Discontinued AirPort Extreme and 2TB Time Capsule Finally Disappear From Apple Online Store

[ryanwarsaw]

Yep I think the competition caught up in the ease of use dept. The app for my $70 TP-Link AC router feels like an Apple clone. Still not at that Apple level of polish. But they definitely decided to make things simpler than the web UIs of 3rd party routers of ~10 years ago.

Say what?

Apple routers were still going great for a decade after your buddy left.

Pretty obvious Apple just didn't want to be in this market. They are a company that likes to carry a simple product line and they need high margins and they want to deliver an experience that others can't match.

I think those 3 factors or lack of are what made them decide to exit the router market.

I think the competition got more user friendly. I think Apple had less room to stand out with a high margin product. And I think with Apple having more new products like the Watch and Airpods and to a lesser extent Homepod, they wanted to trim down their less important product lines.

Also factoring into this is iCloud replaces the storage aspect of Time Capsule. And HOmepod along with ATV replaces the wireless sound aspect of the small Airport Express. And all the wireless printers today make the wireless print feature of the Airport Extreme and Time Capsule not that important a selling pt.

I think back in the day AAPL did the airport series just to help Macs. Sure they undoubtedly made money but back then routers were so bad and didn't play as nice with Macs. It is a very Steve Jobs sort of product. Simple, elegant, exorbitantly priced. It just worked. It simply had nothing left to offer these days.

Just typing that brought images of Steve talking about server grade hard drives. Man I might go on Ebay now....

 

[Stephen.R]

Replaced my AE installation with a couple of Plumes.

I dunno.. A subscription service for software is hard enough to swallow.

A subscription for hardware?

In the real world that's not a real argument.

It's a very real argument, it's just one that a lot of people happily ignore.

Just because you personally don't value privacy, or somehow don't believe Google treats privacy like the ripper treated ladies of the night, doesn't make it "not a real argument".

 

[CamiMR]

My Airport setup has been working as intended for years, so unless something breaks, I'm not expecting to replace it any time soon...
Had heard of the Eero a few times so decided to look it up on Amazon UK.
Pack of 3 = £699?!?!
Ouch...

 

[trip1ex]

Well, to be clear, there are plenty of better routers (the Extremes, for example, will begin rejecting any WiFi clients beyond 50). But they were extremely good SOHO level equipment that supported Apple Specific functions such as Time Machine backups. I'm curious how Apple thinks people will use Time Machine with a bunch of laptops now? Sure, that is easy if you have a spare Mac sitting around you can dedicate as a Time Machine server, but many households I've worked in use the setup: Airport Extreme with USB drive or Time Capsule, plus 2 or 3 or more laptops. That way backups happen automatically over WiFi. It's an unobtrusive system. Is there a replacement workflow in-place for that which I'm not aware of?

It's called iCloud.

 

[rezenclowd3]

R.I.P., best (most stable) routers on the planet...

Try Ubiquiti as your next move.

 

[J___o___h___n]

Shame. These were great products.

Apple should be updating them and providing us more secure versions.

 

[pat500000]

Tim is the one who needs to be discontinued...along with his marvel friends.

 

[Mannaerts]

R.I.P., best (most stable) routers on the planet...

I have an airport extreme and an Asus RT-AC88U and the Asus certainly isn't worse if not better

 

[Sasparilla]

Bummer to see the end of sales of them - confirming the official statement years ago. Still using my extreme and am "extreme"ly happy with it. Really wished Apple hadn't exited from this market.

 

[macsrcool1234]

I almost feel bad for the suckers who bought a discontinued product after April.

Almost.

 

[Jaro65]

This is quite unfortunate. This focus on iPhone, to the detriment of their other product lines, is not going to bode well for Apple. The AirPort routers were fantastic. What are you doing, Tim? You didn't have a monitor to sell me for years. Now your'e also telling me to go and spend my WiFi and back-up h/w dollars somewhere else as well. Ok then.

 

[ryanwarsaw]

Tim is the one who needs to be discontinued...along with his marvel friends.

Nothing could be further from the truth. Tim can actually see the tree in the forest.

 

[npmacuser5]

An excellent product. My old Time Capsule still functional. Will be missed, especially the ease of use.

 

[puma1552]

Another terrible bean counter decision. There is no substitute for these, mine looks so nice on my desk as part of my ecosystem.

Bring back these, and external displays.

 

[jent]

So what do people recommend for Time Machine backups in a multi-Mac household? When I google the suggestions other users have posted the setup process looks complicated and there are lots of threads of people complaining. I just want the straightforward simplicity and consistent functionality that the Time Capsule provided.

 

[McTool]

I will miss you my friend. I bought up a few on eBay to keep my house going for a while. Years I hope. Sure there are other options but I have had no issues at all with mine so I keep them going.

They got updated for Airplay 2.
Mine (Airport Express, only needed one) still works great. Could be 5 years now. Not a single issue, never.

 

[Stephen.R]

Ok, so I still have a working AE, but I thought it'd be interesting to see how the new alternatives compare.

So Eero definitely has Apple style, both visually and conceptually. Simple, 2 products, with a decent design. Nothing crazy. The attempted upsell of a subscription for... somehting was a little off-putting, but OK, its optional.

Look at Ubiquiti (apparently started by former Apple to follow ignored ideas for improvements).. Ok, give me a minute to process all the products on that page. Oh, most are commercial offerings. Ok, a few for home/small office... Oh.. so they have two separate product lines (and nothing to indicate they're particularly compatible with each other), so I have to choose between having LAN ports on the 'core' router, or the ability to use my existing ethernet to connect the 'extenders'?

I guess whenever this AE dies it'll be back to stupid 'traditional' routers and APs where everything needs to be configured through a ridiculous web app that probably complains every time because I'm not using IE6, because as lousy as that is, at least it can be used.
[doublepost=1542394421][/doublepost]

It's called iCloud.

iCloud is not a replacement for a Time Machine backup.

 

[justperry]

So what do people recommend for Time Machine backups in a multi-Mac household? When I google the suggestions other users have posted the setup process looks complicated and there are lots of threads of people complaining. I just want the straightforward simplicity and consistent functionality that the Time Capsule provided.

A NAS maybe....

 

[McTool]

Well, wireless charging mats must be a candidate category then.
Or iTunes replacements, DarkMode for iOS, text selection tools that do work, amongst iPhone antenna’s, Pro devices with Pencils for kids, platformwide TouchBars, stuck butterfly keyboards, orphaned 3Dtouch, mice taken from behind, and other halfbaken solutions (for problems that didn’t exist) that need fixing

“Text selection that actually works”. Couldn’t agree more. What a harassment. Thought I was yhe onle one with this issue. Thank, whomever you choose, I’m not the only one.

 

[Soylent Yellow]

A huge failure on behalf of the modern router companies whose devices are indeed better than Apple's own, is that their designs still aren't simple and elegant. All feature rows of obnoxious LEDs and LCDs. None have come to realize Apple's one, small indicator light is all that's needed.

My Ubiquity UniFi acces point has only one LED, which I turned off in settings. The airport extreme looks like a mammoth next to it.

 

[tromboneaholic]

[doublepost=1542394421][/doublepost]
iCloud is not a replacement for a Time Machine backup.

Plugging a hard drive into a Wi-Fi router is.

 

[rayward]

Perspective from somebody working for a Nordic telco:

"Normal users" no longer see a modem/router as something they are willing to invest in. They expect to either be provided with a free modem/router from the ISP or they might go out and buy a $50-90 device and if it turns out to be crap, they will buy another $50-90 one. And another. Never in a million years will the idea of spending $150+ will even cross their mind.

I remember reading that being unsatisfied with Airport hardware sales, Apple decided to try having Apple Store staff focus on offering them to customers buying something else and when that failed spectacularly, the whole thing was basically decided.

I gave AT&T's router a chance, as it is dual band and had very good wifi range. It was put into passthru mode and my AEBS was back in charge within a week - it couldn't handle the traffic and so was deathly slow when it wasn't dropping out.

 

[nt5672]

The AirPort stuff just isn't keeping up with the feature sets of other devices. Got a Ubiquity https://amplifi.com setup and it was as easy or maybe easier to setup than the old AirPort

IIUC the guy that started Ubiquity left Apple to do so.

 

[Stephen.R]

Plugging a hard drive into a Wi-Fi router is.

Sure, if said router a) supports disk sharing b) uses a recent enough version of Samba for macOS to accept it as a TM target, and has the right options set.

 

[ccsicecoke]

Getting ready to say bye to Apple