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

[aawil]

well this sucks

 

[A MacBook lover]

Streaming TV and music are game changers, Electric Vehicles too. If its anything like the other products/services introduced under Cook they will be late to the game and badly implemented or dead before they even get off the ground.

Electric vehicles, streaming video and music are a given (it's like saying DVD's are the future in 1997) Duh.

I'd argue their hardware -> SoCs, Touch-ID, Apple Pay, force touch, computation camera (7 plus) are thing they implement well (under Tim Cook). It's the services and software that's rough around the edges.

 

[Sam_S]

I think they are a little too focused on producing books that no one needs and a MacBook Pro that isn't very Pro. Apple is slowly decaying, I can't stand this.

Time Capsule was such a handy device that just worked.

 

[sigma7]

How about an Apple TV router? It would be great

 

[crsh1976]

Airport routers were always overpriced, tho they were simple to set up and use, and that's where the value was - however, I'm a very weirded out by Apple's decisions as of late.

 

[ABCDEF-Hex]

Spot on. We need to take Apple to a previous restore point about 15 years ago and start again without Cook, Ive and the rest of the "form over function" brigade.

Make Apple Great Again?

 

[avanpelt]

It wouldn't surprise me if they integrate the AirPort/Time Capsule into the Apple TV at some point. That especially makes sense from the standpoint of enabling DVR functionality on the Apple TV down the road if they can ever get the agreements in place to have live TV available en masse on the Apple TV.

 

[mozumder]

I'm surprised Apple could never figure out a way to make a profitable wi-fi router. Every household needs one, so what prevented them from differentiating their products from generic routers? It really could have been a hugely profitable product.

I would have gone with a server approach to a wi-fi router, one that does everything in MacOS Server - email, VPN, web, etc..

 

[BornAgainMac]

I think the desktops are next. Apple really should license MacOS to another vendor at this point. I would be happy if Microsoft or even Google bought MacOS.

 

[hexor]

Next year, discontinuation of iPads since they make up such a smaller percentage of revenue compared to iPhones. Year after, Macs. Everybody will have to use the iOS Safari browser version of Xcode to develop iPhone apps.

 

[Rob_2811]

I don't think this was ever a huge profit maker for them. The original Airport Base Station was one of the first affordable wireless access points when it came out in 1999. The Price of $300 (okay $299) is still cheaper than some of the higher end options today.

Probably not but I dont think that was the primary concern when Jobs was around. Sure the margins were important then as they are now but the seem to be the only thing that is important these days.

No high volumes? No high margins? No product in that segment. That seems to be the Apple way these days.

 

[2457282]

I had an all Apple wifi setup in my home up until August. It was becoming more problematic as my house is very old and the concrete and plaster walls are not wifi friendly. Apple never really developed their mesh network and the wifi extension using airport express was just not cutting it. I finally switch to eeros which has a really good mesh technology and I now have a super good network that is accessible on all four floors. I still use the time capsule for local backups but have the wifi turned off. My suggestion to anyone serious about building a strong wifi network in home is to look at eeros or other mesh network system.

 

[novakjos]

Clearly these products were not thin enough and had way too many useful ports on them.

this made my day

 

[zorinlynx]

They are actually supporting Time Machine over SMB 3 since Sierra.

Not fully. I still can't create a Time Machine backup on my Samba server without some hacking.

 

[brentsg]

Not really, AirPorts have never offered much in the way of features. You can set the name, password, and maybe a couple other features. Almost any other wireless router in the same price range offers much greater customization, better WiFi performance, USB ports for printers, hard drives, LTE modems, etc. If you want a wireless router that just works without tweaking anything, there are lots of mesh networking options that you configure with an App on your phone too.

My pre-Airport experience with WiFi products was nothing but headache. I remember having to update each device individually, usually directly wired. And I was always looking to replace whatever I had, because it had some fatal flaw or was just generally unreliable. I owned various products from all the manufacturers. Once I went Airport, everything just worked with no attention required.

This is definitely a huge sign to me that it's time to get out of the ecosystem (along with the automation changes). Time to forget waiting for the next Mac Pro and head into the sunset.

 

[Torrijos]

This blows...

Honestly the apogee of Airport was a little bit around the last Airport Utility 5.x...
Apple showed Elegance by allowing to configure the devices easily while still keeping enough details and the right terminology.

I am not a fan of the Utility 6.x, and I despise most modern routers with crappy software and supposedly dumbed down technical terms that are just ridiculous.

 

[arkmannj]

Is Time Capsule going to slowly die then?

Time Capsule probably going to die.
But Time Machine for backups is probably safe ... until Apple decides that you should only use the cloud for backups, then we'll probably need 3rd party tools to do proper local backups.

 

[Stig McNasty]

Apple get out of yet more hardware:
Car (Well, self-drive anyway - and no bad thing to discard)
Monitor
Camera
Printer
Music player
HiFi…

Next on the list:
Desktop Macs (Someone pop in and see if the MacPro and MacMini teams are still awake, if so, re-assign them to errr Cloud Services, no, make that gardening at Campus 2)

I feel like adding innovation to that list. No Mr Schiller, dongles are NOT innovation. However, I'll let you have the Touch Bar IF you utilise it and IF you speed up pro app dev.

Argh!!! And don't get me started on the cost of the new MBPs.

 

[diipii]

What a sensationalist. Realistically it will be Phones, Tablets, Macs, and Watches. Plus anything unannounced that they're working on.

Wrong. Eventually Apple will be a box with a slot over which will be the sign "put all your money in here"
(And the fan-boys will do it)

 

[Chupa Chupa]

I could see a new product line that does the Eero-style mesh wifi using a new Apple TV and an Echo-style device using Siri.

Regarding WiFi: If they were going to do that then they would have announced it as the next gen Extreme, not just, effectively broadcast: don't buy our routers anymore.

Regarding new ATV: If they were going to do that then they should have done it at the recent Apple Event. Too late after this Xmas. Amazon Echo is going to seal it's place in people's homes this season. I can't see people changing over once they's grown accustom to Echo and it's instant hook into Amazon services. Also no way would Apple meet Amazon's entry price point of $49 (on sale periodically for $39). At that price you can outfit an entire house with Dot and have true whole home automation. That isn't affordable with a $99 unit if you have even a modest number of rooms in your house. Also Siri isn't all that bright. She can tell me the weather, scores, turn off my lights. Anything other than that she is just a portal to Google. I can Google myself.

 

[profets]

Not really, AirPorts have never offered much in the way of features. You can set the name, password, and maybe a couple other features. Almost any other wireless router in the same price range offers much greater customization, better WiFi performance, USB ports for printers, hard drives, LTE modems, etc. If you want a wireless router that just works without tweaking anything, there are lots of mesh networking options that you configure with an App on your phone too.

Mesh networking routers are a great option, unfortunately they're still expensive and not available to purchase everywhere. Would love to try out something like Eero but it's not available in Canada and the price is rough.

I'm referring to the Airport Extreme / Time Capsule as an easy option for many home users, specifically for wireless coverage / range. I'd say about a dozen times over the past couple years where someone had an issue with coverage in their house, I set them up with an Airport Extreme and it always provided solid coverage, more so than any other router I was trying. It was such an easy to go option when needed.

 

[Jim L]

I understand Apple focusing on where their major revenue streams are, but it's not like they are cash-strapped.
Looks like the bean-counters, marketing people and Jony Ive are really running this company.

Their routers actually have some advantages -

• the beam-forming antenna
• Built-in Time Capsule convenience
• Support for their own proprietary Wake-on-LAN that is problematic for Macs
• Native Airport Utility app for Mac and iOS

This is just another reason for me to leave the Apple ecosystem:

• Pro products being dumbed down or abandoned
• Desktop Macs neglected
• Displays - gone
• Routers - gone

They're not telling us their future roadmap, but they are telegraphing it for the last 3 years.
Apple is becoming an "i-Toy" company of disposable, overpriced, locked-down products for entry level consumers.

 

[imanidiot]

What a sensationalist. Realistically it will be Phones, Tablets, Macs, and Watches. Plus anything unannounced that they're working on.

Fixed that for ya.

 

[mayuka]

Too bad. The AirPorts are great.

This reminds me very much of the "Apple 2" story, where Apple insisted on concentrating on the outdated Apple 2 instead of the Mac because it created more revenue during the time...

 

[brentsg]

As a corporation, it can be sued by shareholders if it does something that doesn't maximise profit. Capitalism, babe.

Ensuring the user experience is the key. Each individual product doesn't need to stand on its own. Keeping the user happy with products like this sells the high margin products.