Speculation on the next Airport

[elmimmo]

a DV stream like you get from a digital video camera is only about 3.5Mbps IIRC

3.5MByte per sec., so while Extreme seems to have enough bandwith, I would not precede it with "plenty of". No DV over plain Airport non-Extreme, that's for sure.

"People" do stream full progressive standard NTSC or PAL resolution MPEG4 video wirelessly through Airport Extreme from a computer to an XBox equipped with either XBox Media Center or Microsoft's own Media Center Extender, though. Just so you know…

 

[feakbeak]

Nobody has touched on this yet, but would anyone else like to be able to configure Airport over the web? I don't like the software interface that updates the device. Maybe I'm just used to Linksys/NetGear/DLink routers using web configurations but I much prefer it that way. Plus, you can do remote administration if you want.

I never owned a base station, but I purchased an AirPort Express recently and was checking out all the options. Overall, I was quite disappointed with the software for it. I can do way more with my $80 DLink 802.11g wired/wireless router. I run a website from home and use DDNS, use a combination of DHCP and static IPs on my LAN, port forwarding, etc. My DLink router also has some decent parental control features. You can block traffic on certain ports or specific websites. You can also setup rules for these blocks to only occur for certain hours and/or on specific MAC addresses. Apple's Airport products are missing many of these advanced features.

I ended up not being able to use the APX the way I had intended, so I returned it. I wanted to have the APX extend my existing wireless g network so that I could stream my music from iTunes on any of the wired or wireless computers. I could get it work directly streaming to the APX via wireless, but that was it. Turns out I couldn't have it extend my wi-fi network because DLink doesn't support WDS. I didn't know this before my purchase, but very few manufacturers support WDS - Apple, Buffalo and recently I saw a Belkin router with WDS. I know there are some Linksys models that you can flash with third-party firmware to get you WDS support, but I didn't want to go that route.

Also, the build quality of APX and the ABS are great, but aside from that they pale in comparison to most of the competition as far as value for the money. I've owned a Linksys wired/wireless (b) router and now my DLink wired/wireless (g) router. Yes, my DLink feels like it has the quality of a Cracker Jack toy, but it's been working fine for months now. It just sits there on a shelf. I might be willing to be a reasonable premium (~20%) for Apple's better build quality and style. However, when I can get better functionality and a better feature set for less than half the price I just cannot warrant buying Apple's wireless products.

So three main things I would like to see are:

1. Web interface for the configuration.
2. Feature set comparable to the competition.
3. Lower prices.

 

[chameeeleon]

Appleinsider seems to be hinting at a possible revamped Airport during the third week of April, and given their past article about how Apple was working on updates to their base stations, this seems to click.

From the article:
"The second hardware project to hit the radar carries the codename "M18." But sources were unable to positively identify the project, other than to say it was desktop-related. M18 is scheduled to debut alongside Q87 and may very well represent a new Apple peripheral or wireless device."

 

[The Black Rock]

Well I'm glad the thread I started has turned out so well. When the revamped Airports were hinted before, it was alongside the "two-button mouse" rumor. Two button mouse killed any real discussion of the airport by burying it in a few hundred posts about UI simplification.

Anyway, if n gets ratified and they settle on just 108 Mbps that's more than enough for streaming about 5 HDTV video streams at the same time in MPEG-2 format. With the advent of H.264 (which I believe Apple will latch on to in a big way) they may go for a video streaming box. Or at least they could if they wanted to.

The proposals from TGn Sync for 802.11n may be ratifed next month (if they can get 75% of the vote), that might mean products finalized before the end of the year. So if Apple wants to make a new 802.11n APXBS this may be the time to look out for plans.

Something else that's fascinating here is what exactly the speed is going to be for 802.11n. From Extreme Tech last month:

The 802.11n technology is designed to replace the current crop of 802.11a, 802.11b, and 802.11g standards, with data rates in the neighborhood of 100 Mbits per second; the TGn Sync camp believes that they can achieve 315 Mbits/s or even 630-Mbits/s with even more advanced systems.

That's close to or higher than Firewire 400 speeds!

Other than all of the hopefulness, I still want smaller cheaper faster (I know). Airport price should drop about $90 or $100 to even be reasonable to buy. I can't even consider it in my budget until it comes down some.