Airport Extreme Air Disk, and 801.11n Upgrades

[MacRumors]

OReillynet.com notes that the quietly updated Airport Extreme Basestation incorporates a new feature called Airport Disk:

New to AirPort Extreme, AirPort Disk turns almost any external USB hard drive into a shared drive. Simply connect the drive to the USB port on the back of your AirPort Extreme and — voila — all the documents, videos, photos, and other files on the drive instantly become available to anyone on the secure network, Mac and PC alike. It’s perfect for backups, collaborative projects, and more.

The new Airport Extreme basestations support the faster 802.11n protocol which is now shipping with all new Macs. Unfortunately, existing Mac customers need to run a special installer that is only included with the new base stations to activate the "n" portion of their wireless hardware.

iLounge offers an unsatisfying explanation for the reason that the installer is only being bundled with the new base stations:

Because of the [Sarbanes-Oxley Act], the company believes that if it sells a product, then later adds a feature to that product, it can be held liable for improper accounting if it recognizes revenue from the product at the time of sale, given that it hasn’t finished delivering the product at that point

Of interest, surrounding the release of the 802.11n basestation, we heard claims that Apple would eventually be offering the 802.11n installer for $4.99. At that time, the upgrade fee made little sense, but now appears to be due to the account issue described by iLounge.

[Cepe Indicum]

Always wanted this feature... thanks Apple!

[tyr2]

I wander what file systems are supported on the external disk, the linked document doesn't say. NFS+ and FAT32 I'd guess.

[Digitalclips]

Originally Posted by tyr2

I wander what file systems are supported on the external disk, the linked document doesn't say. NFS+ and FAT32 I'd guess.

ZFS under Leopard I bet

[Westside guy]

Originally Posted by tyr2

I wander what file systems are supported on the external disk, the linked document doesn't say. NFS+ and FAT32 I'd guess.

I'd guess HFS+ is a given - Apple will want to support their own journaled filesystem. What filesystem is attached, though, doesn't matter so much on a network device (although I'd argue that journaling is important, whichever filesystems are available).

[Digitalclips]

Originally Posted by Westside guy

I'd guess HFS+ is a given - Apple will want to support their own journaled filesystem. What filesystem is attached, though, doesn't matter so much on a network device (although I'd argue that journaling is important, whichever filesystems are available).

Don't forget ZFS

[aswitcher]

I cand see allot of Mac WLAN parties in February as people meet up with the C2D Books to "get the patch"

Whats the best choice of format for an attached HDD for this AE?

[T'hain Esh Kelch]

This is sooooo gonna be all over the warez sites.. Stupid decision of Apple. they could sell it for 0.01$.

[Ibjr]

Originally Posted by T'hain Esh Kelch

This is sooooo gonna be all over the warez sites.. Stupid decision of Apple. they could sell it for 0.01$.

They have to charge something to deal with the credit card processing fees and other things related to conforming to SOX.

[Modrak]

And what about poeple with MBPs at WWDC that saw the 5.8GHz AirPort ? Something else ? Or backwards compatibility of 802.11n with 802.11g ?

[EagerDragon]

Originally Posted by Modrak

And what about poeple with MBPs at WWDC that saw the 5.8GHz AirPort ? Something else ? Or backwards compatibility of 802.11n with 802.11g ?

Your question is not clear to me. Please elaborate.

[GekkePrutser]

That's a handy feature!! Much handier than that audio gateway thing on the old extremes. I would never use that. But this I can see myself using for sure!

[Rocketman]

Sarbanes-Oxley has had a wide range of unintended consequenses. It needs to be killed.

Criminalizing CEO's
Exporting IPO's
General consumer product feature control punishment.

The main problem is it criminalized a bunch of stuff that was either already criminal under a different theory, but was not enforced, or was a civil matter.

Worst of all, it makes the chain of command criminally liable for acts underlings do entirely outside of their awareness and control.

Rocketman

[kalisphoenix]

Originally Posted by Rocketman

Worst of all, it makes the chain of command criminally liable for acts underlings do entirely outside of their awareness and control.

That's what a chain of command is. That's what responsibility is. That's what management gets paid for -- managing. Given that the average CEO makes, what, 350 times as much as the average worker(?)... it sort of balances out that the average CEO is as responsible for as much as 350 average workers.

It's pretty common knowledge.

[MacGuffin]

Originally Posted by Rocketman

Sarbanes-Oxley has had a wide range of unintended consequenses. It needs to be killed.

Criminalizing CEO's

You're quite right. CEOs need no help at all criminalizing themselves.

[T'hain Esh Kelch]

It is strange that they can't give out the updater.. Its just an improvement upon an excisting technology.. It would be the same as having those Mac mini's that shipped with better specs, being elligal..

[arn]

I updated the quote with the updated explanation from the article, if it makes a difference.

arn

[guzhogi]

The way I understand it, this law prevents Apple from giving away the drivers for "unadvertised features" for free. Correct me if I'm wrong but I have 2 problems with this: 1) if Apple charged the $1600 or whatever for an iMac, not advertise any of its features, would we have to pay more to use these features? 2) Aren't we already paying for these "unadvertised features" when we buy the computer? We're already paying for the feature, but now we have to pay more to use it? Sounds a good way to screw the consumer.

[Henriok]

It has got something to do with Apple writing of development costs in products. They are writing of the development and advertising costs for product A with features B. They cant later add features C and D to product A+B, since it'll change the cost of developing the products. This have stopped Apple from implementing stuff in their operating system and iPods too, stuff that could have been easily added through software updates.

I know for a fact that they have pushed the envelope here with some stuff in OSX 10.4 that they secretly bundled with security fixes.

They could offer the drivers as free downloads though. Like Boot Camp.
Edit: Boot Camp is a known feature of Intel Macs though.. sorry 'bout that.

[combatcolin]

STILL CONFUSED



Right, if i buy and Apple TV and the new Apple basestation can i plug my ext Lacie into the Basestation and access it via the Apple TV WITHOUT switching my PC on.

Thanks.

[iNewbie]

Originally Posted by Henriok

It has got something to do with Apple writing of development costs in products. They are writing of the development and advertising costs for product A with features B. They cant later add features C and D to product A+B, since it'll change the cost of developing the products. This have stopped Apple from implementing stuff in their operating system and iPods too, stuff that could have been easily added through software updates.

I know for a fact that they have pushed the envelope here with some stuff in OSX 10.4 that they secretly bundled with security fixes.

They could offer the drivers as free downloads though. Like Boot Camp.
Edit: Boot Camp is a known feature of Intel Macs though.. sorry 'bout that.

This really doesn't make sense... otherwise why did they give free updates to Aperture? They've added features.... And didn't a couple of the new iPod features get applied to the previous generation?

SOX is a huge quagmire of positives and negatives but I doubt it has much bearing on this. They likely want to sell more airports....

[mmmcheese]

Yeah, I'm not buying it either...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sarbanes-Oxley_Act



Only the Core 2 Duo based machines an beyond have draft-n parts in them, correct?

Originally Posted by Modrak

And what about poeple with MBPs at WWDC that saw the 5.8GHz AirPort ? Something else ? Or backwards compatibility of 802.11n with 802.11g ?

5.8GHz is 802.11a...which was supposed to replace 802.11b because it had faster speeds. The problem was that it wasn't backwards compatible, so people created 802.11g instead, which has the same speed, but runs in the same band as 802.11b and is backwards compatible. One nice thing about it is there is less interference there at the moment since there are fewer devices competing for the spectrum (bluetooth, telephones, other access points, game controllers, etc.)

All the Intel based mac chipsets support 802.11a...not sure if it is actually enabled in the software though.

[etjazz]

Originally Posted by mmmcheese

5.8GHz is 802.11a...which was supposed to replace 802.11b because it had faster speeds. The problem was that it wasn't backwards compatible, so people created 802.11g instead, which has the same speed, but runs in the same band as 802.11b and is backwards compatible. One nice thing about it is there is less interference there at the moment since there are fewer devices competing for the spectrum (bluetooth, telephones, other access points, game controllers, etc.)

All the Intel based mac chipsets support 802.11a...not sure if it is actually enabled in the software though.

doh, some macusers are incredibly ignorant. 11a was never intended to replace 11b - it was developed in parallel because the 2.4ghz band had problems with interference because of the massive amount of devices on that band. However, speed is on par with 11g as long as you stay relatively close to the ap. The higher frequency lowers the penetration power of 11a, and makes it unsuitable unless the AP is in line of sight

[Carniphage]

The question is "when is Apple going to release an enabler for 802.11g?"

The draft-N Airport adapters in the Mac Pro and the iMac C2D are not able to work at anywhere near the performance levels of 802.11G

Isn't there a law against advertising something and not delivering it?

C.

[mmmcheese]

Originally Posted by etjazz

doh, some macusers are incredibly ignorant. 11a was never intended to replace 11b - it was developed in parallel because the 2.4ghz band had problems with interference because of the massive amount of devices on that band. However, speed is on par with 11g as long as you stay relatively close to the ap. The higher frequency lowers the penetration power of 11a, and makes it unsuitable unless the AP is in line of sight

Oh picky picky...it was a generalization. Eventually people stick with the whatever is fastest...in other words, it would have replaced it. Because of the shortcomings of a, they developed g (infrastructure costs, physical properties as you mentioned, etc.). This person asked what 5.8GHz was for, and I gave him a basic idea of what it was (if he wanted more details, he could have looked up 802.11a in wikipedia or something).

I know everyone on here likes to look down on others because they think they know everything, but it's getting ridiculous. People just try to be helpful and they get bashed by everyone else. I also enjoyed how you assumed that because I didn't mention something, I didn't know...and that because I'm posting on here, that I'm a mac user... I guess the general consensus about message boards are correct...they are filled with immature and elitist nerds who have nothing better to do with their time.