As I live in a home built in 1815, and the walls are packed with horsehair, WiFi connectivity is worse than spotty and often impossible. When some years ago I picked up an Extreme and two small Airports to create a network, connectivity was vastly improved. If the new line truly is going to be introduced, then I'd happily update the system with them.
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Apple's Discontinued Line of AirPort Wi-Fi Routers Could Return in an Unexpected Way
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Who cares? They took the line away from customers for no apparent reason and now they want to bring its back.
Four solid years with Synology now. No going back.
Four solid years with Synology now. No going back.
I'd be on them in a second. My home network is still using two airport extremes and a time capsule for full coverage (since 2015). Easiest to setup and most reliable network equipment I've ever owned.
Major gallons of Cupertino kool-aid drinking going on there.
HomePod - ZERO Ethernet connectors.
AppleTV -- 1/2 the line up again ZERO Ethernet connector. Other 1/2 , is composed of a turn of the century 1 GbE connector. ( How many Wi-Fi 7 routers are dropping onto market with a single, decades old port? 2.5GbE (or b etter) is common there. For example. recently annoucned Eero 7
"... Ideal for internet plans up to 2.5 Gbps with two auto-sensing 2.5 GbE ports and wireless speeds up to 1.8 Gbps. ..."
) It is pretty clear Apple would like to put the cheapest Ethernet connector they can get away with on the AppleTV. ( 'none' is certainly cheapest). Cheapest connector isn't going to make for a viable modern router.
To be a 'router' to the Internet , the device needs to connect to a modem. Modems have Ethernet ports. So that is just a extremely fundamental requirement for systems in that market.
Apple's major interest in doing their own Wi-Fi chip is more likely grounded in getting rid of more wires. Not enabling devices with them. Apple is looking for more excuses to drop Ethernet off of more devices. (e.g., Wi-Fi 7 Apple TV is in more danger of loosing Ethernet across the whole line up, than keeping it. )
P.S. AppleTV being a broader Thread/Matter router perhaps. But general Wi-Fi probably not.
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A local Wi-Fi/timecapsule would compete with Apples iCloud backup solution
Apple, can you just buy Ubiquiti already and fix their software.
I loved my Apple AirPort Extremes, network was always rock solid and simple. Now sitting on my living room media console I have my Linksys router, my Apple TV and HomePod, and I feel like there’s no reason for those to be 3 separate devices. Apple could easily make all of them in one. Please Apple bring them back!
I very highly doubt wireless routers are in Apple's future. They disbanded the teams responsible for competencies around RTOS networking and they have been late to adopt new wireless standards unlike the Apple of old. At the same time companies are offering products with very Apple-like experiences that would make it harder for hypothetical Apple wireless products stand out. I trust that the Apple of early 2000s could overcome these obstacles and rise to the challenge. I don't trust that modern day Apple has the competency or focus for such a feat. If anything this will see direct benefit through airplay, new device data transfers and airdrop. Not routers. It is too niche for them to make serious money and the market is saturated at every price point with good products. As someone still bitter they left this category I'd be unwilling to trust them again and I'd imagine others are in the same boat. Ubiquiti all the way: doors, cameras, switches, and gateways.
Bring back Time Machine. Let us back-up our devices locally and securely.
Time Machine still exists, it's just with a hard drive or network share.
I still backup my phone to my computer, which gets backed up to a couple hard drives and a Synology.
They never should have given up this market, honestly. But if this was a router + NAS type storage device, I'm listening.
I really hope Apple does jump in to the smart home market. As others have said, the "it just works" aspect of it would really be nice. Right now I've got four different apps to control the things in my house and getting them to work with each other (especially for voice control) is often a challenge.
Not going to happen. Because...
...that is sold as a juicy subscription service.
Also, they won't get into the business of mechanical hard drives ever again (see Mac Pro).
I'd rather see a standalone AP/router than trying to shove it into something like a Homepod. They could power it with the same chip, though...
AirPort routers were really nice for their time. If Apple got into this business again, I'd give it a hard look. My ASUS router drives me crazy sometimes.
AirPort routers were really nice for their time. If Apple got into this business again, I'd give it a hard look. My ASUS router drives me crazy sometimes.
Similar situation—I live in a 1927 house with horsehair plaster. The Orbi has been the best of the current mesh options to punch through that, but AirPort stuff was pretty bulletproof in this house (still is, in the places I have it hooked up).
Would love to see appleTV and HomePods create a mesh network for HomeKit devices only that can isolate them from my normal network
An SFP+ port is so far outside of even this pipe dream, surely you know Apple's network offerings were never meant to handle that kind of throughput. It will never happen.
Home 5G routers pragmatically typically need to be placed to maximize the best 5G reception. That is not necessarily next to a TV. ( more likely near a widow and/or outer wall in a certain direction of the closest basestation tower. Like Wi-Fi extenders you can't just place them randomly and expect the best performance. ) Living quarters that are relatively so small/limited that don't really have a choice of where to put the 5G receiver are more likely to be places where radios don't work all that well ( too many recievers located too closely together all 'hanging' off of a single base station antenna ).
And Apple's device would have to qualify as a cellular network router. There are no third party market routers for T-mobile , Verizon , etc. You can buy a modem/hotspot and attach it to a router, but not the 100% on all the time with major bandwidth routers ( and integrations wifi names , resets , diagnostics/status , etc. ).
A Homepod (or Homepod) with a small screen would have far more placement flexibility as it is primarily self contained. Perhaps more so a router with some smaller speakers/screen tacked on than vice versa. Major problem with Homepod is no Ethenet. 100% wireless everything fits in with Apple's general 'war' on wires, but still not practical in wide array of situations that still exist. )
mm-Wave is even more senstive (and restrictive) to placement. More spectrum data rate 'raw' beandwidth and more tolerance for walls/pipes/objectives tends to run in opposing dimensions.
Apple being a bigger Thread/Matter router and perhaps needing more IEEE standard mesh standard compilant is possible. But elevating that to primary houshold router seems to be a bit of a stretch.
Exactly. The amount of memory necessary to route properly is another big one. An Apple TV/wireless router would cost 1k easily. Partly due to Apple markup and partly because of the extra processing power and RAM needed. Not to mention it would need, at a minimum, a couple 2.5Gbps ports or, ideally, A 10Gbps port and several 1/2.5/5Gbps ports. At a minimum 4 but ideally 6. Let's face it, this would be a costly endeavor and Apple would cheap out and give it wifi 6e and a single multigig port while charging a premium. And true to Apple they would shy away from external antennae so it would have dubious coverage pushing people to buy multiple. Heck, I may have talked myself into being convinced Apple will do this purely for the grift lol
Oooh bingo. Only old Apple would cannibalize one of its products. But like they say in Sparta, "THIS IS TIM APPLE"
I use a 3rd party cellular router with Verizon. I just popped a sim card in, it's my Internet fail over.
Id love it if my HomePods also turned into a mesh network access point