What Is Apple Care?

Apple Care is a type of breakage or damage insurance that one can purchase when one is buying a Mac or Apple related product such as an iPod.  Usually they will replace your item if they can't fix it, but as they have just moved their central repair centre and outsourced the work, it is now a slow, painful process involving many weeks of delays if they don't have the right piece of equipment in stock.

Overall the idea of Apple Care is great, it's just that in all honesty, they are a bit incompetent at sticking to their end of the deal.

In my experience, Apple Care staff who are based in the Republic of Ireland are rude, incompetent, unhelpful, lacking basic knowledge of computers, I imagine that in the USA, the customer service as Apple Care is much better.  Although a member of staff at Apple on Fifth Avenue did once ask me to produce my passport before I could purchase an iPod Nano, which ranks as the stupidest thing I've ever experienced.