Slashdot Mirror
Apple Abandons Development of Wireless Routers, To Focus On Products That Return More Profit (bloomberg.com)
Apple has disbanded its division that develops wireless routers in a move that further sharpens the company's focus on consumer products that generate the bulk of its revenue, Bloomberg reports. From the article:Apple began shutting down the wireless router team over the past year, dispersing engineers to other product development groups, including the one handling the Apple TV. Apple hasn't refreshed its routers since 2013 following years of frequent updates to match new standards from the wireless industry. The decision to disband the team indicates the company isn't currently pushing forward with new versions of its routers. Routers are access points that connect laptops, iPhones and other devices to the web without a cable. Apple currently sells three wireless routers, the AirPort Express, AirPort Extreme, and AirPort Time capsule. The Time capsule doubles as a backup storage hard drive for Mac computers.
as someone who supports consumer grade routers, this is the best news I could get today. these airports are the worst
have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
Circa 2010 (IIRC) the Airport was the best selling router on the planet. Now it's not selling.
The only thing Apple will be selling are iPads, iPhones and possibly wearable smart devices (like Apple watch).
The bulk of their revenue will come from App store and iTunes (and possible iCloud).
Glad they explained what they are /s
"Routers are access points that connect laptops, iPhones and other devices to the web without a cable."
I thought Apple was using them anyway just to make profit? They certainly didn't have the technology that many cheaper routers had. I took a Air Port Extreme apart a few years ago and was amazed that it even had heat sinks on the chips. But then the hardware itself was nothing to brag on. It was more about Apple fans connecting easily to Apple devices. I realized for the convenience it just wasn't worth it.
Samsung announced that they are abandoning the development of smartphones, focusing on more profitable products like ordnance weapons.
I'm so glad my Airport router died. In true Apple fashion, you needed external software to configure it. Totally bizarre.
Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
"Routers are access points"
Sure they are, just like my tower case is a "CPU" or "hard drive".
(Don't you just love the way marketing hi-jacks technical terms for their own use?)
Routers are a dime a dozen, but Time Capsule used to be unusual: it was the only network device usable for Time Machine backups. IIRC this was because Time Machine needs an HFS disk to back up to, and just about all routers don't support HFS.
iPhoto also had this requirement, and was unusable when you parked its library on a FAT32 disk.
Has this changed, and do other routers support Time Machine these days? Or does this mean the end for the easiest-to-use backup solution ever?
"Routers are access points that connect laptops, iPhones and other devices to the web without a cable....
Thanks for clearing that up for me - what is this place now, Facebook?
Actual innovation from Apple. Who would've thought.
Oh! So that explains why they charge an arm and a leg for a obsolete on arrival laptop and 6 months worth of coffee for a dull and boring book. /s
Routers aren't viewed by consumers as a fashion statement, and therefore cannot command the usual high price that other Apple fashion statements command.
Like that $300 book of pictures of just their products?
Because if your Desktop and Documents folders live on iCloud drive, and your music streams from the iTunes store, why would you need a Time Machine backup any more?
Michael J.
Root, God, what is difference?
Most of the people these days who would consider springing for an Apple-branded access point also have high speed Internet from a company which also sells TV services. Those companies leveraged their monopolies to effectively force customers to rent a cable box to watch TV and have since been doing that again to push their own WiFi routers on consumers.
Apple got out of the WiFi router business because those ISPs have largely killed the market. Sure there will always be a few geeks willing to deal with the hassle of overriding what the ISP provided, but they weren't likely to be satisfied with a safety-fied Apple product anyway.
Most of the people these days who would consider springing for an Apple-branded access point...
When you start your comment off with an unsubstantiated, made-up factoid, it lowers the strength of the position you are trying to support.
.
iow, Nice Try. Wanna Play Again?
The annoying part for me when it comes to having to replace them will be finding some new solution for AirPlay; admittedly this will be a nice motivator for finally ditching iTunes.
Apple's killed off peripheral businesses in order to strengthen their core businesses before.
For example, Apple used to have a $1B/year printer business, which was highly profitable. They killed it, because doing so for them to get all the major printer companies to ship their standard printers with support for both PC and Mac, which ultimately grew Mac sales.
They used to sell a digital camera, the first consumer digital camera that was easy to use with a computer. When the digital camera industry developed some decent standards and became easy for consumers to use, Apple killed their digital camera, and sold Canon, Nikon, etc.
Same for AppleTalk -> EtherNet, ADB -> USB.
Apple introduced their routers when routers were extremely consumer hostile with horrible software, and Apple's routers are well made and very easy to set up and use, making it easy for Mac owners to get online. Now, routers have gotten a lot better, to the point where Apple doesn't need to invest R&D in making them usable.
Enable 3D printed prosthetics!
One thing Apple routers had was the ability to set themselves up as a Bonjour proxy, so for example your Mac could advertise its iTunes library sharing, but go to sleep. The router would repoint the address to itself, and if you tried to access that library from another device, the router would send a wakeup to the Mac, then repoint Bonjour back at it.
Also, while the rest of the world uses uPNP, Apple routers use NAT-PMP.
Are these technologies just dead now?
And in response to the comments above about more availability for network drives to be used as remote Time Machine backups, instead of requiring a Time Capsule, will Apple decide to kill off remote backups entirely because the experience is no longer guaranteed or even consistent with third-party devices?
Michael J.
Root, God, what is difference?
Too bad, I had nothing but good experiences with the Airport line.
Trolling is a art,
I can see where Apple would want to stop focusing on making devices like routers...
However there is one very negative side effect - going forward where will the Time Capsule support be? That is actually a huge selling point AND customer loyalty point, because it works so well for maintaining backups when people are otherwise terrible at it.
What I'm hoping is that Apple will go the same route they did with the monitors and LG, that they will partner with some other router vender to make new routers that still have drives built in configured for Time Machine... the next year should be interesting to see how Apple transitions a number of things.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Routers are NOT "access points that connect laptops, iPhones and other devices to the web without a cable"
Fucking slashdot is a site for turds, for news that isn't!
I find this disappointing. For me the AirPort Express was *THE* choice to use -- and I still use AirPlay on them too.
My biggest problem was covering 90 thousand square feet area (indoors and out). I bought thousands and thousands of dollars worth of various router brands (and returned them all) trying to do this. Key word would be reliably. They all suck. Except Apple's. The AirPort's ability to relay / extend the network wirelessly made it the winner. They just work...
Their form factor made them easy to deploy too -- no ugly antenna's all over the place. Sure, lack of antenna may have limited their range ... I just bought more of them.
Now I'm back to square one again. Ugh.
Even more annoying is that the configuration utility only runs on a specific set of OSes. It's annoying to have to find an apple/windows device just to configure it.
and get over your childish tech tribalism--hopefully you'll learn that technology is supposed to "automagically work together". The point of technology is to make peoples' lives easier, not to serve as a basis for chest-thumping.
I'm so hyped for iBook 4S 5.5" everybody!!!
They're not selling any. Every man and his dog gets a "free" wireless switch/modem from their ISP; Corporates will rarely choose these Apple products; Who's left?
The only wireless router I've ever owned that didn't need to be rebooted all the time (or ever) and didn't have weird compatibility problems with certain clients that needed their wifi toggled to fix weird performance and latency issues. Yes, you can complain about the configuration and interface, but you do that like once, and the rest of the time you hope to leave the thing alone.
Now - where can I buy a router this isn't full of sales gimmicks and just works right? Clearly going to the high-end of consumer routers doesn't cover that.
"I don't know that atheists should be considered citizens, nor should they be considered patriots." George HW Bush
Guess the next step is Apple abandoning the PC business - goodbye MacIntosh/iMac/MacPro/MacMini/MacBook/XServe.
With the amount of choices out there for hot spots, routers, and WAPs who cares if Apple doesn't produce one. It's like complaining if a car model is no longer being produced.
Sent from my TARDIS
WiFi access point enables connections between devices without dongles, therefore harmful for Apple core business.
Now I can't have a sleek, friendly overpriced filter to match my sleek, friendly, overpriced desktop, all-in-one, laptop, notebook, tablet, fablet, phonelet, phone, Bluetooth earplugs and charging stations! My life won't match! It will be like I've lost my identity! I feel so... open-source. So dirty. Confused. Where is Steve to talk me what to think? How can I be creative anymore?
Apple makes a business decision...
Problem is... do you trust that cable router? I was a bit shocked to log onto the cable company's website, find my AP passwords available there in plaintext. This means the router happily hands the PW info upstream. I also don't want the cable company's router privy to internal LAN traffic.
I've wound up using my TM, originally to back up my MBP, as an inner router just so I don't have the cable company having access to all my traffic. Total cost in latency? 2-3 ms.
This is the beginning of the end of the Macintosh Line of products at Apple Inc. Had to happen sometime but given that Jony Ive, famous for the Lisa and Newton and PowerMac and lately the iPhone 7 and MacBook Pro failures is just hitting stride until he retires and becomes his last and most Famous Failure.
Look for the Mac end date announcement in 2Q 2017.
I liked the airports for their WiFi-to-Audio capablities, where I can hook whatever speaker I want (small to big),
and play from either my Mac or my iPhone.
What's a good alternative for the Airport here?
I still want airplay and Apple's native software, no 3rd party apps (Sonos).
Apple has increased its efforts to cater to the lowest-common denominator. Eventually, they'll be peddling ludicrously-overpriced, cheaply-made, crappy, third-party products, rebranded with the "Apple" logo. Oh wait, they already are...
Why doesn't Apple grow a pair of balls and just state such news in a press release in stead of these organised rumors?
I've used a couple of the AirPort base stations because a relative kept buying them. The problem is that they cost $200 and lack features that ~$100 ASUS routers have. Chiefly, they lack any sort of manual bandwidth management or even QoS.
On top of that, they require a special application to manage instead of an HTTP interface. HTTP interfaces, while not perfect, can work on practically any device with a web browser. With Airport software, you're limited to Mac OS X and Windows. (There is an iPhone app, but it only gives status information.)
Drone 1; "Guys, i got this great idea! Let's require Itunes to configure our routers!"
Drone 2; "Thats..... a GREAT IDEA!"
Drone 3; "I think we need to adjust our meds."
Later;
Drone 1; "Guys, I think we need to scrap the whole program. We look like imbeciles."
I bet it'll be lots of fun for Apple support / Genius Bar people having to hold someone's hand through getting their increasingly wireless only products to talk to random wireless access points.
At least previously I could imagine could would just be able to say 'Sorry, if it's not apple it's not supported' knowing that an easy solution was available for purchase from Apple.
I don't want to have to walk my parents through setting up a DD-WRT box or a Cisco access point.. Nobody does.
I can't buy an iphone because it has no headphone jack
I can't buy a macbook becuase it has no escape key
And now I can buy an airport extreme because they won't make them anymore...
Given how cost efficiency is ruling Apple now - you'd have to be blind not to see that the removal of encryption from their products will be touted as a courageous cost-saving strategy.
Apple just sucks now.
The average consumer has no idea what's going on. They think they have a "3d TV" that uses "AI" connected to the "wireless internet" with their "modem."
o There are no 3D consumer televisions. Only single POV stereovision.
o There is no AI. Because there is no "I." Yet.
o There is no wireless Internet. It's 99.9999999999999999999% wires, and a good deal of the rest is optical.
o Hardly just a modem.
And the above? That's the stuff they are close to getting right.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
No, it just means that Tim Cook, pencil pusher, cancelled the product line to improve short term profitability without worrying too much about long term effects. I presume that iThings will just suck more as a result, which will only be important to an iThing victim.
When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
You can trash that subject all you want, but Apple products used to offer features with value, once you accounted for all the benefits. Value may not be lowest price. I've owned three Apple routers from the very first flying saucer (with phone modem) to the 3TB Time Capsule. Each has been trouble free and required attention, like never. Earlier Airport software allowed me to look at my logs, I knew problems were in the air when that was taken away for a pretty interface. There have been no updates in a long while. Steve Jobs used to spend his time at product announcements promoting the benefits the new products brought to users. Now, it is all about profit. Tim Cook ought to sit down and watch Steve's one man shows from the first iMac to his last. The new pro series laptops did the right thing with USB-C, the wrong on so much more. Nothing to see here folks, walk away. OS X has been nothing but trouble since El Capitan for me and others. USB is not reliable and the SDHC reader is iffy. No wonder it is gone from the new laptops. Photos can't properly sync with my iPhone. iTunes turned into a clumsy mess and gives me alerts about my iPhone software update after I've updated it. My next computer will likely be a Microsoft Surface and my next phone a Google Pixel. BTW, I use Linux at work, it ain't there yet. When Apple gave me what I considered good value, I spent my money there. I don't see it any longer. Nothing to do with this announcement, all to do with the lack of vision and value.
Up here in Canada, it's increasingly common for the ISP to provide all-in-one router and modem units. And... what end user even has a clue what putting a modem into "bridge" mode means... other than more work?
At some point, it's just more confusing for Apple to sell routers. I suspect they'll launch some sort of AP-only in the future to support various proprietary stuff.
I think you've hit the nail on the head with this. When I first got my Airport Extreme N, it was the only device out there with 802.11n that I could get my hands on so I could connect my shiny new 802.11n enabled laptop to the home network. These days the ISP's give you a wireless router when you sign up and most people just use that. I also got an Airport Express 2nd Gen so I could use AirTunes via the optical out to my amp. Worked great. Replaced that amp with a newer version which supported AirTunes directly so I didn't need the Express anymore. It's a crowded market space and Apple don't really have any extra value any more to provide.
I have an ASUS WiFI router and a TimeCapsule WiFi.
AirPlay is way more reliable and consistent over the Apple WiFi than the non-Apple products for some reason. Like multi-cast AirPlay device discovery is more optimized on Apple gear. I really like using highly reliable Apple Express remote AirPlay audio, but wonder if those too will be discontinued?
I mean I know more people listen to music now just on their phones, but I happen to like casting it to a real amplifier with nice speakers wireless. With a mini setup as massive music server, I can use WiFI to push music all over the house to wired and wiress speakers - something bluetooth isn't really able to handle.
Pondering this one.
Apple got into the router business because they wanted to facilitate the move to wireless connectivity for their laptops, and nobody else was making routers that were designed to be easy to set up and use. Other companies have since picked up that mission and run with it, so Apple no longer has anything unique to offer. And Apple can't get premium pricing without that since they can't sell routers as a fashion statement; normally people don't see them.
Next, they are going to remove wi-fi adapters from all of their devices. Ya know, 'cause they're courageous and stuff.