There’s no need to be rude about it. A lot of people simply don’t realize that the unsubsidized cost of a smartphone is so high, because they only purchase one when their contract is up. It’s not like the phone manufacturers are really up-front and transparent about this stuff.
OP, I’d at least try the Apple store, even though you did open up the phone. It can’t hurt and they might be willing to do something for you.
Generally, the un-discounted price is listed on the label alongside the discounted price. It’s also available right on the online stores, and anyone can walk in at any time and ask as well. They don’t push it that much because few people can afford a 600+ dollar phone, but it shouldn’t be a surprise to anybody paying the slightest bit of attention.
Yeah, I went into the Apple store with my wonky iPhone 4 (the home button started being tempermental), outside of warranty, and they offered to give me an iPhone 4S for $150. I declined, as I’ll just wait the few more months until the iPhone 5 comes out. The phone works, it’s just a little annoying that the home button works temperamentally. I’ve heard of them even replacing the phone for free if it’s just a little bit out of warranty. It depends on who you get, but it’s always worth a try.
As for screen repair, I don’t know how easy or difficult it is, but when I shattered my original iPhone screen years ago, I just went to a respected local cellphone repair shop where it cost $99 with a one-year warranty. I was in and out in maybe 20 minutes.
I like fixing computer stuff, but with the tight-packed iPhone with all its fiddly bits, I didn’t want to risk it (unless I was in the market for a new phone, anyway.)
Okay. I still don’t think the OP deserved that crack about entitled people looking for freebies, though.
The OP is right, though, that sometimes the carrier will replace the phone at the subsidized price with a 2-year extension. When I got my iPhone stolen a couple of years ago (left it in a bathroom stall; realized it literally only 5 minutes later and it was gone. Whoever got it was smart enough to turn it off so it couldn’t be tracked with BackToMyiPhone, and it never did show up on the radar again.) I went back to the AT&T store fully expecting them to tell me I would have to pay five or six hundred bucks for a new phone, as I was still three months short of my two-year contract. However, they said that I was eligible for a new phone after something like 20 months, so I was able to get the iPhone 4 for $199 with a new two-year contract.
AT&T still has that plan (called AT&T Upgrade Advantage), which allows you to upgrade your phone at the subsidized price after twenty months, assuming you sign another two-year contract. But the OP is only about six months into her contract.
Otherwise, if it was just setting up another two-year contract from the current date, you’d just have people “losing” their phones every six months, and selling an unlocked iPhone on eBay for $500 or so. It might make sense if you could sign a two year extension from the end of the current contract date. But then you have a 3 1/2 year contract with your provider (if you lose it at six months.)
I’ve always had insurance on my phones until recently. I realized how much money I was spending (like $7.99 a month or 95.88 a year!) plus it’s an $80 replacement fee to get an old refurbished phone when you do need it. So when I lost my phone this year, I decided to just upgrade and pay $230 for my Razr. And I didn’t get an insurance plan, but I did invest in a super duper tough case…not to mention a phone locator in the event it’s lost or stolen again. 
If I had an iPhone and was attached to it, though, I’d get an insurance plan.
[Moderator Note]
Throatwarbler Mangrove, this is General Questions. There’s not justification for a post like this. No warning issued, but don’t do this again.
Colibri
General Questions Moderator
Since I think the factual aspects of the OP have been answered, let’s move this over to IMHO.
Colibri
General Questions Moderator
I don’t drop my phone a lot, but I did know the replacement cost. I got an Otterbox Defender and I feel like my phone is a lot more secure.
I wish that had been my experience. My iPhone 3G was stolen about a month into my new contract. Even though I had insurance on it the insurance was pretty much worthless. I don’t know if this is normal or if I happened to speak with a hardass, but they told me I had to go phoneless for up to two weeks while they processed my insurance claim (they wouldn’t re-activate my old Blackberry during that time frame, the reason being that their system would “be confused” and process a claim for a Blackberry, not an iPhone) and after two weeks I could pay either $300 or $600 for a new phone depending on whether or not my claim was approved. Or I could just hope that my two year old Blackberry lasted for another two years. This happened a few days before my phone bill was due and they offered me an extension so I could “save up for the money that I owed.” Since I don’t have a problem “saving up for the money I owe” I opted to pay my bill + the fee to break my contract and got a very discounted iPhone 4 through Sprint which I’m very happy with.
Since we are now in IMHO, I will express my humble opinion that insurance plans for cellphones are generally worthless.
The best-known plan is from SquareTrade, which costs $99, and a $50 deductible for any repairs. That means, if you break your phone, you’ve paid a total of $150 for the replacement - only $50 cheaper than what Apple would charge to repair it for you.
You are essentially paying $99 up front in order to save $50 if you break your phone. If you don’t break your phone, you’re still out the $99. It just doesn’t make any sense.
It comes down to the idea that these “insurance” companies have to make money, and they make money by charging you more than they expect to pay out for repairs. In general, insurance is only worth it if you are insuring against a low-probability event that would be financially devastating for you - and if spending $300 on a used iPhone on Craigslist would be financially devastating for you, it’s kind of stupid to buy an iPhone in the first place.
I’d seen the “no-contract” price, of course, but for some reason I always thought that was what you paid if you wanted a phone no-contract to begin with, i.e. to jailbreak and take to another carrier or something.
And we don’t HAVE an Apple Store. The nearest one’s in Charlotte. I should have just taken it to the local smartphone repair place, but I didn’t realize the full cost of replacement if I broke more of it repairing it. I may still take them the wreckage and see what they can do.
I had my phone fixed by a company named ubreakifix (or something like that, google should find it). They do repairs via the mail, or they also have brick and mortar stores in some cities where you can just walk in. The best part is that they have a $150 max fee regardless of the repair, and the only charge you if they’re able to fix the problem. I highly recommend them.
Find out what the price is for breaking your contracting with your existing AT&T cost. It’s probably something like $400. Point out to the AT&T people that it would be cheaper for you to dump their contract and switch to Verizon, so it’s in their best interest to give you a reasonably decent phone to use for the next 18 months.
Buy an iPod Touch for $170. It does everything except make phone calls. Use whatever phone the AT&T people give you for phone calls and the Touch for all the fun stuff.
Buy a case with a lanyard and wear the thing attached to your body at all times to help with your little gravity problem.
There we go, I knew I’d seen something on this;
“AppleCare+ for iPhone extends repair coverage and technical support to two years from the original purchase date of your iPhone and adds coverage for up to two incidents of accidental damage due to handling, each subject to a $49 service fee”.
You have to buy it ($99) within 30 days of getting your phone.
Break your phone once in 2 years, it ends up costing you $148 for the replacement. Bust it twice and it comes to $197 for two replacements. Of course, it doesn’t mention covering lost phones, so you’d still be out if that happened.
I have no earthly idea why someone wouldn’t get insurance for something of that price, that is used daily, that has such potential for being lost/broken/stolen.
Because the price of the insurance is very high, compared to the value of the phone. On a dollar for dollar basis, it is way more expensive than car insurance, homeowner’s insurance or renter’s insurance.
Indeed. Looking, for example, at AT&T’s current offerings for covering an iPhone, it’s $6.99 with a $199 deductible.* And you’ll probably get a refurbished replacement, so that makes the value of the benefit somewhere in the $300 range. I guess if you know you’ll lose or destroy a phone more often than every three years, it’s a good deal. But if that’s something you can count on, you might want to reconsider your ability to be trusted with fragile and valuable items.
In 14 years of owning cell phones, I have never had an “incident” which would be covered by any insurance plan. And while the same could be said of my homeowner’s insurance, the difference is that I’m happy to “self insure” for what it costs to replace a cell phone. If I had been carrying insurance that whole time, I’d have flushed $1150 down the toilet. I could have replaced 3 or 4 “top tier” phones in that time and still be ahead of the costs of insurance.
(*Scale that up to a $30,000 car instead of a $600 phone, and it’s like paying $350 a month for full coverage with a $10,000 deductible.)