AirPort Routers Ranked Highest in Customer Satisfaction as Apple Halts Further Development

It is funny how we're talking about a 3+ year old product line still ranking as the best on the market. In another forum when the news broke about the reassignment of engineers, some people were complaining that the Airports were not the fastest or offered the newest connections, yet it's clear that most consumers don't need or even care about bleeding edge performance - especially when so many are still effectively hampered by their ISP speed, not their in-home wifi speed.
 
So what if it's the highest rated router that makes customers lives easier?!

We know what customers want, and they would much rather prefer the new shade of green watch band theat we're working on.
 
JeffPerrin said:
I think all the bloggers have overlooked the biggest reason Apple is getting out of the router biz: most every ISP in the country now, or will soon include router and wi-fi capabilities built-in as part of their modem hardware.

Hard to compete with "free"...
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Easy to compete with free. I threw out my BT Homehub and bought an Airport Express to replace it, because it was such rubbish. (Had to buy an OpenReach modem, but that was a fiver on eBay).
 
johngordon said:
Apple have stopped refreshing the iMac?

Swear to God I didn't know that. When did that happen?

Glad I got one of those late 2015 iMacs all those months ago.
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People just NEED to whine about things. Apple seems to be the something they have chosen to whine about on this website surprisingly. /s

The last refresh was Oct 2015 and Apple hasnt done one this year, so the complaining has begun :)
 
recoil80 said:
But really profitable.
It is better to sell a subscription than a product that can last for 10 years. And once you put your data on iCloud is even more convenient to have an Apple device, so you stick with their ecosystem.
Sad move for customer, great move for the company
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That seems to sum up almost all of Tim Cooks decisions.
 
JakeBondo said:
I do not mind switching to eero or another new mesh router but what do I do about itunes streaming? I have several airport extremes connected to receivers around my house it works so well for me.
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Most new routers have support for iTunes streaming as well now.
 
JeffPerrin said:
I think all the bloggers have overlooked the biggest reason Apple is getting out of the router biz: most every ISP in the country now, or will soon include router and wi-fi capabilities built-in as part of their modem hardware.

Hard to compete with "free"...
Click to expand...
Not only free but also mandatory.

In several countries (including my own) i have to put some serious effort not to use the provided hardware or to supplement it with your own router.
 
pika2000 said:
Well, it sounded like sarcasm, but the latest Airport Extremes can only be setup and configured with Macs/iDevices.
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As has already been pointed out, this is false. My airport utility 5.6.1 works just fine on my Windows 10 machine and will configure my Airport Extremes and Express. It's how I set up my latest extreme to extend my network in the new house.
 
JeffPerrin said:
I think all the bloggers have overlooked the biggest reason Apple is getting out of the router biz: most every ISP in the country now, or will soon include router and wi-fi capabilities built-in as part of their modem hardware.

Hard to compete with "free"...
Click to expand...

Not free. Almost every ISP out there charges a monthly rental fee for their equipment.
 
chiefsilverback said:
Problem is they're not "free" and they are configured for the ISPs benefit, not the consumers. When I had FiOS I had Verizon activate the ethernet port on the fibre box thingy so I could use my Airport Extreme as my router. Now I'm on Comcast I have my own Arris Surfboard modem and my Extreme is still my router. I don't pay Comcast a monthly rental fee and I have complete control of my hardware!
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Yeah, I'm tempted to go this route too, seeing as Comcast is my only option here.

One thing I noticed with my mom's DSL modem (w/wi-fi) is that after rebooting (for ex., power outage) it defaults to the built-in wi-fi, even if an Airport Express router is connected. Took me a while to realize this was happening... My point being is that once you introduce another component, tech support gets that much stickier. Most people won't/can't deal with this sort of complexity.

I hope, at least, that Apple will tweak Airport Utility to work with 3rd-party routers so users can easily set their network and router security settings.
 
It is really annoying that they stop developing all the products that I like and use. Aperture, Airports, Mac mini, what's next????
 
Martyimac said:
As has already been pointed out, this is false. My airport utility 5.6.1 works just fine on my Windows 10 machine and will configure my Airport Extremes and Express. It's how I set up my latest extreme to extend my network in the new house.
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Read again, and check Apple's own website. I said the latest Airport Extreme.
Oh yeah, I know because I own one.
 
Xavier said:
It might be possible that the Apple TV and Apple router could be combined into a more robust media center. The evolution of both products kind of align with a living room media center.
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It's possible, but unlikely. I've found that in the past few years, speculating about what Apple will do is even more futile an exercise than it was in the Jobs era. I think that we Apple aficionados are still basing our speculation on 'old' Apple. It's happened more than once now that we'd all fling tons of virtual ink about things that Apple might do, and it used to be that sometimes we'd even be right, but lately, not so much. I think Apple's gotten to the point where the underlying impetus has shifted, and it makes it harder to speculate. I think we're used to forming our speculations on "the company that makes products to delight itself and its users". If you want a more real-world outcome, it's probably better to form speculations on "the company that makes a ton of cash and wants to keep doing so".
 
Apple Routers are/were well designed and solid, and I loved the ease of the airport utility interface, but they've fallen a bit behind in features.

You have to remember that this survey is not necessarily an indication of actual quality, rather user perception of quality. Apple customers aren't exactly known for their lack of bias towards Apple products, so I suspect there's a bit of skew in the results...
 
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