Apple Announces New Airport Base Station and Time Capsule with Faster 802.11ac Wi-Fi

[castlerock]

Usb 2??

USB 2 is kinda odd

Odd, or just really lame. C'mon Apple, you can afford to put a USB 3 chipset in a $200 accessory.

This goes against their usual mode of aligning technology upgrades as each line gets upgraded. All of the Macs are now (finally!) going to have USB 3 but the Wi-Fi access point is stuck with USB 2 for no apparent reason, other than perhaps marketing (ooh look, next year's Airport refresh: now with USB 3! Wow!)

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After a time, one simply gets fatigued with all the various sniping negativity. It's fine if you hold an opposing view or wish to lodge a constructive criticism. But, if you're here just to appear that you're clever in your oblique negativity, you're just taking up space and adding nothing to the discussion. Personally, I want Apple to succeed. I have a lot invested in that outcome (my work, not stock). I, too, want Apple to make the best decisions. My approach is to think of myself as a hired contributor with a voice who might hold stock. Sure, offer suggestions. Take a stand on actions you think off-base. But, gosh, minimize the self-centered, whiny protestations which offer no useful advance.

My apologies, m'lord, I didn't realize this was a fanboiz-only forum. Someone must have forgotten to put the sign up.

 

[castlerock]

I'm also surprised they didn't update the Airport Express (yet) to the new 802.11ac chip. I have a dead g-version of the express, and don't wanne go buy an n-version, knowing the ac version is around the corner. Patience I guess.

Don't hold your breath- I would assume that since the AExpress is already limited by the fact that it doesn't have GigE the plan is for it to be the "lite" version of Airport and essentially a dead end. Besides, what exactly would be the difference between an AExpress and AExtreme, anyway? Other than $100?

 

[SuperCachetes]

The AirPort Extreme did though.

I see. Thanks for the education. I would not have assumed that since the footprints are so similar, otherwise.

 

[sbmeyer001]

No USB 3?

No USB3? What the ***?

I have waited for the new Airport Extreme figuring they would add USB 3, so I can have faster backups with my attached USB 3 drive. I am so disappointed. Apple, what were you thinking?

 

[AppleWarMachine]

I will be ordering one of these (3TB) to go along with my new 27" Retina iMac (3TB Fusion Drive) this fall

 

[oneMadRssn]

I'm wondering, since they regular Extreme and the Time Capsule are now identical in physical size, I'm wondering if internally they are also identical inside except for the lack of harddrive in the extreme. Meaning, I'm wondering if the extreme is a Time Capsule without a harddrive. Maybe to save costs a bit, the internals are identical but for the harddrive.

If that's the case, then I wonder if it would be possible to crack the Extreme open and pop in my own harddrive? Sure would be interesting if that were that case.

 

[bigpoppamac31]

I remember the original Airport base station. Looked like a flying saucer or ET spaceship. Call me old school but I miss that look.

 

[pgiguere1]

No USB3? What the ***?

In real-world scenarios even 802.11ac can't saturate USB 2.0 speeds.

I had hoped for an aluminum design, with some allowance for non-metallic strips at the back, or all around, near the antennas, similar to 3G/4G iOS devices. Since APPLE insists on keeping the (heat generating/Time Capsule destroying) power supply inside the unit, for simplicity's sake no doubt, an aluminum design would have helped with better heat dissipation.

I'm sure Jony could have done a real nice job of integrating the polycarbonate strips near the antennas with the aluminum main body of the unit.
Average lifespan of the current generation TC: 18 mos. Let's see how the new ones hold up.

I'm also surprised they didn't update the Airport Express (yet) to the new 802.11ac chip. I have a dead g-version of the express, and don't wanne go buy an n-version, knowing the ac version is around the corner. Patience I guess.

The main problem is not heat, it's to not create a Faraday cage.

 

[ChrisA]

Why not add them full capabilities of modem/router?

All the modem are different now. Depends if you have fiber, cable, DSL and which brand. There is no universal modem technology.

Is is a router, also with a small built-in switch. It has what you asked for except the connection to the physical cable that comes into the house. There are to many different kinds.

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I have waited for the new Airport Extreme figuring they would add USB 3, so I can have faster backups with my attached USB 3 drive. I am so disappointed. Apple, what were you thinking?

USB 3 would NOT make you backup go faster. The bottle neck is not the disk, it's the network. even with "ac" speeds the network will no be as fast as USB2. There is no reason for USB3 on a router.

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Odd, or just really lame. C'mon Apple, you can afford to put a USB 3 chipset in a $200 accessory. ...

Why didn't Apple put Thunderbolt on the router? They have six TB 2 ports on the new Mac Pro so I'd want multiple Thunderbolts on the router too?

OK seriously now, what is the point of USB 3 on a router. USB 2 is not being stressed so it would be a waste to put a USB 3 on a WiFi router, just like those TB orts would be a waste

 

[skellener]

Lots of whining going on here. Is 6" inches considered "tall"?? Really? An iPhone is almost 5" standing up. This thing is pretty small. it's less than 4" square around. There are 6 antennas in there to improve performance. Some people just need to complain I guess.

 

[MrNomNoms]

Why not add them full capabilities of modem/router?

Because ADSL is pretty much a dying technology long term - at least in the country I am the aim is to have something like 90% of people covered by FTTH (Fibre To The Home) and the last 10% being catered for via a rural broadband using fixed antenna and LTE. Right now the best configuration I've found is using a Draytek Vigor 120 and setting the modem up as a dumb transceiver with most of the work being done by the Airport Extreme via a PPPoE to PPPoA translation done on the ADSL modem itself.

To me, those seem really ugly, especially when compared to the old ones. And is anyone else's stream really flaky?

Same hence i had Arstechnica live blogging running in the background if I missed out on anything - IMHO although the keynote was great the big heavy lifting stuff will the more developer orientated one that isn't setup for the press and consumer audience. I'm hoping that we'll hear more about OpenGL 4.x given that leaks so far show OpenGL 4.1 support and maybe in future updates we'll see it expand.

I agree but they are pretty useless unless your Mac uses 802.11ac.

From what I understand the additional antennas help 802.11n as well so those of us without 802.11ac cards still benefit from the better coverage capabilities due the better design and more antennas.

Lots of whining going on here. Is 6" inches considered "tall"?? Really? An iPhone is almost 5" standing up. This thing is pretty small. it's less than 4" square around. There are 6 antennas in there to improve performance. Some people just need to complain I guess.

The way that it is appears on the website at least for me gives the appearance of being strange looking but when one actually gets out a ruler to look at the measurements then it looks no different than a male jewellery box one might put ones cufflinks into.

 

[sambredeson]

I don't think Apple has ever made a product only to look good. That's foolish. It has to be functional first. The iMac is a beautiful machine, the optical drive is on it's way out. SD slot is used by almost every consumer camera. Making a product look good is not the same as being "all about looks". That's silly.

The G4 Cube. It was designed specifically to look new and flashy, then they tried to cram whatever they could into their design to make it a decent computer. As a result, it was underpowered, overcosted, and had tons of overheating problems - generally considered Apple's biggest mistake since firing Steve Jobs.

 

[dckcentaur]

I didn't like it at first but it is growing on me and after really looking at the specs it is not that big it just looks that way. I think the reason they went with taller design (if you think 6 inch high is tall ) is they wanted to inclose the antennas instead of them sticking up and out like other wireless routers like the old time rabbit years on tv's of yesterday. Its a really is a clean simple design.

 

[silvetti]

I'd have said the same thing until my wifi stopped working and I got stuck between Apple (it's your modem!) and Comcast (it's your time capsule!).. for 4 days.

You could connect your modem directly to your PC...

If it works it's TC, if it doesn't it's the modem...

What is the problem with that ?

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Im gonna skip ac altogether. and wait till the next gen wireless tech comes out

You do know for how long 802.11n is out right ?

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Average lifespan of the current generation TC: 18 mos. Let's see how the new ones hold up.(

Are you basing yourself on what statistics ? Just curious...

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All the modem are different now. Depends if you have fiber, cable, DSL and which brand. There is no universal modem technology.

Is is a router, also with a small built-in switch. It has what you asked for except the connection to the physical cable that comes into the house. There are to many different kinds.

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USB 3 would NOT make you backup go faster. The bottle neck is not the disk, it's the network. even with "ac" speeds the network will no be as fast as USB2. There is no reason for USB3 on a router.

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Why didn't Apple put Thunderbolt on the router? They have six TB 2 ports on the new Mac Pro so I'd want multiple Thunderbolts on the router too?

OK seriously now, what is the point of USB 3 on a router. USB 2 is not being stressed so it would be a waste to put a USB 3 on a WiFi router, just like those TB orts would be a waste

Dude, don't waste your time, people on this forum just jump to the end of the topic and post the same over and over without even reading the previous posts...

Let them dream that USB3 would make their backups faster, don't kill the dream dude

Thunderbolt would be funny on a router hahahaha

 

[H2SO4]

I wonder if H-Squared will do an Air Mount for it.

 

[ConCat]

There's another radio tech out there that has the potential for infinite bandwidth growth. Hard to believe, I know, but take a look: Vortex radio waves.

 

[MrNomNoms]

My apologies, m'lord, I didn't realize this was a fanboiz-only forum. Someone must have forgotten to put the sign up.

It has nothing to do with being a fanboy and everything to do with people here trying to be 'cool' by being negative for the sake of being negative - to give off the appearance of impartiality by being negative without any sort of balance in the review. Sorry but it is pathetic when I see it on Macrumors especially with so-called 'Apple fans' and the most they own is an iPod Touch they got second hand at a garage sale giving their 5cents on how much Apple apparently sucks.

 

[MIZA]

is this ridiculous thing worth buying because i did

 

[Vip]

I have waited for the new Airport Extreme figuring they would add USB 3, so I can have faster backups with my attached USB 3 drive. I am so disappointed. Apple, what were you thinking?

Apple wants you to buy time capsule, if the extreme had USB 3, then people will just buy the extreme and add their own (much lower cost) USB 3 drive if it had a USB 3 port.

It's got nothing to do with cost, it's plain and simple let's not affect the sales of Time Capsule.

 

[Cheffy Dave]

What is up with this vertical monstrosity? Did iOS7 consume all of Apple's creatives including product designers?

It is a way of separating the 802.11 AC antennae

 

[Henk Poley]

There's another radio tech out there that has the potential for infinite bandwidth growth. Hard to believe, I know, but take a look: Vortex radio waves.

What that does is put a impulse modulation on the signal with a physical dish (so it's static, can't change). Much like what MIMO does in the latest wireless protocols. But again.. static, so it can't do the necessary adaptations when things are moving around. For an accessible explanation of the effect of signal impulse modulation with multiple senders, look at the promotion videos of Dirac HD, which essentially does audio MIMO.

For other receivers it will just add to the noise on the channel, since this can't dynamically adapt for deep nulls, etc.

 

[Snookerman]

But it's not discontinued.

As for the height, if you drill a hole in your shelf, you can lower it down and have just the top peak out, then it will lok like an Airport Express.

I wasn't on the Apple Store when I posted so I assumed it was discontinued. I see it's there now so maybe they were updating the site when I checked.

 

[flottenheimer]

Looking really nice. I seriously hope the range has improved dramatically.

I recently switched my two AESBs to one 3 year old Netgear solution. Its range blows the combined range of the AESBs away (one was set to extend the range of the other).
And no, it doesn't have any external antennas or anything. Its just a dark grey box hidden away in a drawer.

 

[biohead]

Because ADSL is pretty much a dying technology long term - at least in the country I am the aim is to have something like 90% of people covered by FTTH (Fibre To The Home) and the last 10% being catered for via a rural broadband using fixed antenna and LTE. Right now the best configuration I've found is using a Draytek Vigor 120 and setting the modem up as a dumb transceiver with most of the work being done by the Airport Extreme via a PPPoE to PPPoA translation done on the ADSL modem itself.

It's dying long term - but for now and the foreseeable future many places are stuck with it. Heck, even here in the UK, the rollout of FTTH has silently been scrapped(!!!!), and the emphasis placed on an FTTC rollout instead. This remains with the DSL family, albeit VDSL as opposed to ADSL.

Although I much prefer Apple doing it how they currently do it - with a WAN port as opposed to inbuilt modems. I can take my TC with me whenever I move, and bring my own modem. A good ADSL modem can actually be picked up for £10-£20 if you know where to look.

I currently have a 4th gen TC, and a 2012 MBP - so I have no reason to update whatsoever at the moment.

 

[macs4nw]

Don't hold your breath- I would assume that since the AExpress is already limited by the fact that it doesn't have GigE the plan is for it to be the "lite" version of Airport and essentially a dead end. Besides, what exactly would be the difference between an AExpress and AExtreme, anyway? Other than $100?

One thing the express does, that the extreme does not, is streaming music, which is what I was doing with mine before it died on me. (My main network is handled by the Time Capsule.)

You could be right about it being dead-end, since the APPLEtv basically does the same thing with Airplay.