Ars Reviews AirPort Express

ack154 writes "Ars Technica has a nice, comprehensive review of the new AirPort Express from Apple. There is a breakdown of each of the main features: music streaming, a mobile base station, a base station extender, and networking a printer. All features were tested from both Mac and Windows perspectives. Overall it got an 8/10 with points mainly lost for no means of remote control and no audio cable included in the package."

Comments

Re:Interesting

[nine-times]

So I can listen to my music wirelessly, assuming I'm running either Windows or have an Apple with iTunes, and when it's time to watch a movie, or anything else, the sound reverts to my laptop's internal speakers? Pretty weak.

It seems to me a lot of people are criticizing this device just because it doesn't do everything. 'No remote? No display on it? Doesn't work with [insert Linux technology here]? That's no good.'

Well, this is Apple's first iteration of a new technology, and it'll take some time to develop. Apple will probably open some parts of this technology to 3rd party developers, and let them come up with things to do with it. I'd expect Apple has plans to do something neat to tie in this wireless-music-broadcast idea to an upcoming generation of the iPod. (broadcasting to your stereo from the iPod in your pocket might be kind of neat, right?)

...Or, you could look at it the other way, in that this isn't a new technology, but Apple added a really neat feature to a product that didn't need it at all. I think this would be a pretty neat little wireless access point on it's own, but add in the print-server and music streaming, and that's a pretty impressive piece of technology in a nice little package. No, it doesn't do everything... but not everyone needs everything. And how are you going to make a product that does everything?

Apple tends to like to start small, introduce a product that only does what it does, but does it well, and without much hassle. Then they start evolving it, over years, by adding features individually, making sure that feature works right, and then looking at new features. The alternative would be to try to pack in as many features as possible, all at once, then spending years making all the features work right.

I suspect the first generation of these will find a limited audience whose specific needs are met by the first generation. The second generation will do more, and therefore find a bigger audience, and so on.

I also suspect that, no matter how much it does, there will people who will complain that it doesn't do things that it just wasn't designed to do. Are you going to complain that the iPod doesn't play CDs, or that your refridgerator doesn't have a built-in stove?

WDS / extending wifi network insecure?

[pedx1ng]

I was considering getting an AirPort Basestation Extreme and Express together to extend the wireless network. But then I came across this note in the review:

One note: when using the AirPort Express as a WDS, you are limited to either using 128-bit WEP or turning off security altogether. This was not mentioned on the AirPort Express pages on apple.com, although it is addressed in the manual. WPA is generally not supported over bridged connections on WiFi products due to the fact that WPA encrypts the MAC addresses which WDS relies on for communication. Keep this limitation in mind when using the Express as a bridge.

Please enlighten me if I am incorrect, but I was under the impression that WEP was basically worthless as far as security is concerned, and that one should always use WPA.