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Apple Ceases Development of 'AirPort' Wireless Routers as Engineers Reassigned to Other Products

Wow, what a bummer. It was the only router I had that would get security updates for years after purchase....most consumers ones would drop off after a year if that.

Apple is just destroying their sticky (from a consumer standpoint) ecosystem before our eyes. And iPhones are not sticky ecosystems...much more pray to whim and consumer's tastes than Mac's or Airport's. Moving everything to the one (current) high margin product that currently sells phenomenally is not good long term strategy. Oh well...what a shame.
 
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andy.ringwood said:
Meh. Who cares? This product probably makes up 0.00001% of their revenue. They have more important things to focus on.

Cue Apple are Doomed posts...
Click to expand...

There are primary products and support products. Support products will almost always themselves be more cost/overhead and less a profit focus. They are a brand value addition. Apple seems to be forgetting it.

Roads as a generality don't make money. But they are required to connect the rest of the economic ventures.
 
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Personally I really like my Time Capsule, I even have two Airport Expresses in my house to extend my network and they all really work great and were simple to set up. This is quite disappointing if true.
 
You can backup Time Machine to just about any HD or SSD and NSD. If Apple let you backup to iCloud Drive the would be
another option. There are tons of great wifi routers on the market.
 
Apple, it seems, is increasingly choosing to overlook just what it was that made its customers so loyal to the brand.

Decisions like this, if true, will bite them in the ass when customers are forced to look to others for products Apple once supplied, generally find that things work as well, and as a consequence become more likely to try other manufacturers for products including the core Apple products such as their PC and phone.

Loyalty it seems is increasingly one sided these days. The Apple of old cared about end to end experience and covering all the major ecosystem bases. The Apple of today it seems prioritizes profit. It will take time, of course, but customer loyalty will start to wane and those massive profits Apple earns today may prove to be somewhat pyrrhic...
 
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davemchine said:
I currently use airport express units to send music around my house. What product can I use to do this once those are gone?
Click to expand...

Sonos. At a significantly higher cost, mind you. However, Apple will gladly sell you Sonos speakers in their store now.

It sounds like I'm not a fan of Sonos, but I really am. I have three of their speakers and they work very well and sound great. That said, I recognize that not everyone wants to drop $175+ (when you get them on sale) for one speaker in a proprietary speaker system. For those people, the AirPort Express (used to be) a compelling option.
 
How many people on this tread, actually have an Apple Airport extreme. Another reason for Apple to get out
of the business is because most cable companies give out modems with wifi included...
 
They'll probably just combine the Apple TV and Aiport into 1 device. That way you have a hard ethernet line connected to the AppleTV for a faster and more reliable data connection.
 
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I bet the folks over at Microsoft are thinking, "we could get into the router business" right about now. It seems like they're increasingly taking pages from Apple's playbook from about 10 years ago.
 
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Sad to see this product go. Hopefully they've got something else up their sleeve.

And by the way... Refurbished 3TB Time Capsules are currently in the online Apple Store, for anyone who's interested. In the Mac > Mac Accessories section.
 
lenard said:
How many people on this tread, actually have an Apple Airport extreme. Another reason for Apple to get out
of the business is because most cable companies give out modems with wifi included...
Click to expand...

That's more than likely the real issue. They need to find some massive value add to get people to go beyond the default.
 
This may have been mentioned, but if not...

There was an iOS update two or three months ago that removed Airport Express devices from the up-swipe menu. Suddenly, it only referenced only Apple TVs. (That and the sudden inclusion of Sonos into the Apple world put the writing on the wall that Airport Expresses were on their way out.) It's only a matter of time before the iOS music player app itself will no longer let you look up Airport Express devices. And this is yet another example of why I'm so angry at myself for going so far down the Apple ecosystem rabbit hole.

I have lots of old stereo gear that works just dandy. I don't want Sonos speakers. I don't need Sonos speakers. And I don't want to have to hook a TV up to each stereo to utilize Apple TVs for all of my rooms/equipment. What I want and need is a simple device to wirelessly transmit iOS audio to gear I already own.

Appreciate any feedback. Am I missing a simple, better solution? Raspberry Pi? Something else?

Ugh.
 
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It looks like Apple is actually phasing out of the computer & computer accessory market. They are concentrating on iPhone & AI tech. And apparently considering the auto industry. I wonder how long the MacBook line has left before Apple fades into a relic computing history.
 
Populism said:
This may have been mentioned, but if not...

There was an iOS update two or three months ago that removed Airport Express devices from the up-swipe menu. Suddenly, it only referenced only Apple TVs. It's only a matter of time before the iOS music player app itself will no longer let you look up Airport Express devices.

Ugh.
Click to expand...

I can still reach my remote speakers attached to airports from the control center?
 
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Apple boardroom convo: We need to stop making the Apple products millions of our customers use and only make the ones billions of our customers use. That way, we make more money! Muahahahaha! When will the saucer be ready for lift off?
 
Apple has gone from “It just works” to “It just gets worse”. First cutting displays, now all their routers. Next, no more Mac Pro and Mini. It’s iPhones, watch bands, and maybe iPad’s. Cook has destroyed Jobs’ work, not only fragmenting product lines but product teams and production.

Shutting down router production and spreading the team across projects without a system to lead it is ludicrous. Third party routers? Routers are far different from displays. I remember Apple pushing out an update to the 5th gen AEBS just after its release to enable wireless "N" before it was adopted by anyone else on the market. Now? This is just sad.

This is the first and only time I will state this: Cook needs to go.
 
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Another day and another Apple product waiting for a refresh gets dumped, nice one, when will Apples stock get dumped in the same manner with investors 'reassigning' their money?
So no wireless AD or MIMO or MU MIMO support, and I bet in a few months they will just pull the product entirely including the TimeCapsule product which makes Apple even more of a mess of a joke.

Cooks and CO's new Apple keeps on scrapping all the things you loved about Apple....

I'm seriously considering getting an LG Nexus 5X, because I can update that over the air without then having to wipe it and set it up from scratch because of bugs... my £700 iPhone 7 hung when I tried to make a call with it over Bluetooth in my car because the line was engaged.... the iPhone crashed and burned whilst being used as a phone....... my older Nexus 5 has NEVER done that.
 
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cmaier said:
I can still reach my remote speakers attached to airports from the control center?
Click to expand...

I appreciate the feedback. Perhaps its user error. With the last big update a couple of months ago, it seemed to disappear.

EDIT: Because of your post, I just googled and found this. Looks like there was a change, but that I can change it back. Appreciate the feedback.

https://www.lifewire.com/airplay-icon-missing-fix-1999255
 
This is seriously not ok. I do all of my backups via Time Capsule, and like how it's the only router I've ever had that just works.

I can't believe I will no longer be able to be completely in the Apple ecosystem as a result of Apple's own doing, between the lack of new displays and now no Time Capsule. Guess I better hang on to all this really old junk as long as humanly possible:

28141634071_5c5ff7909a_b.jpg
 
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