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Report: Apple Planned to Offer Starlink-Like Home Internet Service
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Apple needs to innovate on their own products front which is lacking everywhere, just go with the best Satellite provider at the moment, Starlink and stop being so difficult.
Tim Cook was probably afraid that the carriers would pull back on, if not outright stop, subsidizing iPhones. If all those free iPhone offers disappeared
that'd be a huge hit to Apple's revenue. 49.1% of revenue comes from iPhone.
There’s Ubiqiti, a networking company founded by an ex Apple employee from the Airport team. A lot of their hardware IMO and their management software has a very Apple-like feel to them.
The Starlink numbers work because their launch costs are 0. For everyone else launch costs are really high.
And of course, SpaceX's PR team is great. Everyone knows about Starlink, and they have a worldwide service and marketing footprint. That's something that not a lot of companies have/can do.
And of course, SpaceX's PR team is great. Everyone knows about Starlink, and they have a worldwide service and marketing footprint. That's something that not a lot of companies have/can do.
Honestly please, just give me a good, privacy centric, mesh compatible wifi 7 Airport Extreme, maybe even shove everything and not just Safari through Private Relay (but please, Apple, no more downtime on that), the time is now.
I even got my ancient cable line replaced with 1.5 gigabit fiber just now and am looking for it to actually deliver that 1.5 gigabit in most of the rooms, the Giga Hub is ok but a little weak in the bedroom
Airports are easy to set up and very stable and reliable devices.
However, given how long Apple has stopped updating them, they could be greatly improved in terms of both technology and cybersecurity.
In any case, having more options available does not mean that existing ones are excluded, and it does offer options to people who do not necessarily have technical knowledge of telecommunications, especially considering that configuring some equipment seems to require a master's degree to understand all the configuration options. Furthermore, a device that is poorly configured due to lack of knowledge is more dangerous than one that is configured in a “reliable and stable” manner based on the manufacturer's experience, even if these options do not always match exactly what the user needs or wants.
My 2013 Airport works great. I buy used ones from eBay whenever someone I know complains about crappy WiFi and bam, they have great WiFi
For those of us who live off-grid, fiber or even DSL isn't an option. Prior to Starlink, the only option was traditional satellite internet or (LTE) hotspot, and I couldn't figure out which was worse. Starlink is a game changer, it's incredibly good (regularly get 200+ Mbps with ~50ms latency).
Now, Amazon is coming out with its Starlink competitor called Project Kuiper. It might be better for Apple to partner with one of those options.
This is alarming and if true makes me think Apple should discontinue the emergency service, and that it was a good idea that they didn’t proceed with any other satellite services. Just leave all communication services to carriers so that the government doesn’t have a legal foothold to interfere with Apple’s privacy stance. Angering giant telecommunications is one thing and extremely dangerous enough as it is, but Apple is completely powerless against the law.
When I was a young man and watched this guy on stage. I was thinking, he's gonna pop a vein in his brain anytime soon. I hope the paramedics are on standby...Services, Services, Services!
I don’t think the terrain is the same as it was in Jobs’ day. Cook might be able to use Apple’s weight to get what they want when it cones to telecommunications companies, but these days doing so would probably get them in hot water with regulation.
100% agree. An Apple with grand ambitions is far better and exciting than Apple without. And it wasn't just Tim Cook who cancelled the idea, per the report, Federighi as well ( who was also against the idea of investing in generative AI / LLM's in the beginning as well, per a previous Mark Gurman report).
Given Jobs' wish to control all aspects of Apple products and infrastructure, I was surprised when - all those years ago - he did not create / buy his own telecommunications network, specially to run iPhones on.
Relying on yet another company / system to make his products — already relying on others - work I can't see as being anything more than a non-starter.
Relying on yet another company / system to make his products — already relying on others - work I can't see as being anything more than a non-starter.
I was out in the middle of nowhere-desert in Utah, connected to it and it works great.
I've used it a couple times and it was sporadic. I only got 5-min or so windows where it worked, then was out again for several more.
I'm personally not even close to being ready to rely on it, and will still carry my inreach when backpacking.
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Generally speaking, living in a high density city means you're less likely to get fiber. The cable ISPs already have mature, complete HFC plants in most cities now. Nobody is going to spend a fortune to boar and bury underground fiber when there's already coax in the ground and incumbent ISPs have a stranglehold on customers. The ROI just isn't there if you have to take on that huge capex expensive up front (i.e. millions of dollars in borrowing) and still sell the service at a loss in order to siphon customers off of Big Cable.
Meanwhile, RDOF funding has driven Charter, among others, to expand fiber to the home in many rural areas that were previously unserved by wired broadband. In my region, five fiber overbuilders split up among several smaller territories are bringing fiber to the home in places where the only option is an expensive cable option that maxes out at 940 down/35 up, or occasionally DSL from the LEC.
Several counties and cities in the region have also taken on the initiative themselves and built fiber to the premises networks that offer better speeds (symmetric gigabit or higher, instead of a lopsided 10-40 Mbps upstream speed) and lower latency for 33-50% lower price than the cable company -- assuming you can get cable internet in many of these areas at all.