced a bad stick of RAM from Crucial.  Amazing!  The total cost for the repair was around $1100.  Applecare is definitely worth it.