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Apple Officially Discontinues AirPort Wireless Router Lineup [Updated]
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I have an ASUS RT-AC88U.
The only missing feature I like is that streaming music an old via Airport Express.
The only missing feature I like is that streaming music an old via Airport Express.
Dear Tim,
This is truly a sad day in Apple Land. Nothing else has equaled the performance and reliability of my two Time Capsules over the years including the Linksys Velop you offer in the Apple store which I returned within twenty fours hours after purchasing from Best Buy.
Considering my transgression purchasing the Velop from someone other than Apple and my deep affection for the Airport product line I'm fully prepared to write you a check for the amount of $83.29 to fund Apple R&D for the development of the next generation of Airport products and, with no strings attached, happily relinquish all rights to Apple for use of the name "AirNet" (no "H" in front allowed Craig.)
Sincerely,
BDA
This is truly a sad day in Apple Land. Nothing else has equaled the performance and reliability of my two Time Capsules over the years including the Linksys Velop you offer in the Apple store which I returned within twenty fours hours after purchasing from Best Buy.
Considering my transgression purchasing the Velop from someone other than Apple and my deep affection for the Airport product line I'm fully prepared to write you a check for the amount of $83.29 to fund Apple R&D for the development of the next generation of Airport products and, with no strings attached, happily relinquish all rights to Apple for use of the name "AirNet" (no "H" in front allowed Craig.)
Sincerely,
BDA
I always bought the cheap models for around $50-60 before I bought a TC and they would last about 2-3 years tops before I had to reboot them every couple of days. That’s really the reason why I decided to buy a TC. I had also just transitioned to using macs exclusively but apart from it wirelessly backing up drives, I paid the premium for the reliability of an Apple product. So far every Apple product I’ve purchased has been problem free. Even my 4th gen iPod click wheel would probably still work with a fresh battery. I view Apple as the Sony or Pioneer of the computer world. I still have an almost 20 yr old 27” Trinitron CRT that still works and has excellent picture quality for a CRT made in ‘99. You actually end up saving money by buying quality products since the likelihood of having to replace them prematurely is very low.
I bought a high-end Samsung LCD for nearly $3k back in ‘07 and by the beginning of 2010 I had to change a bunch of blown caps since Samsung refused to service it even though it was a well known issue. That’s simply unacceptable for something of that price and since then I haven’t purchased a Samsung product again.
Apple has officially ended development on its AirPort line of products, which includes the AirPort Express ($99), the AirPort Extreme ($199), and the AirPort Time Capsule ($299).
"We're discontinuing the Apple AirPort base station products. They will be available through Apple.com, Apple's retail stores and Apple Authorized Resellers while supplies last," an Apple spokesperson told iMore.
Apple has not updated its AirPort products since 2012 (Express) and 2013 (Extreme and Time Capsule), and in late 2016, Bloomberg said that Apple had stopped development on the AirPort lineup with the AirPort engineers reassigned to other products.
Apple reportedly began shutting down its AirPort unit in early 2016, in an effort to "sharpen" its focus on the "consumer products that generate the bulk of its revenue."
Following news that Apple had shuttered the AirPort unit, the company began selling third-party routers in January of 2018 when it offered the Linksys Velop Mesh Wi-Fi System.
Apple's AirPort base stations provided unique benefits that are not available through third-party options like built-in Time Machine backup support in the Time Capsule and AirPlay functionality for the AirPort Express.
While the AirPort line is being discontinued, Apple will be providing service and parts for current generation AirPort Base Stations for the next five years. iMore says Apple also plans to share some knowledge-base articles in the coming weeks to assist customers who are transitioning away from the AirPort Express, Extreme, and Time Capsule.
Apple plans to continue to sell the three AirPort products online and in its retail stores until available supplies are exhausted. No price drops have been implemented at this time.
Update: Apple has shared a new support document offering tips on choosing a Wi-Fi router to use with Apple devices. The company recommends a router that offerrs 802.11ac, dual-band support, WPA2 Personal encryption, and MIMO or MU-MIMO.
Article Link: Apple Officially Discontinues AirPort Wireless Router Lineup [Updated]
Actually, Cook is doing what Steve Jobs preached.
Focus on a handful of your best products, rather than dozens of mediocre products.
For Apple, the 'best product' is one that brings in the highest revenue.
Airport line of products brought in peanuts.
I've had issues with network drops with every Linksys router owned over the past fifteen years including the Velop I owned for less than 24 hours. I hoped they had improved but that doesn't seem to be the case. My aging TCs are serving up wifi once again until someone builds a better mousetrap.
That's the problem when you build a good reliable piece of equipment. They last. People buy them once and don't need to replace or upgrade them... Hence no more profit.
Really sad for the Airport Express and Airplay. I have a couple of the older model at home and they're great. And sadly there is no equivalent.
I just feel that the more we progress, the more we regress...
We lost Genius on iOS. iTunes Match still works but seems to be being phased out. The removal of the headphone connector. The FinalCut saga... The MacPro saga... The infinite number of adapters for MacBooks saga...
I love the products this company makes, but the frustrations just keep piling up...
Really sad for the Airport Express and Airplay. I have a couple of the older model at home and they're great. And sadly there is no equivalent.
I just feel that the more we progress, the more we regress...
We lost Genius on iOS. iTunes Match still works but seems to be being phased out. The removal of the headphone connector. The FinalCut saga... The MacPro saga... The infinite number of adapters for MacBooks saga...
I love the products this company makes, but the frustrations just keep piling up...
I'll throw my support behind the UniFi as well. There's a steeper learning curve than your average Linksys or Netgear router. And I really recommend spending the 35 bucks on a Raspberry Pi to run a UniFi controller. But I've had a UAP-AC-LR and an EdgeRouter X for about 2 years now with literally zero issues, these things are rock solid. The access point is mounted to the ceiling in my basement (because drop ceiling, it's easier) and I have perfect coverage everywhere on the ground floor of my house.
Yes, that requires a lot of knowledge and effort to setup. The Apple Airports were so much simpler to deal with setting up.
1. The orange/green LED on Magsafe is for decoration only. It doesn't really reflect the charging status, as your battery will never really "fully" charged. This is part of the advanced battery management strategy that is adopted only recently.
2. The old Apple Displays were actually OEMed by other manufactures like Sony and LG. Apple didn't put too much "technology" in it.
3. Today you can buy *any* WiFi router and have your network set up in 10 minutes. Even a cheap TP-Link one will work. In case you don't know: there is an app called "TP-Link Tether" in app store that can help you set up your TP-Link device.
5 year is already a full Epoch of Geologic Time Scale in computer world, and this "ecosystem" thing is so 20th century. Apple really should abandon those out-dated peripheral business earlier and turn to open standard.
My understanding is TM doesn't work reliably on every third party router though I haven't personally verified this. I can verify the Bonjour service doesn't function correctly on the Velop causing a connection drop every hour with a client which hosts an iTunes Home Sharing library once the HDD sleeps. No work around that actually works so far and none in sight from Linksys. I'm monitoring their site for a possible fix as they are aware.
Yes, feel the same way, Apple has changed alot under Tim. The objectives reasons I switched to Apple for alot products before, is no longer there, or at best very little of it.
Only Apple would have the balls to not meaningfully update a product for five years, announce that they’re discontinuing the product, but still continue to sell the product for the same price they were charging the day the product was released.
Give Eero a look. I’ve had their mesh system for almost a year and a half and AT&T Wi-Fi calling works fine.
None of the mesh network routers have USB ports for external storage. Even though the Extreme had a garbage USB 2 speed port, at least it had one. I use the infuse app with my Apple TV and it works wells enough. I just want to plug in my hard drive to my router without having to spend extra money on NAS.
Late to the comments here, but I’m really happy with our Orbi-based system. We got the two-unit RS52 unit and put the router in the wiring closet (upstairs, far end of an L-shaped two-story House), and the satellite pretty much dead center downstairs. Gives us good coverage all the way to the other end of the upstairs, but I ended up getting an additional lower-power satellite to stick in the hallway of the other end upstairs and now we have great coverage throughout.
Was never able to get even minimal coverage in the far end of the House with Airports.
Our Time Machine is still plugged in and acting as a Time Machine host, just with the router and WiFi disables (Ethernet to the Orbi router).
Also, the Orbi offers easy control of everything about the configuration, and with the addition of Circle does a good job of parental controls (primarily, being able to turn off access on all devices of a particular kid when necessary).
very Sad! I recently reinstated a very reliable Apple Airport Extreme router from 2012 that I had burried in a drawer when i moved from an apartment to a home in South Minnie in 2015. I was convinced to go with a crap modem/rounter from comcast /xfinity when I moved into my home. It was Ok for awhile but then it just became this huge crap shoot if I would get good bandwith or not! After repeated horrid online sessions with Comcast to fix their crap router I pulled this old thing out of a drawer and it fixed everything! I would have frequent times where I would get single digit **** from Comcast. I put this thing back on and now I'm cruising at 180 to 200 consistently !
Apple has officially ended development on its AirPort line of products, which includes the AirPort Express ($99), the AirPort Extreme ($199), and the AirPort Time Capsule ($299).
"We're discontinuing the Apple AirPort base station products. They will be available through Apple.com, Apple's retail stores and Apple Authorized Resellers while supplies last," an Apple spokesperson told iMore.
Apple has not updated its AirPort products since 2012 (Express) and 2013 (Extreme and Time Capsule), and in late 2016, Bloomberg said that Apple had stopped development on the AirPort lineup with the AirPort engineers reassigned to other products.
Apple reportedly began shutting down its AirPort unit in early 2016, in an effort to "sharpen" its focus on the "consumer products that generate the bulk of its revenue."
Following news that Apple had shuttered the AirPort unit, the company began selling third-party routers in January of 2018 when it offered the Linksys Velop Mesh Wi-Fi System.
Apple's AirPort base stations provided unique benefits that are not available through third-party options like built-in Time Machine backup support in the Time Capsule and AirPlay functionality for the AirPort Express.
While the AirPort line is being discontinued, Apple will be providing service and parts for current generation AirPort Base Stations for the next five years. iMore says Apple also plans to share some knowledge-base articles in the coming weeks to assist customers who are transitioning away from the AirPort Express, Extreme, and Time Capsule.
Apple plans to continue to sell the three AirPort products online and in its retail stores until available supplies are exhausted. No price drops have been implemented at this time.
Update: Apple has shared a new support document offering tips on choosing a Wi-Fi router to use with Apple devices. The company recommends a router that offerrs 802.11ac, dual-band support, WPA2 Personal encryption, and MIMO or MU-MIMO.
Article Link: Apple Officially Discontinues AirPort Wireless Router Lineup [Updated]
I hope Eero never sells to Apple. Eero has an awesome trackrecord of providing timely updates that improve their product. Sadly, I can’t say the same about Apple as of late.
This appears to be a less popular opinion around here, but I’ve had Linksys routers since college and I love every single one of it. WRT54GS, EA4500, WRT3200ACM, and now Velop.
I recommend my friends to always go with Linksys, and so far no one complained. Eh..
I recommend my friends to always go with Linksys, and so far no one complained. Eh..