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

[lowendlinux]

You can't pretend to offer the best consumer computer infrastructure/integration with a wireless router NOT in the lineup. I can see express and time capsule as gravy, but a wireless router is the bread and butter for today's wireless home.

My fear is that Apple marketing department will use this "hole" in the Apple universe to force us to buy some other product (e.g. Apple Speaker) to get the wireless router functionality. Artificially boosting sale of target device by force....

IMHO it's because they didn't want to get into the WiFi mesh business and compete at preset prices. While I still think that Apple offers an unparalleled eco-system if you're an Apple home or even partially Apple google's is more complete. Chromebook and box/Google WiFi/ProjectFi/Android/Cast really has all your bases covered with the obvious caveats.

 

[Uofmtiger]

Eero and Linksys have competing wifi mesh products that are getting good reviews. I will go for something like those when I need to replace my Extreme.

I have the Orbi setup and love it.

 

[bingeciren]

Even the AirPlay and the print share feature of the Express is enough to justify its usefulness. I use a number of AE to extend my wifi coverage and distribute music around the house. I'd hate to see it being discontinued.

 

[jblagden]

Well Mac OS High Sierra redefines the need for time capsule backups with AFPS snapshots and iCloud backups.. so it seems like time capsules are dead.

Hopefully we get a new extreme at some point.

And all your backups will be in the cloud - take that any way you want.

 

[toke lahti]

The AirPort Extreme AC was introduced in 2013, and caps at 1.3Gbps. Faster services are coming and they should stay in the game.

And if you want truly over 1G speeds, you can buy 10/5/2.5G pcie-ethernet card for cMP for a bit more than 100 bucks. For all newer macs you need tb-box that costs over 300 bucks.
And now that over 1G affordable wired connections have arrived, after a wait over a decade, of course airports will never support NbaseT...

 

[Uofmtiger]

Even the AirPlay and the print share feature of the Express is enough to justify its usefulness. I use a number of AE to extend my wifi coverage and distribute music around the house. I'd hate to see it being discontinued.

I believe the print feature can be done with Orbis (the satellite has Ethernet ports and a USB 2 input) and they extend Wi-Fi without the bandwidth hit you take with the Airport Express. A lot of printers now work with Wi-Fi, so it isn’t as much of a necessity as it used to be.

The AirPlay feature is currently the most useful feature IMO, so I am hoping they come out with a stand alone device with optical and analog outputs that is AirPlay 2 compatible. The AppleTV doesn’t make a lot of sense for audio only setups. There are a lot of third party devices that can fill the role of the Airport Express for AirPlay, but I would definitely like to see an Apple solution with AirPlay 2. I don’t think it needs to have router capabilities, though. This type of device may hurt initial sales of the HomePod, so if they put out such a device, I would not be surprised if it came out much later.

 

[Mr. Wonderful]

It's crazy to me. The HomePod seems like the natural fit for a mesh networking system. Really surprised they didn't include it in the first gen system.

 

[Luba]

And if you want truly over 1G speeds, you can buy 10/5/2.5G pcie-ethernet card for cMP for a bit more than 100 bucks. For all newer macs you need tb-box that costs over 300 bucks.
And now that over 1G affordable wired connections have arrived, after a wait over a decade, of course airports will never support NbaseT...

So those who have gigabit internet service aren't getting that speed because their computers most likely can't take that speed? We need an upgraded card, namely a 10/5/2.5G card?

 

[Abazigal]

It's crazy to me. The HomePod seems like the natural fit for a mesh networking system. Really surprised they didn't include it in the first gen system.

The place where you would place a home speaker may not be the best place to put a router. I can see why Apple decided not to merge the two devices.

 

[toke lahti]

So those who have gigabit internet service aren't getting that speed because their computers most likely can't take that speed? We need an upgraded card, namely a 10/5/2.5G card?

Routers are usually used by more than one device and also transmissions between multiple devices within the house.
If you have one device & 1G internet & 1.3G wireless connection to that device, you are perfectly fine.
Anything more, you can hit the ceiling, both wireless and wired.

Lets say you have one NAS and two computers. If Airport would have NbaseT-connection to NAS, both your computers could tranfer files from/to NAS with 1G speed simultaneously.

 

[Uofmtiger]

The place where you would place a home speaker may not be the best place to put a router. I can see why Apple decided not to merge the two devices.

Additionally, mesh routers are selling for as much or more than the HomePod in many cases. How much would a HomePod cost if it was part of a mesh system?

 

[Chancha]

Additionally, mesh routers are selling for as much or more than the HomePod in many cases. How much would a HomePod cost if it was part of a mesh system?

If Apple were committed to MESHing itself up, then pretty much all their products with WiFi ability should in theory be part of the mesh, since responsibility is distributed, the radio performance is not as demanding as a singularity source like the base station (which isn't known for having good reception). And then there is some processing power needed, where Homepod has it covered with its A8(?) chip. I think the only weakness it may have is as noted above, the ergonomic location of placing a speaker is not supposed to have a free ethernet cable available underneath. But as a repeater it is quite perfect, and for a good sounding experience it is probably in line of sight to the exposed areas of a home which means 5GHz radio s/n will also be good without direct reflections/ interferences.

 

[Brian Y]

I have a feeling we may see mesh in home pod v2.

My gut is that the homepod is a bit of a parts bin special - use stuff they have laying around (e.g. the old A8), if it takes off, put some proper money into it.

Fully in-the-cloud backups aren't suitable for me just yet. Until ISPs give us decent upload speeds, it's impossible.

 

[applezulu]

This thread started the better part of a year ago, and there is still no actual evidence of the demise of the AirPort devices. They've issued a couple of firmware updates since then, and the entire line-up is still in stock and readily available at every Apple Store.

It may be that, rather than incremental upgrades, there will be a new set of products that replace AirPort, perhaps including mesh networking and HomePods as part of that. That would make HomeKit-enabled devices viable in any part of the home, and also controllable in any part of the home, regardless of where you left your phone or watch.

Given the continued work on rolling out HomeKit, and the fact that HomePods are coming soon, it is pretty much unfathomable that Apple would hand over the incredibly important central role of a router to ugly, unreliable, and/or insecure third-party devices. It just isn't going to happen.

Meanwhile, my AirPort devices are working just fine. It would be daft to rush out and get some other networking products right now, just based on a dicey rumor from nearly a year ago.

 

[Menel]

You can't pretend to offer the best consumer computer infrastructure/integration with a wireless router NOT in the lineup. I can see express and time capsule as gravy, but a wireless router is the bread and butter for today's wireless home.

My fear is that Apple marketing department will use this "hole" in the Apple universe to force us to buy some other product (e.g. Apple Speaker) to get the wireless router functionality. Artificially boosting sale of target device by force....

Apple steps to the beat of a different drummer, always have. They were late to 3g, late to LTE...

In a market where even bargain bin commodity walmart tcl tv's have 4k and hdr, and neither your tv box nor itunes store supports.... they are not a company they offers the latest tech.

The current ones offer such poor performance I had to migrate off them. Their packet routing performance tops out at 250-300mbps, and with 1000/1000 fiber going in all over. They havent kept pace, and are backwards silly looking tech devices.

 

[navier]

...They havent kept pace, and are backwards silly looking tech devices.

Yeah, any of these look way better, isn't it?

 

[Menel]

Yeah, any of these look way better, isn't it?

All low-end buggy slow ****. You can add the airport to that mix. :barf:

 

[cgsnipinva]

All low-end buggy slow ****. You can add the airport to that mix. :barf:

I bought and airport a few months ago and its great. fast and reliable and it looks good.

 

[RecentlyConverted]

I need a new WiFi router for my partners new place. Would be upset if a new model came out after I bought one, but I have been very happy with my Extremes and Time Capsule, so if no announcement at the iPhone event I will be getting another Time Capsule.

 

[PhoenixDown]

I replaced my AE with Unifi AC HD access points. Orbi is surprisingly good too.

 

[kuliand]

Just picked up an airport express today! needed to improve the wi-fi coverage and also wanted a way to send my audio from my laptop to my secondary hi-fi so the airport is the perfect fit. Hopefully they continue to sell it though it might need a small update to keep it current. Really these sorts of things Apple can't abandon these compliemntary products completely if they are to be keep their current customer base as it's what makes the apple ecosystem so great.

 

[snoleppard]

All low-end buggy slow ****. You can add the airport to that mix. :barf:

ASUS and NETGEAR aren't generally slow far as routing is concerned. Apple has never put more than 16-32 MB of flash storage in any Airport Express model, so they'd start dropping packets sooner when there's congestion. Meanwhile, every 4-antenna router that ASUS ever made has 128-256 MB of flash storage.

Airport Expresses are also underpowered. No AE has more than 675 mW of output power at 2.4 GHz, and APs like the A1392 are much worse at 275 mW. ASUS, Linksys, NETGEAR, and TP-Link each have multiple models with over 900 mW for both 2.4 and 5 GHz.

 

[bob24]

This thread started the better part of a year ago, and there is still no actual evidence of the demise of the AirPort devices. They've issued a couple of firmware updates since then, and the entire line-up is still in stock and readily available at every Apple Store.

It may be that, rather than incremental upgrades, there will be a new set of products that replace AirPort, perhaps including mesh networking and HomePods as part of that. That would make HomeKit-enabled devices viable in any part of the home, and also controllable in any part of the home, regardless of where you left your phone or watch.

Given the continued work on rolling out HomeKit, and the fact that HomePods are coming soon, it is pretty much unfathomable that Apple would hand over the incredibly important central role of a router to ugly, unreliable, and/or insecure third-party devices. It just isn't going to happen.

Meanwhile, my AirPort devices are working just fine. It would be daft to rush out and get some other networking products right now, just based on a dicey rumor from nearly a year ago.

I would love for you to be right as I love my AE and it needs to be replaced (still running the 2009 model which ne ear gave me any trouble), but I can't help thinking that over 4 years with no new model is an awful long time if they intend to keep the product line going. No previous model lasted that long ...

 

[snoleppard]

The timing isn't auspicious if they wanted to restart the product line. There are Wi-Fi chipsets out now for 8x8 MIMO antennas with 8 spatial streams, and 802.11ax (with 10 Gbps PHY rates) should be released in 2019.

 

[ct2k7]

In my new home, I purchased Ubiquiti’s kit: security gateway, switch and AP, and they seem to do the job superbly. Performance is excellent, and I can’t massively fault it to be honest. Costs a lot though, but it is enterprise equipment that I’m using.