You have a very lucky friend. Our "Apple Store" around here is BestBuy. you MUST send in for ANY warranty issues. 3-6 week turn around. Does not cover accidental damage or water damage.
This is from a Mac fan boy at best buy, he seemed to know a lot, but I guess I should talk to someone else.
Dells coverage, they send you a box that gets here next day with a packing slip. Drop it off. 3-5 days later you have your machine back fixed. Even if you were sitting on a floaty in a pool and feel a sleep and it slipped off into the pool. Or at starbucks and had coffee spilled on it. Or in the airport and someones bag knocks it off onto the floor. Dell fixed those all on my GF's laptop, and that is just in the last 8 months. Her laptop has been in like 12 times in the 2 years she has had it. And the most down time was 5 days.
If Apple could actually do that, it would make it a lot easier for me to buy one.
I want the 7200rpm drive so when I am working with large files its quick, it has nothing to do with hard drive space.
I REALLY need to get a laptop here. Every day I look at the 15" 2.2Ghz MBP, with AppleCare its $2600 CDN.
But then I go to dell and build the XPS 15.4" 2.4Ghz, with complete coverage, Wireless N, 7200rmp drive. And its $2100 CDN.
But if I buy from the kiosk at the mall or phone and ask for a discount I can get 15% off on the dell. So now its only $1785.
I can find lots of ways to spend $815 bucks. Especially since I am getting a faster machine.
Aperture is a nice program though, but its 350 more bucks.... Apple just doesn't seem to stack up. I mean I still haven't settled though. So I guess that says something.
Also
http://www.apple.com/support/products/proplan.html doesn't mention anything about accidental damage anywhere, it does however say it "Extends hardware repair coverage to three years from computer's purchase date" so basically just defects.
Dells site calls it Accidental Damage coverage.