Apple Stops Airport Development

As reported on Macrumors http://www.macrumors.com/2016/11/21/apple-ceases-airport-wireless/

As an owner of Time Capsule this is kind of disappointing. I just wonder when they will stop making/selling them. I know there are a myriad of other options, and Time Machine isn’t as necessary as it once was with all our documents, photos and music probably backed up to the cloud. I’ve had Time Machine fail on me a couple of times lately and have to recreate my entire backup, which makes me wonder why I even use it any more.

I’ve been on the fence with the whole Tim Cook is destroying Apple debacle, but it’s starting to feel like the 1990s again…

I just hope the efforts of the reassigned team aren’t wasted.

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I agree iMac, but this time there is nobody to come back and save them…

Perhaps they won’t really need saving as such but with the removal of products like this they will start to loose some of the old faithful Apple users.

I guess it won’t be long until all they sell is the iPhone and MacBook (not really)Pro - desktop Macs will be the next thing they kill off.

Other take from Gruber is maybe they’re working on a HomeKit hub with router functionality built in.

I wouldn’t buy a new Airport/TC now as a result of this (even though I’ve been holding out for a new model). The current model’s 3 years old and a bit old hat as it is.

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Also. I don’t think Apple stopping Airport development is them shitting on their users. Even though I like the Airport my thoughts are on the whole this is probably a good thing. I feel that Apple has lost a lot of focus over the past 5 years (the Apple Music presentation at WWDC 2015, I hate the this never would’ve happened if Steve Jobs were alive card. Steve killed products too, he was the one to kill the Newton) and if this means they can put more focus into what they’re good at, then I’m all for it. Routers are surely a minuscule part of Apple’s bottoms line.

As for my next router, probably one of these. I look forward to sacrificing a baby lamb to the ADSL gods each morning to get my internet started.

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I purchased an Extreme and Express a few months back. Maybe I should have saved for an Eero instead…

I have heard awful things about Eeros in the real world.

I’m still running a 4th gen 2TB Time Capsule from 2011 and an even older AirPort Extreme and keep considering swapping them out for some new Ubiquity gear as I’m not entirely convinced they are working as well as they should or are providing as much coverage as they should/could (partly because of where they are located).

Given I’m working from a 2013 rMBP and my Wife is on a 2011 MBA the faster AC wireless doesn’t help us most of the time and I still sync the iPhone over USB anyway. For the moment the “do nothing” approach is cheaper and works well enough for the gear we have… but I’m still looking :stuck_out_tongue:

Ubiquity

I’m really pretty bummed about this to be honest. I support Macs professionally, and in my experience, the Apple gear is by far the best fit. Apple hardware just works better on AirPort gear than third party stuff I find. I also LOVE that I can use the AirPort to create the PPoE connection with a cheap reliable ADSL modem in bridge mode. FAR more reliable than using their own routing which usually crashes and hangs regularly. Most of my clients now run AirPort Extremes or Time Capsules. Those clients don’t have ADSL router issues anymore.

All that said, this is a rumour, and I agree likely the team hasn’t been disbanded but rather has been merged into the home kit/siri speaker team. If that’s the case, it bodes well.

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I swapped from a 6th generation Time Capsule + AirPort Express as an extender to a Ubiquiti UniFi AP AC Lite and find the range is much better after some tweaking (I plug the Time Capsule into my router for backups).

The setup was a bit of a pain though, might be worthwhile waiting for their consumer model before putting money down (https://www.amplifi.com).

I just recently set up an Ubiquiti EdgeRouter Lite at home. Great router, but pretty complex to configure. Powerful like a Cisco, but hard to configure. Still needs wifi gear obviously. I will install them for people who need VPN (as AirPort doesn’t support that) but otherwise the AirPort is good enough I reckon. The AirPort wifi isn’t as strong, but if you have ethernet backbones in the house or office, it’s all good.

Haven’t played with any wireless mesh stuff yet. Am keen to try eero and ubiquity wifi, but it’s all so expensive! The cheap crappy Linksys or Netgear extenders are more trouble than they are worth.

[quote=“tryandbyte, post:11, topic:2967, full:true”]
I swapped from a 6th generation Time Capsule + AirPort Express as an extender to a Ubiquiti UniFi AP AC Lite and find the range is much better after some tweaking (I plug the Time Capsule into my router for backups).[/quote]

I’m about to do the same.

jaysee and tryandbyte, Where did you purchase from?

Good reliable networking equipment normally is.

Not to mention that crappy hardware the ISPs normally include for free on contract.

I bought my UniFi and EdgeRouter X from WISP (http://www.wisp.net.au) , admittedly I only chose them because they were close to my office and I could go pick up the product. :slight_smile:

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I’m a bit bummed. I quite liked the Airport products. Especially the AirPort Express with the optical out (AirPlay direct into media receiver), but some of these new products look cool from Ubiquiti! I find those Asus routers horrid looking with the million antennas…

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I ordered mine from Scorptec. Came very promptly. :slight_smile:

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[quote=“MadKiwi, post:3, topic:2967”]
this time there is nobody to come back and save them[/quote]

Steve Ballmer? :slight_smile:

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Maybe it’s time to dust off the Woz :slight_smile:

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Couldn’t be any worse than Tim Cook, he is ruining the company in my view with mediocre/unreliable products that clearly haven’t been properly tested prior to release. What sort of an imbecile didn’t check the 3 finger drag on the new MacBook?

Not just that, but for a supposed supply-chain and logistics guru, he’s doing a pretty piss poor job of it in my books. First there was the farce that was the Apple Watch launch and now we have the retardedly constrained supplies of iPhone 7 models and series 2 watches.

As an aside - I was lucky enough to get the last matte black iPhone7+ in the Adelaide Apple store. I asked the salesperson about the series 2 watch and he just rolled his eyes and said ‘Don’t say those two words “series” and “two”’. He also said that they had already sold out of touch bar MBPs pretty much in the same day they received stock.

In the modern age of supply chain management and the like how does this even happen? I can understand initial shortages while the factories ramp up production, but for them to have continued for almost 12 weeks? That’s pretty piss poor if you ask me.

Marketing 101. Supply constraints creates effective demand.

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