From Bloomberg: Apple Inc. has disbanded its division that develops wireless routers, another move to try to sharpen the company’s focus on consumer products that generate the bulk of its revenue, according to people familiar with the matter.
“Frankly, it’s about time,” Kirk McElhearn writes for Kirkville. “They’ve been limping along, unable to keep up with new technology.
“I used to really like Apple’s AirPort hardware, but somewhere in the past few years, it started to suck,” McElhearn writes. “They never updated the AirPort Express for 802.11ac, making their hardware useless in any but the smallest setups.”
The death of the Airport is not big news to me. I’m actually surprised it lasted as long as it did. Apple introduced the first Airport in conjunction with the first iBooks an easy and convenient way to bring WiFi to the masses. WiFi is everywhere now. Routers are from multiple companies are prolific. Most businesses now have high end Cisco WiFi access points. There was a time where Apple needed the Airport to usher in the wireless revolution. That time has passed and I think this is one product line that doesn’t need Apple’s love anymore. I have always used directly connected hard drives for my Time Machine backups, even on my portables, so Time Capsule is no loss to me either. I have an Apple Airport Extreme 802.11ac access point in my home now. If Apple doesn’t make an Airport Extreme that supports 802.11ag, I’m okay with that. I do agree that having the Airport Express on sale with the 802.11n WiFi standard is embarrassing, and needs to come off the site.
I’m going to stick with Apple as long as I can load my own RAM into iMacs and the OS isn’t too locked down. My latest model is less than a year old and I’ll replace it with the last one they come out with which I hope isn’t any time soon.
However, increasingly I have less and less commitment to Apple’s current ecosystem. Now you might think that some of my approaches are “so last decade” but it just works (and where have heard that before).
First I don’t stream music I transfer it onto a 80 gb iPod Classic which is connected to my ageing HIFI. There is a 120gb iPod Classic sitting in a drawer when it’s needed. The HiFI is getting replaced next year with one which has a 3.5mm socket for the “classics”. I don’t think I’ll have any problem purchasing 3.5mm cables any time soon.
Why would you commit to Apple’s streaming software (and hardware) when it might be replaced. Likewise I don’t need to have my computer on to stream music it’s cabled.
Second, I don’t use the cloud because I don’t want my data being stored on someone else’s computer and then getting milked for the privilege after I reach the free limit. I back up onto this old technology called “hard drives”.
Third, I don’t own an appleTV I have a Western Digital TV media player with hard drives. My wife and I like to own our movies and TV shows. Our compromise is to pay our ISP $10 per month to watch TV shows and movies and then we buy the Blu-rays and re-encode onto the drives. Usually we wait for sales when we get the discs at a fraction of the original retail price. I swear my wife has seen Outlander at least five times and still counting!
So now apparently Apple is getting out of the router business. You know the one thing going for Apple Extreme is that the installation is software based NOT browser based (which is invariably clunky to set up). Great, just great!
Fourth, I’ve gotten so sick and tired of iOS updates being pushed by Apple for my iPad and iPod Touch that I found out a way to block the harassment from Apple to update, update an update etc.
So there you have it, as time goes on I have less and less of a commitment to Apple, a company that once I had so much respect for. As far as I’m concerned we Apple users are just milk cows to suck money from, and then the commitment that we made to the company is shoved back in our faces by the next “big thing”.
Frankly, I don’t care if people flame me but as a loyal Apple user since 1993 I’ve basically had it. It’s been a long time since I’ve been wowed by Apple and unless the company does a radical reset eventually the rot will be manifested in declining sales.
Civilisations rise and then they fall and the same can be said about companies. This is the company that Steve Jobs handed over to Tim Cook. I bet the former is spinning in his grave over the outcome.
My relationship with Apple started with an Apple ][+, back in ~1980-81 — shortly thereafter, started a new career at Apple. We parted company a couple of years after Steve was forced out. The mid-late 1980’s was a messy, dramatic time for Apple, and for Steve/NeXT. Those of us who were there know of what I type.
Aspiring monocultures are never a good bet, in the long run. Previous commentors to this thread have said it better than I, so I will simply note that several folks spot the trending negatives correctly, and are not alone in these perspectives and observations.
While Apple plays out the last of the now barely audible Jobs’ echos, there is little on their product horizon that makes sense — as in, Apple-Jobs sense.
I don’t rent music or entertainment — I buy it, and own it — forever. I don’t use a cloud because I can do this myself, and retain nearly 100% access and availability, wherever I may be located, and my files are retained in my possession, 100% of the time. This does not mean that a retail cloud is not useful and/or necessary, from time to time — but, for the individual Pro tech user, not really part of the monthly budget.
What is left?
Hardware — computers, iPhones and iPads.
OSX (cannot stand the new name, macOS — what is with the effeminate, lower-case spelling of “mac,” anyways? Be bold — Mac, or OSX — loud and proud, not trying to hide the name or slip it in under the door, hoping that it remains somehow unnoticed — enough already.)
Fading pro-apps, like Final Cut, et al.
We don’t want or need an Apple e-car — Tesla, and others, have got that groove well in hand. I have a hunch that the whole Apple car idea grew out of wanting to correct the fiasco that was progressing at the time (and later blew up in the consumer’s faces, taking Ford’s reputation down several notches) in the Ford car entertainment system side of things — with pending hints of threats of incompatabilities and other disasters trending with other car makers, as well.
Clearly, Apple’s culture has been successfully captured and hijacked by Wall Street’s narrow imperatives and relentless bottom-line share-holder-driven demands. In my opinion, that’s a large part of the problem, in a nutshell. That, and Tim Cook incessent need to spend too much time preaching the goodness of the non-heterosexual perspective upon life. Nothing reproductively growing, future-proofing or sustaining about that line of thinking, per se — reflected in today’s Apple, writ large?
Enough for this missive — I am not wishing ill on any group or individuals. In the end it is about the culture, the team, the ability to future-proof and delight, to “get it RIGHT.”
The death of the Airport is not big news to me. I’m actually surprised it lasted as long as it did. Apple introduced the first Airport in conjunction with the first iBooks an easy and convenient way to bring WiFi to the masses. WiFi is everywhere now. Routers are from multiple companies are prolific. Most businesses now have high end Cisco WiFi access points. There was a time where Apple needed the Airport to usher in the wireless revolution. That time has passed and I think this is one product line that doesn’t need Apple’s love anymore. I have always used directly connected hard drives for my Time Machine backups, even on my portables, so Time Capsule is no loss to me either. I have an Apple Airport Extreme 802.11ac access point in my home now. If Apple doesn’t make an Airport Extreme that supports 802.11ag, I’m okay with that. I do agree that having the Airport Express on sale with the 802.11n WiFi standard is embarrassing, and needs to come off the site.
Really ? They can’t keep up with routers , They can’t keep up with display , they can’t keep up with computers . What the hell is going on Apple ?
I’m going to stick with Apple as long as I can load my own RAM into iMacs and the OS isn’t too locked down. My latest model is less than a year old and I’ll replace it with the last one they come out with which I hope isn’t any time soon.
However, increasingly I have less and less commitment to Apple’s current ecosystem. Now you might think that some of my approaches are “so last decade” but it just works (and where have heard that before).
First I don’t stream music I transfer it onto a 80 gb iPod Classic which is connected to my ageing HIFI. There is a 120gb iPod Classic sitting in a drawer when it’s needed. The HiFI is getting replaced next year with one which has a 3.5mm socket for the “classics”. I don’t think I’ll have any problem purchasing 3.5mm cables any time soon.
Why would you commit to Apple’s streaming software (and hardware) when it might be replaced. Likewise I don’t need to have my computer on to stream music it’s cabled.
Second, I don’t use the cloud because I don’t want my data being stored on someone else’s computer and then getting milked for the privilege after I reach the free limit. I back up onto this old technology called “hard drives”.
Third, I don’t own an appleTV I have a Western Digital TV media player with hard drives. My wife and I like to own our movies and TV shows. Our compromise is to pay our ISP $10 per month to watch TV shows and movies and then we buy the Blu-rays and re-encode onto the drives. Usually we wait for sales when we get the discs at a fraction of the original retail price. I swear my wife has seen Outlander at least five times and still counting!
So now apparently Apple is getting out of the router business. You know the one thing going for Apple Extreme is that the installation is software based NOT browser based (which is invariably clunky to set up). Great, just great!
Fourth, I’ve gotten so sick and tired of iOS updates being pushed by Apple for my iPad and iPod Touch that I found out a way to block the harassment from Apple to update, update an update etc.
So there you have it, as time goes on I have less and less of a commitment to Apple, a company that once I had so much respect for. As far as I’m concerned we Apple users are just milk cows to suck money from, and then the commitment that we made to the company is shoved back in our faces by the next “big thing”.
Frankly, I don’t care if people flame me but as a loyal Apple user since 1993 I’ve basically had it. It’s been a long time since I’ve been wowed by Apple and unless the company does a radical reset eventually the rot will be manifested in declining sales.
Civilisations rise and then they fall and the same can be said about companies. This is the company that Steve Jobs handed over to Tim Cook. I bet the former is spinning in his grave over the outcome.
Strange how just when Apple is discontinuing their routers Google is starting sales of their Google Wifi mesh routers.
My relationship with Apple started with an Apple ][+, back in ~1980-81 — shortly thereafter, started a new career at Apple. We parted company a couple of years after Steve was forced out. The mid-late 1980’s was a messy, dramatic time for Apple, and for Steve/NeXT. Those of us who were there know of what I type.
Aspiring monocultures are never a good bet, in the long run. Previous commentors to this thread have said it better than I, so I will simply note that several folks spot the trending negatives correctly, and are not alone in these perspectives and observations.
While Apple plays out the last of the now barely audible Jobs’ echos, there is little on their product horizon that makes sense — as in, Apple-Jobs sense.
I don’t rent music or entertainment — I buy it, and own it — forever. I don’t use a cloud because I can do this myself, and retain nearly 100% access and availability, wherever I may be located, and my files are retained in my possession, 100% of the time. This does not mean that a retail cloud is not useful and/or necessary, from time to time — but, for the individual Pro tech user, not really part of the monthly budget.
What is left?
Hardware — computers, iPhones and iPads.
OSX (cannot stand the new name, macOS — what is with the effeminate, lower-case spelling of “mac,” anyways? Be bold — Mac, or OSX — loud and proud, not trying to hide the name or slip it in under the door, hoping that it remains somehow unnoticed — enough already.)
Fading pro-apps, like Final Cut, et al.
We don’t want or need an Apple e-car — Tesla, and others, have got that groove well in hand. I have a hunch that the whole Apple car idea grew out of wanting to correct the fiasco that was progressing at the time (and later blew up in the consumer’s faces, taking Ford’s reputation down several notches) in the Ford car entertainment system side of things — with pending hints of threats of incompatabilities and other disasters trending with other car makers, as well.
Clearly, Apple’s culture has been successfully captured and hijacked by Wall Street’s narrow imperatives and relentless bottom-line share-holder-driven demands. In my opinion, that’s a large part of the problem, in a nutshell. That, and Tim Cook incessent need to spend too much time preaching the goodness of the non-heterosexual perspective upon life. Nothing reproductively growing, future-proofing or sustaining about that line of thinking, per se — reflected in today’s Apple, writ large?
Enough for this missive — I am not wishing ill on any group or individuals. In the end it is about the culture, the team, the ability to future-proof and delight, to “get it RIGHT.”
And, BALANCE.
Niffy