I've had MANY routers/switches and quite frankly only one AE. The one I have is the best router (in terms of wireless reliability) that I've ever owned. It may not be the case for most people, but for home use, I love the thing.
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AirPort Extreme and Time Capsule Out of Stock at U.S. Apple Stores [Updated]
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I've had MANY routers/switches and quite frankly only one AE. The one I have is the best router (in terms of wireless reliability) that I've ever owned. It may not be the case for most people, but for home use, I love the thing.
I still think that selling a 802.11n at that price is a joke. It wouldn't bug me as much if it was cheaper. As for the AE, it works well for me but I miss a lot of features that are present in other devices (bandwidth throttling, parental control & more). I understand that it's enough for the casual user. I just prefer to have a little bit of flexibility. I cannot manage the device from Android which is now a big con for me. My next device will have a standard web interface.
God, I hope not.
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Get a Ubiguiti router. These things are awesome.
Actually, it is an outstanding product. I've had my Airport router for years and have never had any problems with it ever. I don't even have to reboot it. Every other router I have ever owned has needed to be rebooted from time to time. I will often read about people having weird problems..like their new phone won't connect or something, and it turns out to be other brands of routers, meanwhile my Apple router just works with whatever I throw at it. I can even check on it and configure things from an app on my iPad. So easy. Truly one of the best and most underrated products they make. So glad I got it. Worth every penny.
I probably wouldn't have if I didn't read this comment first.Am I the only one who read: 'anonymous hipster'
Well I got my AE used for $50 and I haven't had any issues. The only thing I want to find out how to do is change the network name and password on mine.
Which router do you use?
Hmm, expensive, for less money better buy 3 Ubiquiti unifi AC AP's.
Similar to the Eero stuff but probably much better.
Check out Eurodk.com for a reliable european reseller.
I thought it was a good solution until I saw those Eero AP's needs cabling as do the above AP's, Ubiquiti is known for enterprise quality gear for consumer prices, also no need for licenses.
My guess is 'economies of scale', one enclosure to fit them both.
I have often wondered how many Extremes they actually sell vs Time Capsules. True, you have your options with HDDs, or even a NAS set-up, and you can of course also save some scratch when going the Express route, but for many average Joes just wanting to back up their Macs, the integrated TimeCapsule route seems just simpler while giving you the optional 3-year APP warranty on the whole package as well. Choice is good though.
Wow. I didn't realise. What on earth has happened to design at Apple? That is awful. But not as bad as the hump-back iPhone battery case.
Better get Ubiquiti, needs only 1 cable instead of 2, you can leave the PoE adapter in a place where you don't see it, the Luma's have 2 cables connected, network and power supply.
But, it's probably harder to set up, the initial price for Luma is $299, but it will be more expensive once they are on the market, $ 499, more than 3 Unifi's.
Indeed!
The Airport Extreme is consistently rated one of the best wireless access points on the market. And it has been for years. With 802.11ac clients, I regularly can connect 3-4 devices at 1Gbits+, with room to spare. I have no problems at all using a full duplex 1000mbps uplink (while also transferring data across locally across its backplane at astronomical speeds). I've deployed probably 70+ of them for various clients, even those who don't have Macs, simply because of its speed and reliability.
Its true its not the most feature-full router, in which case I'd recommend pairing it with either:
- a mac mini running OS X server
- or, as mentioned above, an EdgeRouter X
And there are definitely configuration options lacking—for example, I'd really like to be able to block 802.11b/a/g clients.
But in terms of stability, range and throughput, I've never come across another AP (six antennas or more, be dammed) that can consistently match the AirPort Extreme performance-wise, over the long term.
or just replace or add a third party router with more controls.
I hardly ever use my Airport express now-a-days. and i don't have an Arport extreme,,, I wouldn never buy one unless Apple included DSL port and more features. I refuse to have two boxes sitting..
I hardly ever use my Airport express now-a-days. and i don't have an Arport extreme,,, I wouldn never buy one unless Apple included DSL port and more features. I refuse to have two boxes sitting..
Is it still a thing that the whole network defaults to the speed of the slowest device, or was that problem eliminated at some point?
Sure, Apple may roll out a new AirPort Extreme wireless router, but Jony Ive's design aesthetic may prevent Apple from building a router with decent external antennas. I think many Mac users are ending up with a good AC1900 router like the Asus RT-AC68U or the Netgear R7000 Nighthawk instead.
Sure, but Apple is still required to pull products that would be non-compliant out of the box.
I'd stick with Ubiquiti over the unknown Eero. Eero seems, to me, to want to be the hipster wireless appliance maker, not a top of the line hardware maker. They are in it to make a (seemingly massive) profit off the average person, not to create a useful product.
That, and you can take my Ubiquiti equipment from my cold dead hands.
No, it's really not. Time Machine backups are PAINFULLY slow over 802.11n.
For many years the Airport Extreme (and Time Capsule) were one of the leading routers available, but not anymore. They've been substantially eclipsed over the past year+ by models from Dlink, Netgear, Linksys, Asus, and more. Cnet and PC Mag recently published separate articles on the top 2016 routers, and Apple was left off both lists for the first time in years. It's time for Apple to deliver an upgrade.
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It needs to be big in order to fit all the antennas required by the latest versions of WiFi. In truth, if Apple releases a "Wave 2" 802.11ac router, it should be even BIGGER as it will need even more antennas in order to maximize performance.
The alternative to Apple's approach is something like the spider-looking Asus router in the picture below, which I actually think looks pretty interesting, but doesn't exactly match the Apple aesthetic:
http://www.geek.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/asus-spider-router.jpg
I completely agree with these comments. For most home users, the Airport Extreme is probably the best and most reliable router on the market and does what 99% of users need it to do. I'm pretty technically savvy and have tried MANY other routers over the years (usually after reading a great review of the latest/greatest router on the market) and always end up returning them.
Most of the major brands (Netgear, Asus, etc.) ship with very buggy firmware and sometimes they are still buggy and unreliable 6-12+ months after coming to market, dropping connections, requiring regular reboots, etc. Yes, they have more configurability options (QOS, etc.), but they are simply not nearly as stable.
I work from home and give web-based software demos and cannot afford to have my internet connection dropped due to a flaky/unreliable router. I never have this issue with the Airport Extreme, whereas I cannot say that for most of the other routers I've tried.
For whatever reason, the Airport Extreme doesn't get much love from professional reviews/publications such as smallnetbuilder, but the wireless range and RSSI signal strength in my home is just as good with the AE as the alternatives I've tried (Netgear R7800 most recently), yet the AE is far more reliable.
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The biggest feature I like about the Airport products is I never have to think about them at all. Always on, always working. Exactly what I want in a router.
I'm supposed to pick up a replacement for a defective unit tomorrow at my local Apple store. Will be interesting to see if they have one for me.
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I would love to be able to have my AE stage all of the updates locally so that I don't need to download the same update individually for all of the Macs in my house.
Hahaha. Very good. I've already got one of them, though and because Apple are unbelievably still selling the same spec as when I ordered mine in December 2013 (which was your point, I imagine) it's still the current version 2 years later.
Anyone, off topic. I apologise. Let's get back to the whinging. ;-)
There is nothing wrong with the Time Capsule part, the problem is the Wireless, more more specifically the design has very short range, so it's not very useful for people in huge McMansions, but it's perfectly fine for Apartment/Condo dwellers. Still nothing beats the WRT54G I had that could pick up/be picked up from half a kilometer away at default settings. (Part of that was being on the 8th floor)
If Apple doesn't release new models, then the only reasonable replacements are two separate devices (FreeNas devices for Time Machine, and using the included wireless router that is supplied by the ISP.) Most alternative router devices have extremely poor build quality, but stand-alone they're set-it-and-forget-it. Alternative NAS type devices on the other hand tend to too weak to actually service the included hard drive(s) unless they are based on a x86 BSD computer platform instead of a ARM-based Linux. Many people, including computer-savvy ones hate the consumer grade NAS devices because they're all just ticking timebombs.