AirPort Extreme and Time Capsule Out of Stock at U.S. Apple Stores [Updated]

[Mildredop]

What is that weird tall airport extreme in the photo in the article?

 

[jdillings]

Agreed....do you see any other router vendors pulling all their old stock? If it was because of the FCC regulation, they'd all have to be doing what Apple's doing.

Asus isn't pulling the old stock but are deeply discounting it. There have been fire sales the last few weeks on old routers like the RT-AC68R ($99 at Walmart, Target and T-Mobile) that have the old hardware revisions (non-C1). Asus, at least, seems to be trying to get the old routers out of brick and mortar retailers and replaced with the C1 revision. They didn't do this when they had the B1 revision.

 

[2457248]

So, the biggest story of the day was that Apple may be complying with an FCC deadline.

was it any better when we used to get renderings of new iphones with curved antenna bands and some random chinese overlays?

 

[Nanotyrns]

Yes, it is. Maybe it's a little early now, but Apple never did sell discounted old stuff at Apple Stores except for the non-Retina 13-inch MacBook Pro with optical drive, that's still available online, today.

Well I understand that but what I thought is that they managed production so that they would sell through most of the inventory before the refresh. Again, working at Microcenter (the Big Lots of computer stores), we saw A LOT of discontinued Airport Extremes. Not long after the last refresh the store started selling a ton of the previous gen at discounted price and they were not acquired from Apple.

Now all the talk is this is because of an FCC change that the routers have to accommodate. Couldn't that be done with a firmware update? I suppose not if Apple is pulling stock.

 

[IJ Reilly]

Well I understand that but what I thought is that they managed production so that they would sell through most of the inventory before the refresh. Again, working at Microcenter (the Big Lots of computer stores), we saw A LOT of discontinued Airport Extremes. Not long after the last refresh the store started selling a ton of the previous gen at discounted price and they were not acquired from Apple.

Now all the talk is this is because of an FCC change that the routers have to accommodate. Couldn't that be done with a firmware update? I suppose not if Apple is pulling stock.

The routers currently in service are being upgraded to comply with a firmware update. Both of mine were flashed with the new firmware yesterday. The difference is the FCC mandate apparently prohibits the sale of new routers without the required firmware after June 2. So Apple is pulling the old stock off the shelves presumably to be updated and returned. The only question is why they waited so long.

 

[danielwsmithee]

And here I was hoping they'd be updating it so it would actually be fast enough to at least somewhat keep up with a Gigabit fiber connection. Everybody in my neighborhood ended up dumping their Airport Extremes do to rediculously slow WAN<->LAN routing performance.

 

[BeefCake 15]

That's actually a brilliant idea. Combine Apple TV, wi-fi, and backup disk all into one device.

My Router running TomatoUSB handles the usual tasks plus NAS and Media storage for the Rasp Pi 2 running my media center. Low power and simple

 

[striders]

Why are people still buying these?

There are gobs better WiFi routers these days with far newer standards. Also people want backup solutions and storage that are many terabytes if they care to store things at home anymore and not the cloud. Not 1 or 2 that Apple wants to offer for a considerable price.

Personally, Apple should get out of this particular market of crappy over designed accessories for a shrinking market.

For me (and many others): TimeMachine integrations. I have tried using non-Apple devices for TimeMachine and it's not just as stable when I have 5 machines to be backup via TimeMachine. This was 3 years ago and haven't gotten a clue if there are other solutions NOW that are more stable.

 

[n-evo]

What is that weird tall airport extreme in the photo in the article?

That's what it looks like for the past 3 years or so.

 

[mpainesyd]

It was the same in 2013 - low stocks just before WWDC and an upgrade well overdue:
https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/time-for-a-time-capsule-refresh.1589729/#post-21744879
Time Capsule is in need of greatly improved hard disk (or SSD??) performance. USB-C would also be handy.

 

[zorinlynx]

I'd like an Airport that supports encryption for attached disks.

Just create an encrypted sparseimage on the attached disk, and store your data there.

 

[jonnysods]

My 2012 TC recently died. Sad that the newest TC Apple offered was 3 years old out of the box. I'll have to check the latest software update.

 

[Weaselboy]

Asus isn't pulling the old stock but are deeply discounting it. There have been fire sales the last few weeks on old routers like the RT-AC68R ($99 at Walmart, Target and T-Mobile) that have the old hardware revisions (non-C1). Asus, at least, seems to be trying to get the old routers out of brick and mortar retailers and replaced with the C1 revision. They didn't do this when they had the B1 revision.

I don't believe that has anything to do with this issue. Asus released updated firmware for their RT-AC68x series routers two weeks ago that addresses this FCC issue.
[doublepost=1464387602][/doublepost]

The routers currently in service are being upgraded to comply with a firmware update. Both of mine were flashed with the new firmware yesterday. The difference is the FCC mandate apparently prohibits the sale of new routers without the required firmware after June 2. So Apple is pulling the old stock off the shelves presumably to be updated and returned. The only question is why they waited so long.

I don't see any evidence the recent firmware update was for this FCC issue. The new FCC rule requires wireless router manufacturers to lock down firmware so it cannot be tweaked to use unauthorized channels, or boost the power on authorized channels. Apple's firmware has never been able to do either of those things, and as far as I have ever been able to find, there is no way to install any third party firmware on an Apple router to enable those features. So even with no update, it appears to me Apple's routers are compliant with the new FCC rule.

 

[arkmannj]

I feel like the FCC regulation should have been that no vendor can make & package a new product after June 2 that doesn't comply with their firmware standard, and that by June 2 the new firmware standard should be available for all models being sold. This pulling off the shelves to comply is strange to me.

So, can someone help enlighten me on what the new firmware is, and the new regulations? will it prevent DD-WRT on other brand routers, etc? also does anyone flash/load custom firmware on an Apple router, ever?

 

[Ener Ji]

My 2012 TC recently died. Sad that the newest TC Apple offered was 3 years old out of the box. I'll have to check the latest software update.

I suppose I should feel fortunate. My 2008 Time Capsule is still limping along. I've been thinking of upgrading for a while but with so many better routers out there I've been expecting Apple to announce a significant upgrade soon. Wave 2 802.11AC, USB3, and a (much) faster CPU capable of speeding up time capsule backups and gigabit internet speeds, please Apple.

 

[Weaselboy]

So, can someone help enlighten me on what the new firmware is, and the new regulations? will it prevent DD-WRT on other brand routers, etc?

Read my post #138 above for what the new FCC rule requires.

It will not prevent DD-WRT from being used in general, but some variants of WRT will have to be be blocked because they do allow using unapproved channels and power boosts to other channels. Whether or not to allow third party firmware is going to be up the router manufacturer. For example, TP-Link has said they are going to block third party altogether. Linksys has said they will allow it on some of their models. Asus has said here they will continue to allow WRT variants that comply with the new rule. I have not noticed what Netgear is doing.

also does anyone flash/load custom firmware on an Apple router, ever?

Apple has never allowed third party firmware on their routers (at least that I have ever seen), and like I mentioned above, for this reason I believe Apple's routers are already compliant with the new rule.

 

[praetorian909]

Locking users out of disabling DFS is software stuff which could be done by a firmware upgrade. Locking the firmware itself more or less, too.

Was wondering the exact same thing. Only thing I could think of is if it's so important that Apple (or the govt) and afraid some people may not apply the firmware update. Like in a safety/recall issue where they actually have to pull it off shelves.

I don't really know what DFS is but seems like a lot of trouble for that.

 

[nekton1]

Except that OS X Server VPN services REALLY suck—buggy as hell. The way to go is to buy a RaspberryPi 3 b model and use the free VPN software on github.

Not quite the same (yes, a VPN server _should_ be built into the Airport), but if you have an always-on Mac at home, VPNs are very easy to set up with OS X Server.

 

[997440]

What are the "rules" our FCC beauracrat masters have devised?

https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/2339685/fcc-software-security-requirements.pdf

Last year, the FCC published a new set of rules that all router vendors must abide by if they want to sell their devices in the US. The rules say that routers should operate within a narrow set of limits.

The reasoning behind this decision was to prevent network interference from misconfigured devices jamming licensed radio frequencies. At its core, the ruling makes technical sense, since some users were in the habit of using custom firmware such as OpenWRT, DD-WRT, or Tomato, often resulting in routers operating at different frequencies than they were initially designed for.

The FCC did not specifically prohibit the act of loading custom open source firmware on these devices, but merely wanted to make clear it will not allow the commercialization of routers that allow users to alter frequency limits, output power, country codes, etc.
.....

Read more: http://news.softpedia.com/news/inte...firmware-in-the-us-501664.shtml#ixzz49u65iBAn

 

[Mr. Wonderful]

I'm really hoping for an update. And not with a bunch of extra software and too many Ethernet ports removed.

 

[Glideslope]

That thing looks like it'll transform and kill you in your sleep.

I was kind of going with the outer section of Superman's Fortress of Solitude?

 

[Viper2005]

I hope the next iteration of the extreme will be fanless. I keep getting tonnes of dust sucked inside mine.

 

[bigpoppamac31]

I'm curious to see if they upgrade the express to 802.11AC. The current version is a joke!

802.11n is still quite speedy. I have an Airport Extreme 4th Gen and it's still plenty fast. That being said I do like the current AE design. My only issue is lack of USB3.

Has anyone considered that they may simply discontinue them? There are tons of routers that offer better speed and better coverage - it's not like this is an outstanding product.

Hope they don't. I find the AE to be the best and easiest to use router on the market. Not only does it look great and is built sturdy but it always works. I've never had any issues with mine.

 

[weup togo]

That makes no sense. A cloud backup only would take sooo much longer to make, and quite a while to restore from.
The actual smart move that follows best practices would be to keep the time capsule AND add a cloud backup option.

this way you have your data backed up locally for the quickest back up making /restoring /browsing AND an offsite copy in an encrypted cloud. The only purpose for a cloud backup is if your house burns down or your primary backup medium fails.

I'm not saying it's a good idea–I think it's idiotic. I'm saying it actually happened.

 

[TsMkLg068426]

Apple creating a Wireless Router that is also like Amazon Echo and built in Apple TV so you no longer need another Airport to extend your wireless. All in Apple device lol.