I bought my wife a Macbook Air 14 months ago for $1500. Of course I didn't get the extended warranty and we are 2 months out of the normal warranty. Yesterday, the laptop wouldn't boot. Took it to the store and they couldn't easily fix it which means it is a hardware problem. To fix the problem, there is $550 flat rate fee.
Moral of the story, if you really need to buy the overpriced, soon to break product that is Apple, you have to buy applecare (which is $230 for 3 years)