But those are horrible. I've tried multiple. They are the worst possible routers. No strength. No reliability. For many of us, reliable internet is very important. It's worth paying money to use good hardware.
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AirPort Routers Ranked Highest in Customer Satisfaction as Apple Halts Further Development
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Why doesn't Apple release the better product first, then discontinue the old product after it has proven itself? Because they DON'T have the courage. In reality, they think they are big enough that it does not matter. Will it does and until Apple feels the pain with lower profits, they will continue to ignore their unfashionable and ugly customers who work and think outside the box. Apple is not the least bit inclusive (except in their marketing), because with Apple there is only one way, their way, the popular way, the high school click obsessed way, the politically correct way, the way to fill landfills, and they need to learn.
Apple has a great engineering team, product and brand that that is being ruined by a closed minded and exclusionist management. Its time they heard the truth.
How do I know this? Because if they licensed their Airport routers to another company, that company would make a huge profit. If they licensed their macOS to another company making work station class computers, that company would find a way to make a huge profit. Apple limiting their products is not about profit as some have suggested, it is all about image, popularity, and control. Its time to just say no.
True, except you can configure them from any Apple iPhone or iPad -- meaning quite a few of those Windows users still have a device to set them up with, possibly right in their pocket.
All in all, I think the Airport has always been a very good product -- but "the top rated"? Honestly, I'd say that almost has to be thanks only to user ignorance. It's clear that newer routers like the Netgear Nighthawk or higher end models from ASUS are vastly superior to the Airport Extreme in features and flexibility. But all of those configurable options mean you have to have the knowledge to understand what they all do.
I've always appreciated how many routers on the market have built in support for dynamic DNS services, for example. That's a feature Apple consistently leaves out. I guess Apple figures its users won't generally be savvy enough to have set up a DynDNS address, so they won't care?
All in all, I think the Airport has always been a very good product -- but "the top rated"? Honestly, I'd say that almost has to be thanks only to user ignorance. It's clear that newer routers like the Netgear Nighthawk or higher end models from ASUS are vastly superior to the Airport Extreme in features and flexibility. But all of those configurable options mean you have to have the knowledge to understand what they all do.
I've always appreciated how many routers on the market have built in support for dynamic DNS services, for example. That's a feature Apple consistently leaves out. I guess Apple figures its users won't generally be savvy enough to have set up a DynDNS address, so they won't care?
Love my time capsule, the range is great.
Is this really news? The current lineup supports Wireless ac which is still faster than most service providers (and most equipment) can use. When they need to come back to add capability of the next technology, I am sure they will.
But seriously, this sounds like they are transitioning to an Alexa-type product, perhaps they will act as little repeaters in each room they are located in.
Is this really news? The current lineup supports Wireless ac which is still faster than most service providers (and most equipment) can use. When they need to come back to add capability of the next technology, I am sure they will.
But seriously, this sounds like they are transitioning to an Alexa-type product, perhaps they will act as little repeaters in each room they are located in.
Yeah.. they definitely want us to "get in the ecosystem and don't leave" with all these Apple products being slashed like.. I don't know... half of them? No displays.. no network and backup tech... no Mac Mini update.. lackluster MacBook Pro update... no Imac update... no mac pro update. Yeah I totally see the strategy of Apple.
Thing is, once your out, you are out. I just build myself a new hackintosh. Already I'm looking at Android phones to replace my ageing iPhone 5S and tablets to replace my iPad.
They are really being stupid strategically speaking, with Apple's current short-term profit vision ignoring the long-term. I'm not sure if Apple loyalists will keep loyal in the 2nd dark age after the 90's.
Thing is, once your out, you are out. I just build myself a new hackintosh. Already I'm looking at Android phones to replace my ageing iPhone 5S and tablets to replace my iPad.
They are really being stupid strategically speaking, with Apple's current short-term profit vision ignoring the long-term. I'm not sure if Apple loyalists will keep loyal in the 2nd dark age after the 90's.
Not only that, but the firewall is these devices are toys, that are not configurable and do not protect anything but the most basic services. In fact they are purposely left open so that they don't cause problems for the cable provider. I know most people don't care about having their computers used world wide by thieves, thugs, and hostile governments, but I do and my close family members do. I would never connect my home computers directly to a cable providers box.
Mine is also "modem only" and goes directly into a real firewall. Every time I have changed ISPs, within minutes of connecting the new ISP using a new IP address there are multiple hacking attempts. I am pretty sure I lose 1 - 2% of my bandwidth to hacking attempts, excluding denial of service hacks.
Apple is too busy creating a spaceship they call a campus and worrying about watchbands.
I don't think they did themselves any favors when they cut Windows support on the newer models. I used a second gen Airport for 10 years with no problems (best router I have ever owned) and I refused to buy the new model because you needed an Iphone or Ipod to configure it if you wanted to use them with Windows.
There is absolutely no reason to anymore. If you buy an Apple product today, the product will be discontinued, broken, or obsoleted tomorrow in order to force you to buy some new product to keep their profits up. Their reliability is down. Their attitude is bad. Their repairability is terrible. Their ability to fill landfills is super. The performance of all products except top of the line iPhone is down. But their marketing makes sure that if you don't think too hard, you see the amazing products they deliver.
I bought a 5th Generation AirPort Extreme and had to remove it and go back to the Virgin Modem as the Airport couldn't broadcast a signal from the front to the back of the 2 bedroom terraced house I live in. My daughter's iPhone had zero wifi some 15-20 feet away from it. Disappointed doesn't even come close. All the reviews I'd read said "much better than Virgin's routers, greater broadcast range and better speeds". I found the exact opposite.
I'll be moving house soon (to another 2 bedroomed terrace) so intend to give it a second chance and place it more centrally in the house (it was in the downstairs front room in my current house).
But thus far I'm General Lee Unimpressed.
I'll be moving house soon (to another 2 bedroomed terrace) so intend to give it a second chance and place it more centrally in the house (it was in the downstairs front room in my current house).
But thus far I'm General Lee Unimpressed.
My response to Apple halting development was to buy the latest 2TB Airport Time Capsule to replace my older one, and I stuck a 6TB WD Red[1] in it. It'll give me 802.11ac for the future (only need 802.11n now), gives me tons of headroom for my set-it-and-forget-it on-site backups, and I know will never be a hassle.
That's what I liked about the Time Capsule and Time Machine. I never have to bother with it. It just works.
[1] The WD60EFRX has far lower power consumption than the 2TB WD Green it replaced, and was the most reliable 6TB drive so far -- by a huge margin -- in BackBlaze's drive reliability results for the tens of thousands of drives they use in their datacenter. 0.8% annualized failure rate is pretty damn good. Time Capsule's fan now never kicks on due to the lower power consumption, and with a much lower load on the power supply it should serve me well for the next 6 to 7 years.
That's what I liked about the Time Capsule and Time Machine. I never have to bother with it. It just works.
[1] The WD60EFRX has far lower power consumption than the 2TB WD Green it replaced, and was the most reliable 6TB drive so far -- by a huge margin -- in BackBlaze's drive reliability results for the tens of thousands of drives they use in their datacenter. 0.8% annualized failure rate is pretty damn good. Time Capsule's fan now never kicks on due to the lower power consumption, and with a much lower load on the power supply it should serve me well for the next 6 to 7 years.
One of the reasons I finally broke down and bought a Synology NAS. It handles all my storage with mirror backup, and with an attached portable hard drive, holds the Time Machine backups for all our devices. It was a few hundred bucks up front, but all I need to worry about now is disaster recovery. Will have to get into the habit of taking regular backups and storing offsite.
I don't know what your point is. I have the most recent Airport Extreme, Model #A1521. Not 10 minutes ago, I opened up Airport Utility 5.6.1 (the most current version available for windows) on my windows PC running Windows 10, made changes to my system and updated the AE. I can't be any more straight forward than this. Airport Utility 5.6.1 works just fine on the Airport Extreme tower models with 802.11AC.
Your posts are on this topic are wrong unless your ONLY point is that Airport Utility 6.3.2 is not available for Windows.
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So, you want Apple to release a "better product" before reassigning the team which was working on AirPort stuff to other projects? Isn't that kind of backwards? It's not like they're discontinuing the product and halting manufacturing, they just reassigned the people who were working on a new one (which in all likelihood was probably the same product they're working on now, just in a different department).
I can't address whether features are missing compared to the Apple version. What I am telling you is everything I have had to do to my system I can do with the windows version, and that current version is 5.6.1 .
They certainly do, but there's no evidence to suggest that coverage and performance were the main contributing factors that led to high satisfaction scores. Additionally, while Apple's router offerings are very good, there's no objective review article anywhere that shows that they're leaps and bounds better than anything else on the market when it comes to coverage and performance, so that tells me that the high customer satisfaction rating is coming more from other, more irrelevant factors - including fanboyism.
Best I can tell, all this hand-wringing is still based on just the one anonymously-sourced article about Apple reassigning staff to other projects.
They're still selling and supporting the devices. They'll make an actual announcement and pull the things from the shelves if they're actually 'abandoning' the products. Reading this article followed by (so far) 347 angst-filled comments is like watching lemmings dive off a cliff.
They're still selling and supporting the devices. They'll make an actual announcement and pull the things from the shelves if they're actually 'abandoning' the products. Reading this article followed by (so far) 347 angst-filled comments is like watching lemmings dive off a cliff.
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