New 2011 Time Capsule & Airport Extreme

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Does anyone even have one yet? None of the Apple stores in my city have got them.

My bet is that the power supply has been tweaked so they don't run as hot, as well as improved antennas and signal optimization. Nothing major, just a solid upgrade to an already good product.

unobtainium said:

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My bet is that the power supply has been tweaked so they don't run as hot, as well as improved antennas and signal optimization. Nothing major, just a solid upgrade to an already good product.

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I wonder if this is the case, that improvements have been made to the antenna and cooling factors? Does anyone have info on this subject? I think the wireless range is already pretty good, but the heat issue definitely has room for improvement.

Anyone knows if the "new" Time Capsule come with the same firmware as the previous generation?

I'm very anxious to hear what improvements may have been made to Airport Extreme?

I always found the range undesirable.

Waiting for someone to open one up to see if there is a rumored A4 or A5 chip in there.

hitekalex said:

Anyone knows if the "new" Time Capsule come with the same firmware as the previous generation?

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Yes 7.5.2

Einz said:

Waiting for someone to open one up to see if there is a rumored A4 or A5 chip in there.

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No need - there isn't.

I have a third generation 1TB Time Capsule and I love it. With Lion, I get connected at 450Mbps, because of the 3 antennas (3x3 MIMO) that the TC has. Why in the heck did Apple not "activate" that in Snow Lep, though? Hmm....

I used a Cisco Linksys Wireless N router before and I was blown away by how the TC (which is an Airport Extreme with a hard drive in it) performed better than the Linksys router.

I, too, would like to know how the new ones perform, although it sounds like there is nothing new except for the capacity and price. The price actually dropped dramatically for the 2TB model, which used to be $499 and is now $299. That's pretty sweet!

What's with the "server grade" terminology, by the way? I read that was all BS and that's it's not an enterprise-class drive...?

Chris5488 said:

This is also the news I'm waiting for

LAN speeds and USB transfer speeds in were quite slow.
There are cheaper routers which perform better and also have an USB-port for the same reasons. I would love to have an Airport extreme for my iMac, iPad and Canon USB printer, but if better can be found for a better price...



Ok it doesn't need to be an A4 or A5, as long as it's faster.
I want to have an USB-port that can achieve the same speeds as with a computer, which could be possible since the USB-port is 2.0, and 1000mbps LAN is used.

Some tuning and tweaking which solves the bugs/downsides of the previous Time Capsule and Airport Extreme

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What routers have you found to be the best for that? I am looking for a router with USB capability so I can have wireless Time Machine backups and use my printer wirelessly.

great find, thanks! Will look into that one.

Chris5488 said:

What about the Netgear WNDR3700? Or the new WNDRMAC, the same Netgear but especially for Mac: perfect compatibilty.

They are cheaper to find than an Airport Extreme, have a USB port and can be used for printing or sharing an external drive. They also have better networking capabilities like QoS, have 4 LAN ports (TM or AE only 3) what makes them even better.

And that's just one example, there are others to find. I really want a Time Capsule or Airport Extreme, but if they don't rectify the price in performance or features, I'll search for something else.

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Seriously? Netgear? Granted, I haven't used them in a LONG while, but that's because they've always sucked for me. I've never needed more than 1 or 2 wired LAN ports. Are you really going to base on that as to which router you'll get? I betcha that's a form factor issue and nothing else. As with everything else, the Time Capsule and Airport Extreme looks great. lol...

What I don't understand is the 3 antennas and why Snow Leopard hasn't benefitted from 450Mbps connections vs. 300Mbps.

Chris5488 said:

This router is the reason why I doubt to get an Airport Extreme, or maybe a Time Capsule.
That's why I want to know what changed in these new AE's and TC's.



According to lots of user experience reviews I've read, it's not a bad router at all. This being said, the Time Capsule only gets 2,5/5 and AE 3,5/5 by CNET because of heat problems, limited networking features, picky support for USB external hard drive, only three Ethernet ports, no Web interface,...
which are a lot more downsides than the Netgear has. But you are right, it's the design and form factor. They look good and the Time Capsule is a nice all-in-one solution.

But enough about other routers. What's the problem with the 3 antennas? Almost every Wireless-N router has 3 antennas. It could have more antennas but it's ok. Coverage is not a problem I think. But I agree it's strange that Snow Leopard doesn't take advantage of the 450Mbps speed.

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Snow Leopard most certainly does take advantage of the 450Mbps speed. I get 450Mbps connections with both my '11 iMac and my '11 MBP.

Anyone else disappointed with the AEBS/TC not really adding any new features? I'm not saying it's a bad product at all, but Apple used to be so cutting edge with routers so it's a shame that they've allowed the competition to catch up (and surpass?). I sold my TC over a year ago in anticipation foe Apple to revolutionize routers but here we are and it's still the same thing.

The one missing feature I am really disappointed in is The lack of iTunes Serving. We have an MBP, 2 iPads, an Apple TV, a touch and an airport express connected to a stereo. Thats not an atypical array of devices for Apple Fans nowadays so it seems silly for Apple to not have the AEBS/TC act as an iTunes server so we don't have to run a computer to do such a menial task.

Anyway, I just bought the new TC but I'm returning it because it doesn't do what I need anymore and I'll be buying the Netgear WNDRMAC Chris5488 mentioned. It has good Mac support, DLNA (so I can turn off the computer) and costs much less than Apples solutions.

urkel said:

The one missing feature I am really disappointed in is The lack of iTunes Serving. We have an MBP, 2 iPads, an Apple TV, a touch and an airport express connected to a stereo. Thats not an atypical array of devices for Apple Fans nowadays so it seems silly for Apple to not have the AEBS/TC act as an iTunes server so we don't have to run a computer to do such a menial task.

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I don't think iTunes server would be trivial to implement on AEBS/TC, without significantly increasing cost/size of these devices. There is a number of 3rd-party NAS servers that run limited iTunes, but none of them can do proper AppleTV pairing, so mostly useless if you have ATV.

Apple's view is those who want to run full iTunes server in a small form factor should invest in Mini. It's about the same size as Time Capsule, and will do everything you want.

hitekalex said:

I don't think iTunes server would be trivial to implement on AEBS/TC, without significantly increasing cost/size of these devices.

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It would be simple enough for Apple to implement really - its just another daemon running on the AEBS/TC. The reason 3rd party NAS units can't as yet serve iTunes to ATV is because of Apple's secret sauce/handshake required.

A Mini is complete overkill, just for iTunes serving to the ATV. An A5 based device can easily do the same job, so the TC/AEBS is the logical choice.

hitekalex said:

I don't think iTunes server would be trivial to implement on AEBS/TC, without significantly increasing cost/size of these devices.

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I dont get it. Why would cost/size increase? The server would be software and it would run on the internal drive? And with AppleTV now being a "stream only" device then it seems natural to paid the $99 AppleTV with a $299 Time Capsule. Or better yet, why not combine the two products for those who want it.

hitekalex said:

Apple's view is those who want to run full iTunes server in a small form factor should invest in Mini. It's about the same size as Time Capsule, and will do everything you want.

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I'd love a Mac Mini as my media center but its way overpriced if my primary use will be to serve iTunes content to the AppleTV/iDevices. So the only affordable solution is to have a full size computer running at all times in order to access my itunes content, and thats hardly convenient.

neteng101 said:

It would be simple enough for Apple to implement really - its just another daemon running on the AEBS/TC. The reason 3rd party NAS units can't as yet serve iTunes to ATV is because of Apple's secret sauce/handshake required.

A Mini is complete overkill, just for iTunes serving to the ATV. An A5 based device can easily do the same job, so the TC/AEBS is the logical choice.

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TC/AEBS isn't an A5 based device. They use Marvell SoC processors, and run NetBSD, which is a stripped down version of FreeBSD Unix.

There is no full blown iTunes servers that exist today either on A5/ARM systems or NetBSD. I have no idea how easy or difficult it would be to port one from MacOS/Intel.. But I strongly suspect it's not nearly as simple as you think.

urkel said:

I'd love a Mac Mini as my media center but its way overpriced if my primary use will be to serve iTunes content to the AppleTV/iDevices. So the only affordable solution is to have a full size computer running at all times in order to access my itunes content, and thats hardly convenient.

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Get an older model Mini - you can easily find one for under $400, which is less than a high end TC, and a lot more capable as a "home server".

hitekalex said:

I have no idea how easy or difficult it would be to port one from MacOS/Intel.. But I strongly suspect it's not nearly as simple as you think.

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Do some research - I've looked this up before. ATV requires an encrypted authentication with the iTunes server, unfortunately no one else has access to proprietary Apple information, so there hasn't been a 3rd party server with this ability as yet. Maybe someday people will be able to reverse engineer this, but you can be sure Apple can easily do this on the Time Capsule if the wanted to.

Got the WNDRMAC. DLNA works perfect wirelessly through the PS3 and my tv's built in DLNA input and it cost significantly less than the TC (Best Buy has a Mac WD 2TB for $70) But I'm still not sure what's best for me since I'm moving from a MBP to an Air and will have to offset a large part of my drive space to an external drive, I really wish the TC had thunderbolt because i hate the idea of having 2TB of data limited to only wifi access. It really seems the TC/AEBS may be another "interim" device before they introduce something more practical for their new Streaming/Wireless direction.

urkel said:

Got the WNDRMAC. DLNA works perfect wirelessly through the PS3 and my tv's built in DLNA input and it cost significantly less than the TC (Best Buy has a Mac WD 2TB for $70) But I'm still not sure what's best for me since I'm moving from a MBP to an Air and will have to offset a large part of my drive space to an external drive, I really wish the TC had thunderbolt because i hate the idea of having 2TB of data limited to only wifi access. It really seems the TC/AEBS may be another "interim" device before they introduce something more practical for their new Streaming/Wireless direction.

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Don't count on it.

The Time Capsule is intended for backups. Can it work as a fileserver? Yes. Do 99.5% of buyers do that? No.