Apple's Retail Stores Running Dry of AirPort and Time Capsule Stocks?

[Jef11245]

Can't believe no one else mentioned this. Isn't it possible that Apple will just try to move people away from the time capsule, and move it to the cloud. Economy of scale makes it much cheaper for them to just own massive hardrives and sell us space.

This is definitely the future of backups. I already store my pics and music on Amazon's cloud drive, and my documents on Google Documents.

 

[jbh001]

AirPort Extreme + femtocell?

Also Wondering what apple could add to the aex and time capsule

Here is a thought: how about adding femtocell tech to the airport?

http://www.electronicsweekly.com/Ar...isys-puts-intel-atom-into-4g-basestations.htm
http://www.deadzones.com/2010/08/how-to-get-free-sprint-3g-femtocell.html
http://www.broadbandreports.com/shownews/TMobile-To-Offer-Femtocell-This-Year-112293
http://www.verizonfemtocell.com/
http://www.att.com/shop/wireless/devices/3gmicrocell.jsp?fbid=04pfQ0vOLKM

 

[mdriftmeyer]

A new Airport Extreme would be nice, along with AT LEAST a $50 price cut. $180 for that thing is ridiculous, especially with similar routers going for well under $100 (sometimes under $50) from other manufacturers...

Similar routers? I've test those similar routers and their simply piles of crap.

 

[kdimitt]

Can't believe no one else mentioned this. Isn't it possible that Apple will just try to move people away from the time capsule, and move it to the cloud. Economy of scale makes it much cheaper for them to just own massive hardrives and sell us space.

This is definitely the future of backups. I already store my pics and music on Amazon's cloud drive, and my documents on Google Documents.

It is definitely possible. I back up a lot of my things on Google and Amazon as well, but certain information people don't want backed up on some companies massive storage network. They will definitely stress the cloud but it will be a long time (if ever) before they get rid of personal storage (or time capsule).

 

[caspersoong]

Nice. Hope the new products can blow us away. Was starting to think the upcoming WWDC would be extremely boring.

 

[labrats5]

I was under the impression that a HD attached to the Airport Extreme would be visible to all the network, not just the one Mac that sets it up. More fool me.

The question is why did Apple suggest to me that it would do all that when I bought it and more emphatically, why is it taking so long to make the obvious work?

It is available to all computers on your local network, apple didn't lie to you. But there is no easy way to access the files on your NAS via the internet. Such software does exist, but it is far from seamless. Imagine going on a road trip with your ipad and have access to 2 tb of your data whenever you have an internet connection.

On a more down to earth level, being able to set up a networked drive to automatically back up all your computers and ios devices automatically and wirelessly over your network is very possible and arguably long overdue.

 

[TallManNY]

Hmmm

Hmmm, I tried to buy a Time Capsule last week from 5th Avenue Store. Sales clerk pointed to me the wall where they were for sale, then quickly noted that there were no more there and speculated that maybe we were due for something good. Hmmm. I thought it rank speculation on her part at the time, but I didn't buy an Extreme as I could hold off (this is a backup/"girlfriend using Hulu while I game" router in my setup, so I can wait). Checked rumors when I got home, but didn't see anything on this topic. Now I'm officially waiting until next Tuesday. Maybe Apple needs to have some sort of hardware to announce. Better routers would fit with the iCloud announcement.

 

[acslater017]

Man, I can very easily imagine Time Capsule acting as an iCloud access point to your entire Mac hard drive.

Time Capsule:
-Is wirelessly connected to your computer
-Is always on, always connected to the internet (even when your Mac is asleep)
-By nature, has an exact copy of your computer on it!

Ooooh this could be reeeeaally cool. It would immediately make the Time Capsule a much more worthy proposition. But something like that doesn't account for the new data center. Maybe pay a subscription fee (included in MobileMe or not, I dunno) to store all your stuff on iCloud? Or choose to get it as a free service with the purchase of a Time Machine?

Very neat stuff going on this year!

 

[Bear]

But really, what feature of icloud would require new hardware as opposed to a firmware upgrade?

More firmware memory? More ram to run things? Faster processor to run things?

Any of the above? Some of the above?

 

[Icaras]

Can't believe no one else mentioned this. Isn't it possible that Apple will just try to move people away from the time capsule, and move it to the cloud. Economy of scale makes it much cheaper for them to just own massive hardrives and sell us space.

This is definitely the future of backups. I already store my pics and music on Amazon's cloud drive, and my documents on Google Documents.

It is definitely possible. I back up a lot of my things on Google and Amazon as well, but certain information people don't want backed up on some companies massive storage network. They will definitely stress the cloud but it will be a long time (if ever) before they get rid of personal storage (or time capsule).

I would love for this to happen, but they've gotta do one thing first to make this possible. Make it a LOT faster than it currently is. With how slow MobileMe currently is, it's simply not practical.

I also have about 400GB to backup so unless they offer some mass storage options (hopefully, as the rumor of tiered options have been mentioned already), plus signficantly faster bandwidth speeds on Apple's end, then I don't think TC is going anywhere.

By the way, actually, MobileMe already offers cloud backup for it's users: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT3991

But like I said before, for large amounts of data, it's absolutely impractical.

 

[trip1ex]

The 2 tb time capsule is way overpriced. Apple charges $200 to go from 1TB to 2TB? ABsurd when 2TB drives cost $80 alone.

 

[marc11]

The problem with moving the back ups to the cloud is the bandwidth. Upload bandwidth from a lot of companies blows, like in the area of 256k, that isn't going to fly when you need to back up gigs of data, as in your first initial back up. Even megs of data would take hours with bandwidth like that.

 

[trip1ex]

Can't believe no one else mentioned this. Isn't it possible that Apple will just try to move people away from the time capsule, and move it to the cloud. Economy of scale makes it much cheaper for them to just own massive hardrives and sell us space.

This is definitely the future of backups. I already store my pics and music on Amazon's cloud drive, and my documents on Google Documents.

doubt it. I think you still should backup locally. If you ever need to restore you'll be glad you have a local backup.

Not to mention the trust and privacy issue of a backup service.

 

[DeepIn2U]

Just yesterday I was thinking how Apple could differentiate their cloud services with a simple NAS solution. Imagine having a centralized backup of all your files in your home, with an itunes media server that can be accessed remotely from anywhere you have an internet connection, all for no subcription fee because you own the storage and the bandwidth. Apple has all the piece. All they need to do now is make it easy.

$179 for the airport extreme is actually pretty competitive. A simultaneous dual-band router with gigabit ethernet and usb NAS support will run you at least $149 from linksys (namely the E3200), and they don't give you usb printing. Apple also gives you a much better setup experience as well as simple integration with the best network bridge available (the airport express), which costs the same as linksys' bridge and has more features.

I can purchase a $229 Synology NAS system with 2 USB 2.0 ports supporting external drives, USB Printing, and E-SATA (powered) port, with 2-HDD SATAII bay. No WLAN is there but with getting DualBand 802.11N on a DLINK which is quite solid a range of models from $50-100 shipping with 2TB still undercuts the 2TB TimeCapsule unit. Prices are current Canadian dollar.

Thunderbird and SD would be nice, and a direct integration with Apple TV.

^ NOW we're talking ... put the power supply internally like the current Mac Mini and I'm set. Having iCloud auto sync in the background with iOS and Mac OS X SL+Li access remotely is just pure icing on the cake that I WOULD pay $500 for with $50/yr for the iCloud sync.

 

[mKizzo]

Happy about this one. I've been holding off a purchase for AEB for a few months now but managed to get by with the Express. Looking forward to an extended network again

 

[syedzaidi.nyc]

Good luck keeping a high load multiple connection on your Linksys. There is a good reason the Airport Extreme costs as much as it does: it works.

As much as I would like to agree with you, I have huge issues trying to make it do simple things like NAT and execute specific firewall rules. I bought a secure router that does not let me do as I need to it. I had to downgrade the firmware to get it to follow my rules, and AppleCare had little to say. Furthermore, getting my Airports to be compatible with Verizon's PPPOE (which is nothing out of the ordinary) was an adventure. As much as I LOVE Apple products, they have been really lacking in some of the basic functionality to innovate new technologies. I say, perfect what you already have. Build and keep building new technologies without breaking something else. Airport, again, works for the simple stuff: create a secure network that can handle many connections. Add a couple of more things, and it falls apart.

 

[Rad99004]

wonder if they'll add some kind of icloud functionality? What else would they add?

How about something as crazy as LTE built in to the Airport Extreme.

 

[Scottsdale]

The AEBS and TC do work with MobileMe. I suspect something that does backup connected HDDs to the iCloud service.

They definitely could switch to black plastic like the AppleTV. I would think both could be smaller too. I would really like to see Apple use the same footprint of the Mac mini across all of these devices so they would pair up and even stack nicely. However there is no reason for the AEBS to be that large. It could probably be a similar size to the AppleTV and still get it all in there.

Should be interesting. I wonder if Apple will do the update Monday morning before the keynote then not even mention it at WWDC? That way people would still talk about it? It would be nice to see where Apple is going with the MacBook too? It has really been left out while MBP and MBA get all of the attention.

 

[iLilana]

just bought an AE express base station

and i'm not happy with it.

would have liked a full featured base station for 99 dollars. i'm betting the update will include air print or somethign.

 

[HMFIC03]

What better way to get an apple TV in every house than to integrate a wireless router into it.

I could see 1, 2 and 4 TB models that can AirPrint, use iCloud, AirTunes and backup iOS and macs. A least I would like to see it

 

[HMFIC03]

What better way to get an apple TV in every house than to integrate a wireless router into it.

I could see 1, 2 and 4 TB models that can AirPrint, use iCloud, AirTunes and backup iOS and macs. A least I would like to see it

P.S. Not everyone uses a wireless router and apple tv is worrthless without one. It makes too much sense.

 

[pancakedrawer]

Same here. But, hey, it's a router. What could they possibly be upgrading?

ThunderBolt?

 

[Michael383]

Since my Linksys router has been acting up I've been considering Apple. Looking forward to seeing the new products.

 

[MikhailT]

Smaller, SSD option for time capsule? Better heat management / external power brick so they don't fry?

Why would anybody want a smaller SSD option for the Time Capsule, you can't saturate the HD speed from the outgoing connection on your computer. Even if you can get sustained 100MBps transfer from your computer, it's still slower than the latest high capacity hard drives (can do 100MBps+).

I rather have 3TB drive in the TC than 80GB SSD for the same cost.

We're not going to see SSDs in setups like this for a while, 120GB SSDs still cost $250.

The only exception to this is that Apple decides to store your data on the cloud, in this case, a small 80GB SSD might make sense but not everybody have fast upload speed, so it makes no sense to do this now.

Can't believe no one else mentioned this. Isn't it possible that Apple will just try to move people away from the time capsule, and move it to the cloud. Economy of scale makes it much cheaper for them to just own massive hardrives and sell us space.

This is definitely the future of backups. I already store my pics and music on Amazon's cloud drive, and my documents on Google Documents.

The average upload speed is around 512Kbps in US, it's not fast enough for the cloud storage to be used by default for everybody.

The good news is that Apple can take advantage of the Time Machine to backup only the differences. So for new users, it's going to rock. For people with 1TB+ of storage, it's going to suck in the beginning.

Documents, pictures and music are tiny files most of the time. Movies, apps and many other files that people tend to back up are huge. I have a family video collection that's over 8TB.

But really, what feature of icloud would require new hardware as opposed to a firmware upgrade?

How about stronger antennas for better range and faster performance with more features? How about thunderbolt support or even USB 3.0 ports? If you connect any hard drive over USB2.0, the most speed you can get to that hard drive is 20Mbps at most. If Apple can produce external thunderbolt drives that you can connect to TC/Extreme, it’ll be an awesome little NAS.

I doubt the new hardware is just because of iCloud but it has more to do with the fact that Apple postponed the refresh until they get the iCloud service ready. The hardware hasn't been updated in 2 years.

 

[bigwig]

I heard a rumor of an upgrade to additional MIMO channels. I'm not sure how many AEBS supports now. An improvement to wired routing performance would also be welcome.