AirPort Express with AirTunes

[jsw]

You'll never see the need for wireless videos of DVDs because a DVD player hooked to a TV already does this more elegantly and cheaply.

Don't forget a couple of things that wireless video streaming could do:

(1) Transmit the same movie/video to multiple sets at the same time. Not possible with a DVD player.

(2) Play streaming videos - not possible with a DVD player unless you first record them to DVD.

(3) Let your TV serve as an iChat AV spot.

While I'd agree that there's no immediate need for wireless videos, I disagree that the technology is not useful.

 

[parrothead]

The SONOS system is interesting in this concext:
http://www.sonos.com/products/

May this have been an in-house development at Apple, that Apple didn't
want to promote?
Why do I think that:
- It was released almost at the same time as the Airport Express
- It's got the iPod scroll wheel!
- It's got the same features as the Airport Express + amplifier,
remote control etc
- It's compatible with Mac, AAC, etc (though not fairplay, yet...)
- Apple design (except the apple logo...)

Apple may have chosen to not brand this as an Apple product,
because they want a focused product line. Or the two companies
may just have collaborated. How else would you explain why
a company named SONOS has released something that smells
like Apple.

I checked out the Sonos website and while it looks like a pretty cool product, it definitely is NOT made by Apple. After a little digging I found that while Mac OSX file formats are supported, the software for the controller requires a PC running Windows.

edit: from the specs portion of the website "File Storage Supported - Windows 2000/XP; MAC OS X; SMB file shares" and "Desktop Controller Software - PC with Windows 2000/XP or later"

 

[markoibook]

New iPod??

I think that the announcement of AirTunes today and not at WWDC hints at one thing - maybe WWDC will see the announcment of a new iPod WITH WIFI.

Surely AirTunes hints that the new iPod will have integrated wifi - then you can play music on your iPod through the Airport Express to your stereo - all with no cables.

Are there any rumors that hint at this at all?

Marko

 

[pjkelnhofer]

In place of an Airport Extreme Card

I am a little bit confused.
If there was already a wireless network in my house and I took an AirportExpress, plugged a computer (which has no WiFi card) into it and plugged it in the wall would it then be able to acess the wireless network.
It seems that some people are saying yes others no.
I don't see how the Airport Express could tell the difference between a computer and a cable modem being plugged into the RJ-45 port.
I realize that this is not a feature being advertised my Apple, but shouldn't it just be sending and receiving data?
Can it tell which direction the WAN is and which direction the computer is?

 

[uv23]

I think that the announcement of AirTunes today and not at WWDC hints at one thing - maybe WWDC will see the announcment of a new iPod WITH WIFI.

Surely AirTunes hints that the new iPod will have integrated wifi - then you can play music on your iPod through the Airport Express to your stereo - all with no cables.

Bingo. What's better: yet another peripheral (seperate remote control) or an iPod that IS the remote control.

 

[Wonder Boy]

so how does it connect to just speakers? do i need a powermate?

 

[pjkelnhofer]

Bad Link at the Applestore

Go to the tech specs for the Aiport Express.

Click on the picture of the Express at just about the tech spec table.
Instead of adding an Airport Express to your shopping cart, it adds "AirPort Extreme Base Station (without modem and antenna port)" part number-M8930LL/A.
Weird. I don't know of anywhere on Apple.com to report a bad link. Anyone?

 

[appleguy]

Wooo

Ok so I have ordered 3. (I have a big house)
So anyone know if they have talk wirelessly amongst themselves?
I also hope that they don't need an Airport Extreme BaseStation to talk to my wired network.. I have the LinkSys Wireless ADSL... or would I need to plug one into the wired network?

 

[Capn_Moho]

I should have bought my stock in them six months ago when I was thinking about it

I should have bought stock 4 years ago when Steve had been back for a while... oh wait, I did. I bought it on Monday -- poor earnings were announced on Friday. At first, I thought there was a split. That was a negative; it was just dropping to half its value in one day and taking the rest of the market down with it. I read all about it on Saturday on the front page of the business section.

But I stayed put, bought some more diversified stock and now I'm only slightly in the hole, with twice as much invested and four years later.

Not that I'm giving away advice, but Apple isn't a stock I'd buy again. I'd buy one with dividends and potential to actually go somewhere amazing.

Maybe Apple will. But they treat their vendors, developers and customers like crap. Vendors, coincidentally, are the people who make Apple money, and developers are the people who give customers a reason to give it to the Mother Ship. A company won't have amazing growth when it repeatedly bites the hands that feed it. It'll survive, as Apple has persisted in proving, but it won't give way to a huge increase in the bottom line.

On another note, the Airport Express is awesome and I'm ordering one post-haste.

 

[Capn_Moho]

Weird. I don't know of anywhere on Apple.com to report a bad link. Anyone?

Try "Contact Us" at the bottom of any page. Buried in that page is a link to Website Feedback.

 

[Mitthrawnuruodo]

Ok so I have ordered 3. (I have a big house)
So anyone know if they have talk wirelessly amongst themselves?
I also hope that they don't need an Airport Extreme BaseStation to talk to my wired network.. I have the LinkSys Wireless ADSL... or would I need to plug one into the wired network?

As its been said more tan once already: You can ONLY bridge wirelessly with Apples own Bases... So you'll have to connect (at least one of them) to a wired network...

 

[elo]

This just made iTunes (already one of my favorite programs) a whole lot more useful. Now I can use my ThinkPad to control my stereo, without any quality loss, from wherever I happen to be sitting. Too cool.

As someone said earlier, this is striking in a couple of ways. It is truly cross-platform and it's very inexpensive for what you get. If the iPod was Apple's first product to truly cross over to the mainstream, then this could well be the second. I think Apple may be abandoning its niche thinking for good. (If they add a second button and 4-way scrolling device to the mouse, we'll know for sure!)

One of Apple's best releases ever.

elo

 

[obiwan]

What will be next?

Whilst I think this is a great product - it seems to miss out some obvious features (like firewire and AV outputs) for example, that makes me think what could be coming next. - Is this intended just to test the water before Apple releases something really revolutionary?

I also can't work out how it would benefit me without buying an Airport Extreme base station too - it seems of limited use on its own. I don't know about most people, but my Mac/Cable Modem/Powered Speakers are all in the same room (upstairs) so I have no need to wirelessly connect them. If I wanted to use AirTunes to wirelessly listen to iTunes downstairs on my stereo, I would still have to run an ethernet cable between my cable modem (upstairs) and the ethernet port on the Airport express (downstairs) in order to broadcast my internet connection wirelessly. See what I'm saying?

 

[whenpaulsparks]

the USB printing only works with a "compatible printer"... does that mean any printer that works with a mac, or what? i have an HP OfficeJet 6110. i wouldnt be disappointed if i can't scan over the network, but i would be if i can't print, when it works fine with Mac OS X. has anyone found a list of compatible printers yet?

 

[dongmin]

I checked out the Sonos website and while it looks like a pretty cool product, it definitely is NOT made by Apple. After a little digging I found that while Mac OSX file formats are supported, the software for the controller requires a PC running Windows.

edit: from the specs portion of the website "File Storage Supported - Windows 2000/XP; MAC OS X; SMB file shares" and "Desktop Controller Software - PC with Windows 2000/XP or later"

The controller looks to be a direct rip-off of the iPod's controls. I'm not sure if it will hit the market in its current form. I've heard that Apple has prevented several other companies from using the touch-wheel in their devices. It's not shipping for a while so I wouldn't get my hopes up too high.

It WOULD be nice for Apple to release an iPod Deluxe with a larger color OLED screen, and built-in wifi. Maybe with the addition of IR, it could also act as a universal remote for your TV/DVD/Stereo.

The possibilities are truly mind-boggling. The spin-off of the iPod division should yield more of these types of products from Apple. I'm sure they've got a lot of tricks up their sleaves. Exciting times.

 

[amin]

i cant seem to find it yet- how much is it with educational pricing?? I know Panther is regularly 129, but falls to 69 with edu. Could we expect the same here????

No way. I'd expect something more along the lines of the modest iSight discount. Still, any discount is a good discount!

 

[amin]

I think that the announcement of AirTunes today and not at WWDC hints at one thing - maybe WWDC will see the announcment of a new iPod WITH WIFI.

Surely AirTunes hints that the new iPod will have integrated wifi - then you can play music on your iPod through the Airport Express to your stereo - all with no cables.

Are there any rumors that hint at this at all?

Marko

If it were that close, they'd probably have released them together. Surely though, it will come.

 

[micvog]

the USB printing only works with a "compatible printer"... does that mean any printer that works with a mac, or what? i have an HP OfficeJet 6110. i wouldnt be disappointed if i can't scan over the network, but i would be if i can't print, when it works fine with Mac OS X. has anyone found a list of compatible printers yet?

Apple's list of "compatible" printers is incomplete. I hooked up my PSC2110 to the AEBS thinking that I would have to fool it into thinking it was a DJ5550. It came up under Rendezvous as a PSC2110, updated printer drivers were downloaded off the net (automatically), installed, and printing works great (obviously no scanning). The PSC2110 uses the same print engine as the 6110.

My only complaint is if I let my PB fall asleep on a long job, the print job stops (and when I wake up my PB, the print job starts from page 1). It would be nice if the PB knew not to go to sleep while printing.

 

[starboard]

Okay, the whole WAN, LAN, router, access point thing has me confused.

Here's what I want to do, can someone tell me if this will work?

I have two powerbooks, both with Airport Extreme cards installed. I want to connect one of these to the cable modem in my study and one of these in the living room where my stereo is.

Would I then be able to access the internet wirelessly on both my PBs, at the same time?

yes

Would I also be able to access the files on one PB from the other wirelessly?

both pbs must have sharing enabled, but the anser is yes. the issue has more to do with each pb's own firewalls, than the APExpress.

Then, while I am doing that, can I also listen to music on the stereo in my living room at the same time?

yes.

And finally, supposing my study is on the northern side of my home, my living room in the middle, and my bedroom on the southern side, and that the bedroom would not normally be within range of the airport extreme signal from the study, would the AP Express in the living room (attached to the stereo) provide a jumper so that I can do all of the above with one of the computers in the bedroom?

the 2nd AP Express would act as a bridge for the first. So that should extend your WiFi range. Assuming your bedroom still falls withing the combined range (150' + 150' depending on construction), you'll get signal.

 

[starboard]

I am a little bit confused.
If there was already a wireless network in my house and I took an AirportExpress, plugged a computer (which has no WiFi card) into it and plugged it in the wall would it then be able to acess the wireless network.
It seems that some people are saying yes others no.
I don't see how the Airport Express could tell the difference between a computer and a cable modem being plugged into the RJ-45 port.
I realize that this is not a feature being advertised my Apple, but shouldn't it just be sending and receiving data?
Can it tell which direction the WAN is and which direction the computer is?

no, it is not a wireless adapter. You still need an Airport card or 802.11b/g card for your computer. This thing is a basestation/bridge.

 

[iChan]

this seems like one amazing and revolutionary product, but i don't see myself using it myself...

other than in this way... going to someone's house without a wireless network and plugging their ethernet cable into the AirportExpress and voila, a wireless internet.

However, the only problem is that, without an ethernet hub, i'd be affecting the others person's internet.

also, you can't change songs from another room? more research required on my part.

PS. I love seeing apple moving in this direction though.

 

[oingoboingo]

Good, the base station is so ridiculously overpriced, they should either cut it's price in half, or drop it all together, in my opinion anyway.

Yeah, my thoughts exactly. I can't Apple selling more than a handful of AirPort Extreme base stations. The competition is really tough, and is priced substantially lower. Netgear and Linksys (for example) make some really good products that not only exceed the feature set of the AirPort Extreme basestation, but look (IMHO) just as attractive, and are cheaper.

It wouldn't surprise me if Apple pitches the AirPort Express as their primary wireless access device to increase sales volume, reserving AirPort Extreme for 'higher end' uses, or even fleshing out some AE basestation functionality...or even a price drop.

 

[Mord]

ahhhhhh

this thing costs $190 here in the uk (£100) why wont apple look at the exchange rate why oh why

 

[Mitthrawnuruodo]

Yeah, my thoughts exactly. I can't Apple selling more than a handful of AirPort Extreme base stations. The competition is really tough, and is priced substantially lower. Netgear and Linksys (for example) make some really good products that not only exceed the feature set of the AirPort Extreme basestation, but look (IMHO) just as attractive, and are cheaper.

It wouldn't surprise me if Apple pitches the AirPort Express as their primary wireless access device to increase sales volume, reserving AirPort Extreme for 'higher end' uses, or even fleshing out some AE basestation functionality...or even a price drop.

You forget two important aspects with the AE Basestation:
- the cool factor from the excellent design (and the fact that it's Apple branded)
- the ease of use (since it's much easier - for an average home user - to set up and use)

That it is ridicilously overpriced compared to others, doesn't mean it hasn't got a market...

 

[t0mmyhutchinson]

So if I have a wired network with DSL and a router, can I plug this into an open port on my router, so that I dont have to change my 2 desktops over to wireless?