Code in OS X 10.8.4 Suggests Future Macs Will Offer 802.11ac Gigabit Wi-Fi Support

[MacRumors]

Code within the latest 10.8.4 beta release of OS X confirms that 802.11ac 5G "Gigabit Wi-Fi" support, which is not offered in OS X 10.8.3, will be offered on Apple's next generation Macs, reports 9to5Mac.

In January, Apple reportedly signed a deal with wireless chip firm Broadcom to bring the high-speed wireless access to its future Mac lineup.

802.11ac offers triple the speeds that are available with the current 802.11n standard, supporting up to 450 Mbps on one antenna and up to 1.3 Gbps when used with three antennas. The speed boost allows for quicker file transfers between home computers.

A report from Digitimes earlier today suggests that Apple might be refreshing its notebook lineup near the end of the second quarter, which may translate to an introduction at Apple's annual Worldwide Developers Conference in June.

Article Link: Code in OS X 10.8.4 Suggests Future Macs Will Offer 802.11ac Gigabit Wi-Fi Support

 

[cclloyd]

Would love it. Could finally put my netgear 802.11ac router to work.

 

[SamGabbay]

Does anyone here have a connection faster than 300mbps?

 

[yearofthe]

Would be nice to have this if Google Fiber comes to my town.

 

[Aidan5806]

Does anyone here have a connection faster than 300mbps?

HAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA No. We wish. Korea does. For less than most US 50mbps tiers. Stupid oligopoly.

 

[Dr McKay]

Does anyone here have a connection faster than 300mbps?

Would be nice for file transfers across the network though?

 

[cclloyd]

Does anyone here have a connection faster than 300mbps?

Inside my LAN I do. Plus this could make streaming things, airdrop, or screen sharing just that much quicker.

 

[AlligatorBloodz]

Would be nice for file transfers across the network though?

Yes. It was quicker for me to hook up and external drive to my iMac, transfer an episode of GoT to it, eject it, plug it into my girlfriends macbook, and transfer it on to there, then it was to transfer it over wifi.

Wouldn't this also mean faster and higher quality streams over airplay etc? Maybe not a benefit now, but in the future?

 

[BadBadPhillyBro]

Wow, big surprise, Apple is continuing to support advancing 802.11 standards.

This is newsworthy.

:: yawn ::

 

[sammich]

Thank goodness for this article.

I thought Apple was never going to use 802.11ac.

The question isn't if, but when. Of course they're going to use it, it's not even a consideration. It's like 'Future computers will be faster'. Duh.

Does anyone here have a connection faster than 300mbps?

I can name quite a few actually.

Also *obligatory*, you might not likely need all the bandwidth to access the internet but you would need more bandwidth if you were copying stuff to another WiFi connected device.

Wireless is a shared medium, and half-duplex. Meaning, if two people are copying stuff over WiFi at the same time, the maximum theoretical speed is only half for each (in simple terms).

 

[Aidan5806]

Inside my LAN I do. Plus this could make streaming things, airdrop, or screen sharing just that much quicker.

A lot of those things still connect to a remote IP server. Don't expect anything amazing.

 

[64Mario64]

A lot of those things still connect to a remote IP server. Don't expect anything amazing.

If by "remote IP servers" you mean "servers outside the LAN", then that's not true. AFP, VNC, FTP, NFS, SSH, Dropbox LAN sync, Bonjour, and networked games go straight across LAN. Or do you have any examples?

 

[Crzyrio]

Does anyone here have a connection faster than 300mbps?

Yes! My connection between my laptop and my NAS when at home can go faster than 300mbps.

Would be nice to completely do away with my ethernet cable, wifiac will allow me to transfer my files wirelessly to NAS to its fullest potential.

Not to mention, as Wifi ac becomes more popular. Computer to computer transfers will be amazingly fast. And dont forget if the iPhone 5S has wifi ac than syncing wirelessly will be bearable.

 

[Gordon Werner]

This will really be useful if apple goes the 4K super duper HD route with TVs, etc, no?

 

[hleewell]

YES !!!!! I will upgrade my Mini solely for this (OK, for Haswell too)

 

[Snowshiro]

Does anyone here have a connection faster than 300mbps?

Yeah, I have Gigabit fiber. Although I live in Japan.

That's beside the point though. What I want is faster LAN connectivity which is what this provides. Right now, downloading from steam I get about 4-5 megabytes (bytes not bits) per second over wireless, but plug in an ethernet cable and that immediately goes up to about 25-30MB/s. If I could cut the need for the cable, it would be great, especially for rooms in my house where there's no socket.

 

[Doctor Q]

With speed like that I'm gonna need more data to transfer around!

 

[Squilly]

I don't know what that code screams to me... reminds me of one of my comments back in the day (two weeks ago).

 

[trip1ex]

Earth shattering!

You scooped Bob Woodward!

 

[Kar98]

Does anyone here have a connection faster than 300mbps?

450 Mb/s between my Mac mini and the Airport Extreme. The rest of the stuff hovers around 60 Mb/s.

 

[Chaos215bar2]

A lot of those things still connect to a remote IP server. Don't expect anything amazing.

Which services do you think you're describing? Obviously this wouldn't be immediately useful for everyone, but anyone transferring data directly between devices on the same network would benefit. Services like Dropbox do allow for indirect transfers, but I doubt very many people have enough storage on such services to transfer large files locally and don't know any better than to use it that way.

 

[silvrwolf]

Does anyone here have a connection faster than 300mbps?

 

[Kar98]

A lot of those things still connect to a remote IP server. Don't expect anything amazing.

Streaming or screen sharing from your desktop to your Apple TV would only require local IPs.

 

[Peace]

Image

Is Texas using the Internet 2 ?

 

[phoenixsan]

Sounds.....

promising and better yet, if comes as a stock option in the future Mac lineup. With this upgrade, better graphics support and working 3 TB use, I almost feel lured to leave Lion.....