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

[maflynn]

Tim is a beancounter, Steve was a visionary.

Not going to disagree with you, but do you think it makes sense to keep the Airport router going, its a low margin, expensive product that requires a lot of resources to keep going, i.e., updates to the firmware, and what not. I don't knock Apple for getting out of the router business.

Back when Jobs rolled out the Airport router, there were not easy to configure, "it just work" type routers. Wifi was a fairly new phenomenon so it made sense. Now its just a low yield, expensive product that probably is not selling too well.

 

[SactoGuy18]

Not going to disagree with you, but do you think it makes sense to keep the Airport router going, its a low margin, expensive product that requires a lot of resources to keep going, i.e., updates to the firmware, and what not. I don't knock Apple for getting out of the router business.

Hence my suggestion earlier that Apple might be releasing soon a specification for a Certified for Apple program for wireless routers. I'm sure Apple may be quietly talking with Asus, D-Link, Linksys, Netgear and TP-Link about such a specification.

 

[maflynn]

Hence my suggestion earlier that Apple might be releasing soon a specification for a Certified for Apple program for wireless routers. I'm sure Apple may be quietly talking with Asus, D-Link, Linksys, Netgear and TP-Link about such a specification.

I don't see them doing that, No company is going to spend money, time or energy to be "certified", there's really no incentive to do that, as it really won't, imo, increase sales. Those companies will only do such actions if they think they'll make money, not lose money.

 

[bohbot16]

I went ahead and ordered an eero system. They're having a sale today that's advertised in the details of their app update.
https://appsto.re/us/dTva9.i

I already moved from AirPlay to Sonos last year as the room-to-room audio sync was always off with AirPlay and works perfectly with Sonos.

 

[cwwilson]

Looks like Apple is in the midst of a major restructuring. No more Displays, no more AirPorts, and I'm going to guess no more Mac Pros. I awonder how long the iMac has left to live, seeing as it didn't get unveiled along with the new MacBooks. It appears Apple is going to all but abandon their computer line to focus on the phone, tablet, and watch.

Apple is walking a slippery slope. They better be careful.

 

[MrGuder]

The bottom line on this whole thread is Apple should NOT take away something that actually works.

 

[dogslobber]

This just sounds like evolution of the product base to me. Apple pulled out of the printer business due to margins so perhaps the profit return wasn't significant for monitors and routers to warrant their attention.

Finite resources, etc.

Pretty sad though as the AirPort Extreme is genuinely an amazing product.

 

[dannys1]

I am not surprised Apple did this. I mean, you could get as much capability of the Airport Extreme with the excellent Asus RT-AC68U for at least US$30 less money.

Just but look at the state of it - as I said, looks like a transformers toy on a teenagers shelf and we're supposed to have this in our living rooms? It'll also need rebooting more and won't be as reliable or stable.

Apart from adopting wireless protocols first, the Airport line was never about advanced features or hard specs - as usual with Apple it was about solid reliability and lack of troubleshooting (and looking good!)
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So finally you decide to side with us. For some time I've always felt you were an Apple shill who never opposes their moves. Perhaps you are human after all.

I oppose their bad moves quite frequently. It's just complaining about far superior USB-C ports is not a bad move, it's a very Jobs-eqsue ruthless progression forwards.

 

[576316]

I've been saying that there should be iCloud backups for Mac, for years now. It's a logical step and has gotta be more convenient than an external drive/NAS drive for most people! Plus iCloud storage is relatively cheap...

I think Apple discontinuing AirPort and Time Capsule pushes us towards that reality.

 

[Rob_2811]

I've been saying that there should be iCloud backups for Mac, for years now. It's a logical step and has gotta be more convenient than an external drive/NAS drive for most people! Plus iCloud storage is relatively cheap...

I think Apple discontinuing AirPort and Time Capsule pushes us towards that reality.

and unencrypted..

 

[le.bouch]

I've been saying that there should be iCloud backups for Mac, for years now. It's a logical step and has gotta be more convenient than an external drive/NAS drive for most people! Plus iCloud storage is relatively cheap...

I think Apple discontinuing AirPort and Time Capsule pushes us towards that reality.

A 1.85TB iCloud backup...? Speed? Cost? Reliability?

 

[Return Zero]

No... perhaps in 15 years or so, but the most modern of best practices in terms of data backup (which is what your cloud comment seems to be pointed at) is to have AT LEAST 1 backup onsite and 1 backup offsite. having your data in the cloud is not a backup at all. However if you were to assume your data is on your computers hard drive (ie not in a folder that is being synced to the cloud) then having a backup of that data reside in the cloud is only HALF of the proper solution.

And restoring your data from the cloud (many hundreds of gigabytes typically) takes FOREVER... and with home internet companies starting to impose monthly data caps, restoring your 1TB hard drive from the cloud is going to cost you in overages on your home internet connection AND take up most if not your entire weekend.

Having a local copy resolves ALL of that (while still needing one offsite can be fulfilled by the cloud backup).

The point is that this incessant belief that the cloud is now and the cloud does all is retarded with the current state of things. At best, the cloud currently compliments traditional setups, but it will be a decade until it's reliability, pricing, and availability (significant portions of the US are still slave to DSL or dial up) actually reach levels that are acceptable.

I largely agree with you. I'm just saying this move makes sense as a business move for Apple in the continuing industry trend towards mobile devices and cloud solutions. I was talking about a "perfect" cloud world which of course doesn't exist (as you say, maybe in 15 years if ever).

 

[weup togo]

I've been saying that there should be iCloud backups for Mac, for years now. It's a logical step and has gotta be more convenient than an external drive/NAS drive for most people! Plus iCloud storage is relatively cheap...

I think Apple discontinuing AirPort and Time Capsule pushes us towards that reality.

Enjoy your three day restore time, during which you cannot touch your machine. But you're right, that's Apple's plan. It will be a complete disaster.

 

[Return Zero]

If everything is in the cloud, how long do you think it would take someone to restore a Mac with an image size of say 750GB over the internet? In comparisan, how long would it take doing it locally?

If the Cloud can't offer better solutions than existing ones, then it's not a viable option for the masses.

I'm not saying the cloud is perfect now, or ever will be. If you want to talk about the masses, well, the majority of people don't back up their data at all unfortunately. Personally I know very few people who actually keep a proper local backup of their data, much less own a Time Capsule. I have one and I love it. I'm just saying this is like the headphone jack. Apple wants to move away from something that works fine now, and move towards something that will work better in the future (when internet speeds are much higher and more reliable), even if it means going through a period where usability is inferior (e.g. lightning adapter for headphones). I never said I prefer this, just that it makes sense for Apple, their business model, and their vision.
[doublepost=1479915000][/doublepost]

Enjoy your three day restore time, during which you cannot touch your machine. But you're right, that's Apple's plan. It will be a complete disaster.

It would only be on the order of a couple of hours with proper gigabit internet, which is closer than people think and already a reality for many.
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You're forgetting that AirPlay is a whole house audio solution similar to Sonos - local hardware (Airport Express units) need to communicate with each other over the wifi network to get the audio in sync.

Perhaps Apple will release a cheap Airplay Dongle like Google did for their ecosystem. Though I won't hold my breath. #Apple.

Not forgetting... Also you can AirPlay without an AirPort anyway. The tech industry has decided its own future, and that's IoT. Devices will have all that's necessary to communicate built-in, no separate AirPort device necessary. It's just the way things are going and Apple is going with it.

 

[EdT]

I've been saying that there should be iCloud backups for Mac, for years now. It's a logical step and has gotta be more convenient than an external drive/NAS drive for most people! Plus iCloud storage is relatively cheap...

I think Apple discontinuing AirPort and Time Capsule pushes us towards that reality.

And it pushes me and others with no high speed internet access further away from Apple. My upload speed is 512k. That's 512 thousand BITS, not bytes, per second. Uploading a new backup could take days, literally. And if something messes up your OS and now your internet doesn't work, and the problem is the computer? Now even if you have Gigabit upload and download you're hosed. You can't connect to the cloud to restore your computer, period. That's completely ignoring security concerns that the cloud, anyone's cloud, has yet to address. What if Apple screws up your account and claims you didn't pay your monthly/yearly rental fee? How long are you willing to be denied access to your data while you (hopefully) get the situation straightened out?

 

[Return Zero]

But how? No Airport. So we have to resort to third party wifi routers with their own set of issues, right?

I particularly loved one thing about Airport Express. It had a 3.5mm jack I used to connect my sound system to, and play music via the phone or tablet or MacBook from anywhere I was. That was Apple brilliance.

I don't know, if to date any other router has such features without looking or being obscene.

Eventually? Gigabit Satellite or Cellular internet will be everywhere. Right now? Yes, third party routers. I'm not saying I prefer this... I love my Time Capsule. But just look at the iPhone 7 for example. No headphone jack, have to use an adapter. Sucks now, but the industry is going wireless, and Apple wants to be on the leading edge (at the risk of pissing off many consumers who prefer the status quo).

 

[Razeus]

Switching to a system with lastest, advanced hardware and pro software with no lock in is looking better and better everyday:

 

[576316]

A 1.85TB iCloud backup...? Speed? Cost? Reliability?

Enjoy your three day restore time, during which you cannot touch your machine. But you're right, that's Apple's plan. It will be a complete disaster.

And it pushes me and others with no high speed internet access further away from Apple. My upload speed is 512k. That's 512 thousand BITS, not bytes, per second. Uploading a new backup could take days, literally. And if something messes up your OS and now your internet doesn't work, and the problem is the computer? Now even if you have Gigabit upload and download you're hosed. You can't connect to the cloud to restore your computer, period. That's completely ignoring security concerns that the cloud, anyone's cloud, has yet to address. What if Apple screws up your account and claims you didn't pay your monthly/yearly rental fee? How long are you willing to be denied access to your data while you (hopefully) get the situation straightened out?

Y'all talking like it wouldn't be optional. It would only really appeal to people with Macs that have a relatively low data footprint and users who have a reasonably fast connection.

 

[macintoshmac]

Switching to a system with lastest, advanced hardware and pro software with no lock in is looking better and better everyday:

Sure does. But I am not very keen on worrying about virus and trojans just yet. The ONE thing that keeps me on the Mac platform amidst the constant erosion of goodness, is that there is still no real constant threat of virus from flash drives and internet JUST YET. It is not as mainstream as in the Windows world.

 

[EdT]

Y'all talking like it wouldn't be optional. It would only really appeal to people with Macs that have a relatively low data footprint and users who have a reasonably fast connection.

I can't speak for other users, but in the 9 years I have owned an iMac or MacBook I have needed to restore my system 3 times, the last time being in June of this year. Each time was at the direction of Apple support, and each time it did fix the problem, which neither I nor Apple support could diagnose what was wrong. This last time, in June, the problem was my internet connection. I could connect fine to devices on my LAN but my internet connection was INCREDIBLY slow, too slow for speed test programs to give me either an upload or a download speed. I have 2 MacBooks, 2 iPads and 2 iPhones on the same network, they all connected to the internet at speeds that were normal for my service.

The situation I described in my previous post, about not being able to connect to the internet, isn't hypothetical for me, it happened about 6 months ago. Doing a complete restore from TC from a time before the problem started solved the problem, whatever it was.

 

[Faelan]

No, it's the Synology router setup. The OS is very similar and the UI almost identical except they call it SRM (Synology Router Management) rather than DSM (Disk Station Management).
It's a brilliant router and possibly the most feature rich one I've ever used

So they make routers as well? Huh. I honestly didn't know! You learn something new every day. I'll keep that in mind when it's time to replace my ASUS router.

 

[MacBj]

Just saw this, it seems like engineers worked on routers have been redeployed to other teams: http://appleinsider.com/articles/16...ision-apparently-signaling-the-end-of-airport

I have been thinking for some time that it is strange for Apple not to have release an AC version of the airport express and not to have updated the airport extreme after 3.5 years (previous update cycles have been quite shorter), so I tend to think this rumour makes sense.

If this correct I will regret the AirPort product line. I like those products very much as for me they have been very stable, and their compact size combined with internal antennas and power supply makes them much sleeker and tidier than "regular" routers in my opinion.

If this is going forward I would also wonder what the plan is for Time Machine. The technology was released alongside the Time Capsule and while it works Apple never really promoted its use with third-party hardware. If the Time Capsule is going, Time Machine might follow the same route in a future release of macOS (and I wouldn't be surprised if Apple tried to push a new iCloud online backup service as an alternative, which might or might not please Time Capsule users).

I think you're thinking in the right direction.........

 

[9081094]

There is clearly more in the works here. Apple is a forward thinking company. The reason this got axed is they're working on something that essentially will trounce this technology. Mark my words.

If this is true... wouldn't it be more logical to axe the product when the better alternative arrives? Apple used to be famous by offering the best user experience in the market. By axing all those products which maybe aren't a money machine their ecosystem is getting smaller and smaller and in the end will extinct.

If they truly are focusing on the best user experience they would keep an Apple solution in place. Today they're driving people away from Apple and buy them other brands. Those same other brands are innovating at a rapid pace and offering open ecosystems. Those other ecosystems are getting more attractive by the day because they innovate at reasonable prices.

I'm sure Apple is having a plan to lure (new) customers to their stores... I only don't see it, I hope time will tell.

 

[navier]

I wish Apple would spin off the computer division as Apple Computer Inc., and let them run autonomously. Maybe then we would get new routers, new desktop machines, new external displays, and upgradeable RAM and HDDs. Wouldn't that be crazy?

or Tesla start making computers ;-)

 

[bohbot16]

I'm guessing new machines that ship with macOS 10.13 and APFS won't even be able to use Time Machine.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_File_System