Airport Extreme X2 and X4?

[MacRumors]

Among other rumors floating around the mill looking forward to tomorrow's Keynote Speech, minor details have emerged about upcoming use of 802.11n wireless networking. Found in the MacWorld Conference & Expo PI: Advanced Wireless outlook, the description starts with:

Wireless networking is about to undergo major changes, with 802.11n, or Airport Extreme X2 and X4.

Apple has been rumored to be including the faster "n" soon-to-be standard (up to 600 mb/s), with recent curiosities of the protocol showing up in the latestiMac, MacBook Pro and most recently MacBooks.

Readers also note the recent lack of any availability of Airport base stations on Apple's website, with a refresh to the base station rumored as recently as September of 2006.

[pdpfilms]

Yeah, I was wondering how they were planing on doing 802.11n with the existing Airport Extreme base stations.

But i wonder hoe X2 and X4 would differ?

[~Shard~]

It wasn't too hard to see this one coming, what with the new 802.11n standard and all, it was more just a question of when. And if that "when" is tomorrow, even better!

[syklee26]

wasn't the new iTV supposed to serve also as a wireless router? maybe it will come with Wireless N.

but the question is, would the mac owners without the new N card notice any difference with N router?

[twoodcc]

Originally Posted by ~Shard~

It wasn't too hard to see this one coming, what with the new 802.11n standard and all, it was more just a question of when. And if that "when" is tomorrow, even better!

yes, much better

[R.Youden]

I hope Apple dont shoot themselves in the foot with this and the 'iTV'. From what I can gather the iTV will require 802.11n to work effectively at high bandwidth but this will limit to people who have bought a mac within the last few months. I either hope they release a 802.11n card which is compatible with the extreme cards or they have some other fancy way of getting around it!

[Digital Skunk]

Originally Posted by R.Youden

I hope Apple dont shoot themselves in the foot with this and the 'iTV'. From what I can gather the iTV will require 802.11n to work effectively at high bandwidth but this will limit to people who have bought a mac within the last few months. I either hope they release a 802.11n card which is compatible with the extreme cards or they have some other fancy way of getting around it!

I think the current macs all have the 802.11n card installed... or so I thought. That was a big rumor after the WWDC in 05 when iTV was brought to light.

[ChrisA]

Originally Posted by R.Youden

I either hope they release a 802.11n card which is compatible with the extreme cards or they have some other fancy way of getting around it!

Some other way? Like a length of Cat 5 cable?

I suspect the iTV will work with whatever speed network you happen to have but you may not be able to get clean HD video unless you get one of the new X2 or X4 cards.

The problem with wireless is that the bandwidth is shared by all devices. So you would need a fast network if you wanted to suft the new, download a movie and watch a movie on iTV. But to do just one of those at a time, 56Mbps should work.

[zuggerat]

man i havent posted in a while, and im kinda ashamed my return to the forum coincides with quicker access to pornography posts

[MacsAttack]

Apple needs to look a doing some kind of home media file server...

Would be great if they had two Airport Extream models...

X2 - Basic AE (upgrade to what went before)

X4 - AE with built in NAS. Room for two drives in a RAID 1 array (be nice if the drives were easy to replace). Web interface for admin (so it is not tied to OS X).

[Macula]

I just read that Steve has invited all of his best friends to the keynote.
(http://blog.wired.com/cultofmac/2007...jobs_invi.html)

I bet they will be thrilled to hear about this.

[xlosltove777]

If Apple does realease a 802.11n device I would assume they'd offer some sort of USB Airport which isn't unheard of. On the PC side those that have wireless either get the PCI version installed or use a usb device to go wireless. If the speed is 600mb/s it would be a slight disadvantage to use USB 2.0 but still better than 802.11g.

[Digital Skunk]

Apple will have to unveil the replacement for the stand-alone iSight during this event. So I would hope anyway They discontinued the original one (which was getting a bit too old anyway) so I would hope they would introduce a better affordable and more interesting one tomorrow.

[KindredMAC]

Originally Posted by Digital Skunk

Apple will have to unveil the replacement for the stand-alone iSight during this event. So I would hope anyway They discontinued the original one (which was getting a bit too old anyway) so I would hope they would introduce a better affordable and more interesting one tomorrow.

And to think... the current Airport Extremes have been out LONGER than the iSights....

[Peel]

Originally Posted by KindredMAC

And to think... the current Airport Extremes have been out LONGER than the iSights....

I think that's the answer! For the older machines without N cards, you can buy a combo iSight/Wireless-N in one unit. It's the perfect combination, as it places the wireless antenna up high, for better range/less interferance to the router, and you only have one Firewire cord to plug in for both.

[Chef Medeski]

Originally Posted by Peel

I think that's the answer! For the older machines without N cards, you can buy a combo iSight/Wireless-N in one unit. It's the perfect combination, as it places the wireless antenna up high, for better range/less interferance to the router, and you only have one Firewire cord to plug in for both.

Thats a nice idea. Im sure though not a lot of people would want to pay a $200 pricetag for a camera since it comes with wireless they dont want. I definetly believe they should make such a product, just make sure its not your sole product. Maybe a USB key. And a seperate smaller camera for laptops.

[mrfrosty]

I'm would not get too excited about this .....as far as i know 802.11n is still actually in draft with the final approval not actually expected until April 2008.

Having said that i'm sure a new piece of firmware will upgrade anything to the "proper" standard once it is ratified :-)

[Narayan7]

It would be cool if the airport extremes have a firewire port to plug in external storage devices so you could keep all your drives in one place away from your computer and still have access to all the files

[dernhelm]

This would be nice. My Linksys "G" is just about dead. Would be nice to replace it with an Apple product...

[Xyl]

Dammit. Airport Extreme X2? Airport Extreme X4? I was hoping for an Airport Extreme Plus Limited Special Anniversary Edition.

[EagerDragon]

Can't wait for the powerbook G6 using the 5 ghz that IBM just anounced, LOL.
Maybe tomorrow

[SplinterCell]

Originally Posted by Macrumors

Among other rumors floating around the mill looking forward to tomorrow's Keynote Speech, minor details have emerged about upcoming use of 802.11n wireless networking. Found in the MacWorld Conference & Expo PI: Advanced Wireless outlook, the description starts with: Apple has been rumored to be including the faster "n" soon-to-be standard (up to 600 mb/s), with recent curiosities of the protocol showing up in the latestiMac, MacBook Pro and most recently MacBooks.

Readers also note the recent lack of any availability of Airport base stations on Apple's website, with a refresh to the base station rumored as recently as September of 2006.

Hey I have one of the new cd2 macbook pro's, is there a way I can tell if I have the 802.11n wireless card pre-installed?

[bagleyb]

http://www.apple.com/airportextreme/

Wasn't announced in the keynote, but an updated one is available

[emotion]

Hand in hand with the iTV stuff then. And the pre-n hardware in recent machines.

[pdpfilms]

I really hope they include a user-installable 802.11n Airport card for those of us with pre-intel machines.