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AirPort base stations are beginning to sell out or disappear entirely from Apple's online and retail stores in select countries, a few weeks after Apple announced it has discontinued the lineup of routers.

airport_roundup.jpg

The first casualty is the AirPort Extreme, now listed as "sold out" on Apple's online store in the United States, and unavailable for pickup at Apple's retail stores across the country. The base station remains available in limited quantities in select other countries, including Australia, Canada, Japan, and Singapore.

AirPort Express and AirPort Time Capsule models remain in stock on Apple's online store in the United States, and select other countries, but they will eventually sell out too as inventory continues to dwindle.

In addition, the entire AirPort lineup is no longer listed on Apple's online store in several European countries, such as France, Germany, Italy, Spain, and the United Kingdom, as spotted by MacGeneration. It's possible that some of Apple's retail stores still have inventory remaining in those countries.

Apple said that its AirPort products would only remain available while supplies last, so this was to be expected eventually.

Prior to being discontinued, Apple hadn't refreshed its lineup of AirPort base stations in five to six years. The high-end AirPort Extreme and AirPort Time Capsule were last updated at WWDC 2013, while the smaller AirPort Express was last updated in June 2012 and still uses the old 802.11n Wi-Fi standard.

The end of the road for AirPort products comes roughly a year and a half after Bloomberg's Mark Gurman reported that Apple ceased development of the base stations to "sharpen" its focus on other major products.

While the AirPort lineup has been discontinued, Apple will be providing service and parts for the current-generation base stations for up to five more years. Apple also shared a new support document offering tips on choosing a router to use with its devices, and now sells the Linksys Velop mesh system.

Related: Linksys Aims to Fill Apple's AirPort Void With Cheaper Dual-Band Velop Mesh Wi-Fi System

Update: After this article was published, Apple replenished stock of the AirPort Extreme in the United States.

Article Link: Apple Begins to Sell Out of AirPort Base Stations [Updated]
 
I may need to try one before they are gone. I have tried 5 different, high cost 802.11ac routers, and cannot find one that is as stable, reliable and fast as my old 802.11n linksys

Have you given Ubiquiti a try? Their Unifi system is incredible and has been extremely stable for me. They also have a more consumer friendly system called Amplifi which I have not tried.
 
I've been very happy with the Extreme I bought back in 2011-2012 or thereabouts. As long as it keeps functioning, I have no real reason to buy anything else - until there are significant upgrades to wifi itself, anyway.

I'm going to miss Airplay. I'm really not a fan of all-in-one solutions - like the old TV/VCR combos, or airplay-enabled expensive speakers, or "smart" televisions. When you lose one function, you then have an expensive path to remedying the problem. With a pair of nice speakers plugged into an Express, you only have to replace the part that actually breaks. (or with an Apple TV or Roku box - if it stops working you only have to replace an inexpensive box, not a $1000 television)
 
It's not like they were making a bad product. I'm just so surprised a company making this much money is opening up the market with watches and ditching backend products like routers. I clearly don't have the sales numbers and i'm sure there's a valid reason behind cutting the Airport series, but man-o-man, I feel it's one product that was rock solid and helped with introducing everyone to the Apple ecosystem.

It will be interesting to see what Apple has in the next 5 years.
 
Killing off two untouched products to “focus” on other products is total BS. How many iPhones are they coming out with this fall? Exactly.

They are trying to spin this as a Steve Jobs era “focusing”, but really it’s very much a Tim Cook era “bottom line” thing.
 
The latest airport was pretty much using the same Broadcom CPU/WiFi chipset combo as seen in the Asus AC68U and Netgear R7000 both of which had much greater range thanks to external antennas.


Currently the Netgear R7800/Synology RT2600AC/Asus BRT AC828 all of which use the Qualcomm QCA9984 WiFi chipset are the best performing consumer units on 5Ghz handily beating the older routers.The “novelty” MU-MIMO feature actually works on these Qualcomm based units unlike newer Broadcom routers (AC88U/R8500) where MU-MIMO is so badly implemented it actually causes performance loss.
 
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Have you given Ubiquiti a try? Their Unifi system is incredible and has been extremely stable for me. They also have a more consumer friendly system called Amplifi which I have not tried.

Looked a bit at this, but it seems (a) to have some complexity and (B) required a decent investment for router, switch (with power for wifi points), one or more wifi points, and possibly a "controller" - added up to $400+ just for two wifipoints.
 
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While the AirPort lineup has been discontinued, Apple will be providing service and parts for the current-generation base stations for up to five more years.
This is good to know. Unless my AirPort Extreme and Express die before then, it's very likely I'll just keep using them as long as security updates keep getting pushed out.

Just out of curiousity just now, I unplugged the Ethernet cable from my iMac and ran a speed test over wifi, and got about 115 Mbps. Then I plugged the cable back in, turned wifi off and ran it again. Basically the same result. The signal carries through my apartment quite well and if I ever have an issue with my internet it's generally upstream of the Airport. So, yeah, I'm good with what I've got.
 
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Bought a refurbished model late last year. Gonna be really sad whenever it kicks the bucket.

But hey, my 2004 Airport Express is still cranking along, so if I could get 10+ years out of the extreme that'd be sweet.
 
Looked a bit at this, but it seems (a) to have some complexity and (B) required a decent investment for router, switch (with power for wifi points), one or more wifi points, and possibly a "controller" - added up to $400+ just for two wifipoints.
The controller doesn't have to be online all the time, is an application that can run on any windows/linux/mac PC, and then be disabled.

Can use with any gateway or switches.

Several models come with a 802.3/POE injector included. You can get in for as little as $110-120 per AP you want to deploy.

It obviously costs more to go all in with their entire ecosystem, but that's entirely optional.
 
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I love mine. I’m on my 2nd gen too. If these were being discounted I would be another for a backup.

Pick one up refurbished or used on ebay. I got a bunch of 5th gen extremes off ebay cheap and they all work amazing.

Not sure if 6th gen is worth it given I assume they wont be supported anymore with firmware updates?
 
It's not like they were making a bad product. I'm just so surprised a company making this much money is opening up the market with watches and ditching backend products like routers. I clearly don't have the sales numbers and i'm sure there's a valid reason behind cutting the Airport series, but man-o-man, I feel it's one product that was rock solid and helped with introducing everyone to the Apple ecosystem.

It will be interesting to see what Apple has in the next 5 years.
I'm wondering if the Mac line will even exist in 5 years (so they can "focus on other products"). The overall trend seems to be in mobile devices - iPhones, iPads, watches.
 
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