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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.
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.
Having used multiple routers from many vendors, I'll say this: the Airport Extremes are pretty darn awesome with an admittedly slightly more difficult setup for certain rules you'd like. However, they are rock solid, don't require reboots hardly ever, and connectivity actually works, versus the drops I've had on every other brand I've used, with the sole exception of the wireless that comes on the Verizon Quantum gateway modem which also has been relatively decent, although it has required a few reboots.
Regarding the wifi profiles on devices, I'm not sure it matters with Apple routers or not. I've had issues swapping out other modems as well, but it's as simple as re-entering your password. Since I have swapped out exactly 1 extreme in about 7 years, I don't think that's a huge hassle.
The cesspool just got a check and balance.
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?
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.