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Apple Testing New Time Capsules for Caching Software Updates?

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Apr 12, 2001
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While we noted yesterday that an apparent tightening of supplies of AirPort and Time Capsule products in Apple's retail stores may heighten anticipation for a possible update at next week's Worldwide Developers Conference, 9 to 5 Mac reports that it has received word that Apple has at least been internally testing new Time Capsule models capable of caching software updates for users' machines in order to speed the download and update process.
What we do know is that Apple has been internally testing Time Capsules to cache Software updates for both Mac and iOS devices. The way we've heard it works is that the new Time Capsule learns which devices connect to it via Wifi. It then goes out to Apple's servers and downloads Software Updates for those products.

When the user wants to install the software update, the Time Capsule, which is also the router, routes you to the locally stored update, rather than downloading the whole thing over the Internet.
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A smarter version of the update capabilities found in Mac OS X Server, the new Time Capsules would know exactly which machines it needed software updates for and download only those packages.

And with Apple's latest iMac and MacBook Pro models already supporting 450 Mbps Wi-Fi, distributing software updates downloaded quietly in the background by a Time Capsule to the actual machines could be accomplished with lightning speed.

As for potential tie-ins to Apple's iCloud service scheduled for introduction next Monday, new Time Capsules could integrate with the service to cache certain large or frequently-accessed files for faster access when on the local Wi-Fi network. Those files would of course instead be distributed directly from the iCloud servers when off the local network.

Article Link: Apple Testing New Time Capsules for Caching Software Updates?
 
Article Link
https://www.macrumors.com/2011/06/02/apple-testing-new-time-capsules-for-caching-software-updates/
Wow, I just bought a new Airport extreme a couple of weeks ago. My old one of 8 years died. I guess I'll just have to start replacing the Airport Expresses scattered all over the house.
 
Everyone has been focused on the music and mobileme aspects of icloud but I'm really hoping that one thing that is arriving is non-connected sync'ing and updating - the whole plugging my ipad and phone into a specific computer regularly is a pain.
 
Having it be a synced copy of your cloud locally would be cool. I know where this is all headed... eventually all our data will live in the cloud and we just cache it locally where we use it the most. I think we need better security before most of us will go along with that.
 
kasei said:
Wow, I just bought a new Airport extreme a couple of weeks ago. My old one of 8 years died. I guess I'll just have to start replacing the Airport Expresses scattered all over the house.
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I am in the same boat, I just bought mine a little over a month ago.. this always happens to me.. I buy something and 6 weeks later something better comes out.. da*n technology.. I can never keep up!! :p
 
junklight said:
Everyone has been focused on the music and mobileme aspects of icloud but I'm really hoping that one thing that is arriving is non-connected sync'ing and updating - the whole plugging my ipad and phone into a specific computer regularly is a pain.
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I agree, that would be cool to not have to connect your iOS device to your laptop to sync/backup/update. Probably where it is headed eventually.
 
dalvin200 said:
why couldnt this be just a software update for the current gen time capsules?
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I was thinking the same thing. It's already connected to the Internet as well as your computers, seems like it would have been easy enough to accomplish this with a firmware update. But then Apple couldn't sell you another pice of hardware.
 
I hope there is more to this possible refresh than this. They are way too overpriced when compared to other drives on the market, that are faster and fireproof.
 
I like this idea a lot. I just had software updates for my iPad that took 2 hours to download. With many iOS apps commonly needing 1/2 gb updates and Apple considering having the entire OS downloaded, the Time Capsule idea makes a lot of sense.
 
iCrizzo said:
I am in the same boat, I just bought mine a little over a month ago.. this always happens to me.. I buy something and 6 weeks later something better comes out.. da*n technology.. I can never keep up!! :p
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Yeah... I, too, long for the good old days... when my entire music and video library was stored on punch cards and paper tape.
 
Very nice!

But I wish it were practical (already) to have a flash-based Time Capsule. Down with spinning platters! But backups must be cheap, so they’ll be the last to go solid state.

Yankee617 said:
Yeah... I, too, long for the good old days... when my entire music and video library was stored on punch cards and paper tape.
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Those were the days! By the way, I once calculated that a UNIVAC I could store about 1/25 of a second of MP3 music. (Cost: around $12 million in today's dollars.)

Here’s a photo of UNIVAC memory from the early 50’s: data stored as sound waves in tanks of liquid mercury. A UNIVAC I had 7 of those tanks, each one holding about 1.5 kb.

Of course, for portable music, you can’t beat punch cards.
 
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