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Give me the included hard drive and SSD and I’m sold. Still rocking mine with 2TB.
Just had one of those die. The drive inside was still good but I had to destroy the bottom rubber to get it out…

On the other hand, the AirPort Extreme 802.11ac without the built-in HDD has been solid. No issues and I still use it to this day.
 
I think a HomePod wireless mesh network is interesting but I'd worry how this would perform in a house with many HomePods deployed. You can oversaturate a mesh network with too many nodes. Apple would have to work some software magic to avoid conflicting area of the home.

For whatever it is worth, I feel like Ubiquiti is closer to hitting the AirPort market than anyone else.
 
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650-690?! Friend it's time to replace your Time Machine with something newer and put it in bridge mode.
I know. But for my use, I can survive with it. For me it’s enough with 250/100 but my latest ISP had only 1000/1000 or 10000/10000 to choose between.
 
iCloud Drive only automatically syncs the Desktop and Documents folders. To my knowledge, there is no way to do a Time Machine backup to iCloud. That might be a possibility in the future, but as it is right now, iCloud not a competing solution.

There is no supported way. However, it would likely be flakey and probably doesn't make any sense financially.

I suspect you can attempt to place a DMG image on icloud drive and mount that locally. Then have TM dump data into that. ( unmount and/or switch TM target to something else). The major problems are that

1. Double translation of the virtual disk is likely slow and the DMG has good chance of getting corrupted.

" ... Writable sparse disk images are particularly sensitive to connectivity loss between the disk image volume and the disk image file. Reports of disk image corruption have grown steadily worse, especially since the introduction of APFS, and especially when the disk image is hosted on NAS storage. ..."

2. Apple rule of thumb is that throw twice as much TM space as have stored on a Mac. iCloud pricing is $9.99/mo for just 2TB ( 1TB of coverage by TM if use that rule of thumb. ) '

It is flakier and more expensive. Not much upside there. Even in supported contexts, TM has long term integrity issues.


A complete image backup Apple isn't going to do to iCloud. There is way to much static , non-unique user data in the more complete system image. In some cases would be copying about as much in Apple files (that belong to them) as they would user files. That doesn't make much sense in terms of efficiency. Duplicative storage on storage drives the user buys isn't Apple's problem (that's the user's money). It isn't a question of Apple adding the 'features' to do it. It is likely whether they even want that data at all.

Pictures/Video aren't covered by the "iCloud Drive" folder , but most certainly are covered if you have Photos Libraries turned on for backup to iCloud. Lots of other iCloud enable apps can backing store to iCloud also. It isn't just the 'documents' folder if flip on all the "iCloud" switches inside of Settings app .


If had a rotating TM backup target that was a local Disk Image. Backed up to that image followed by rotating back to the 'primary' image. That static TM backup image disk likely could be loaded to iCloud drive. But if it is all about zero interaction, "set and forget" TM backups then, no.
 
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I would like to say that while the community for Unifi is incredibly helpful (and I love their stuff), if slightly advanced networking isn't your thing (VLANs, LACP, subnetting) you may want to exercise caution in considering Ubiquiti gear. A more consumer-friendly (plus a bit cheaper) approach would be Tp- link, and I've had great success with them in the past personally as well as with friends and family. The Deco mesh stuff is quite nice. Everyone here is an enthusiast of some strip but I realize not everyone knows the nuts and bolts of networking. Just food for thought.
 
Still rocking a sick AC setup with 5GHz and 2.4GHz with bridges everywhere off discounted eBay models for $20 bucks each for a long time! Working Solid! Just make sure you save your configs and anytime in 1-2 years if one disappears, reset wipe reload configuration! DonE!

I knew I could rock'um till Apple Got Back in! Knew they would honestly when they got back into HOME...

The only problem were all the "Mesh" protocols and Wireless Bands!

n.b. I'll (we'll) still have to keep the old 802.11b ones for the "Old School" devices, unless Apple throws that in, but that I doubt!

Laters...
 
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I'm confused. Is there nothing new to this article but the Gurman bit from back in December?
 
Allow us to choose a time capsule as one of our iCloud storage options. :rolleyes:
 
I have the most recent generation airport Xpress used daily.

I had the second generation airport extreme with fiber for 3 years, then the power supply died
 
Apple, can you just buy Ubiquiti already and fix their software.
Honestly my Ubiquiti software experience has been superior to my Apple software experience for the past several years and the trend line looks as if that gap is increasing. Ubiquiti isn’t what it used to be, and frankly neither is Apple.
 
Most of us have moved on, other companies have a lot to offer. Apple should have continued on. It's hard to take me away from my ecosystems once they're established.

I'd guess the vast majority of home users are content with whatever solution their ISP provides. After that you'll have the Orbi/Eero crowd. Apple could potentially sway some converts there. Beyond that, it's Unify, Firewalla, Omada, HPE Aruba. No way those prosumers are switching.
 
It seems Apple got left behind in the dust in the wireless router game. When they finally gave up they were hopelessly behind in speed and reliability. Now they would have to compete with the likes of Eero and Netgear which are very Apple-like. So much so plus fast and reliable AND mesh that I don’t miss my Airports at all. To make up that ground is a lot for Tim and sounds like they have bigger fish to fry.
 
Most of us have moved on, other companies have a lot to offer. Apple should have continued on. It's hard to take me away from my ecosystems once they're established.

I'd guess the vast majority of home users are content with whatever solution their ISP provides. After that you'll have the Orbi/Eero crowd. Apple could potentially sway some converts there. Beyond that, it's Unify, Firewalla, Omada, HPE Aruba. No way those prosumers are switching.
Aruba is solid. We use their enterprise stuff at work.
 
The guys from Apples network hardware team went and started their own networking company, their hardware and app seem very apple-like to me. I hope new Apple routes would be just as good without them.
Which company is that? I tried searching.
 
It seems Apple got left behind in the dust in the wireless router game.

Apple didn't get left in the dust as much as "quit" when it looked like the business was just going to get harder ( competition from two directions). First there was a trendline by the major ISP providers to have 'all in one' boxes ( modem + router + wifi). The ISP providers were given this out to customers by default. So trendline heading toward ISP provider maybe going to zone where router is 'free' (built into the service fee). How is Apple going to compete with 'free' ? [ The 3rd party modem consumer market is nothing like it was back in the early 2010's. 'Motorola' / 'Zoom' / etc ... lots of major players gone. (and not just through mergers/buyouts/consolidations ). ]

There was no thing that we have now with the super high end wi-fi routers costing more than a mac Mini. 2013-2016 there is more an expansion in the sub $100 wi-fi routers than very expensive ones. Vendors like TP-Link were going to completely commoditize a vast swath of the market.

Around 2014, The mesh systems were coming at the higher end. The smartphone controls (as opposed to quirk web interface) was no substantial barrier to entry; especially when had an Android App to expand user base. Some of the foundational elements of mesh were being standardized.

Apple likely quit because they thought it was going to a similar route that laser printers went. If they knew there going to be a in-house radio transceiver company at the time perhaps and folks would be commonly selling Wi-Fi 7 routers at $200 , they might have stayed in, but that likely was not on the roadmap in early 2010's.



P.S. Time Capsule is a 'better than nothing' back-up , but the canonical usage that Apple implicitly endorsed ... single point back-up to a non-RAID drive is asking for trouble long term when the back-up drive either fails or gets corrupted.
 
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The guys from Apples network hardware team went and started their own networking company, their hardware and app seem very apple-like to me. I hope new Apple routes would be just as good without them.
Which company is this?
 
Well, it only took them about five years of delays to be able to produce a hopefully okay but definitely not top-of-the-line cellular modern, so I'll be checking in on this rumor in 2030.
 
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