“The AirPort Express is the product from Apple that is… a fully-capable, mobile 802.11g wireless access point that can also stream music from iTunes to your home stereo. In addition, it can extend the range of an AirPort Base Station and support print jobs over the network to a USB printer,” Eric Bangeman reports for Ars Technica.
“In testing it on both a Windows laptop and a PowerBook, we wanted to determine the extent of Apple’s cross-platform support. Does it work as well out-of-the-box whether you’re a Mac or Windows user? The short answer is yes. The long answer is that Windows users will sometimes have to go through a few extra steps to achieve the same result as someone using Mac OS X,’ Bangeman reports.
[MacDailyNews Take: Isn’t that usually the case for Windows vs. Mac OS X?]
Bangeman give the Airport Express a score of 8 out of 10 and finds that “for a multipurpose device like the Express, the price tag is justified if you are going to take advantage of more than one of its features.”
Full review here.
I checked the SF store last week and they said to wait a couple of weeks. Are they in stores yet?
MDN.. exactly.. no one’s allowed to complain that they got the fsckin Blaster#2343 while attempting to hook up the Airport Express..
Mine arrived yesterday. I set it up last night and it worked flawlessly, even with Airport Extreme-less Macs. My G4 Tower and my 867 Mhz Powerbook each recognized the “Living Room” stereo without a hitch.
Here’s what we need now — an Wi-Fi remote that uses the iPod interface (click wheel and all!) to control the iTunes software that’s streaming to the Express. It should display playlists and the library of the streaming iTunes software…and let you do playlists on the fly. I’m not a hardware expert but I’d bet some genius at Apple could cobble it together and sell it at a $49.95 price point. (There are Konfabulator widgets that already control iTunes, so the “hooks” must be there.) Didn’t some hardware company just come out with Wi-Fi on a chip?
Thoughts?
I’ve had mine (two) since Friday, set them up Monday and it works great! Don’t use the Express Assistant if you don’t have a “standard” Extreme network. I don’t use my AEBS as a NAT/firewall device, so the Express Assistant complains. You have to plug them in, add them to your main base station (if you’re doing WDS) and away you go! They work great. I now have:
1 – AirPort Extreme Base Station (main base station)
2 – AirPort Express Base Stations (remote base stations)
All in a WDS network sharing the same SSID. Both of the express units are also attached to stereos playing tunes. Unfortunately, you can’t play to two units at a time. That would be way sweet! Especially for parties…
I now get at LEAST 3 bars consistently on my 15″ Al Powerbook throughout my house, too!
54g fun!
Wireless remote: Bluetooth phone and Salling Clicker. I use a Nokia 6600, it’s an awesome combination.
wizzards suck
forgot to say, use AirPort Admin Utility instead to set up all of your base stations.
“The long answer is that Windows users will sometimes have to go through a few extra steps to achieve the same result as someone using Mac OS X,'”
This could sound to some readers that it is hard to connect the AirPort Express to a Windows machine when all we know that trying to connect a Windoze to a Wi-Fi is kind of a suffer. I think they sould just report YES as an answer.
Why Apple dosn’t make the ipod wireless built in is beyond me!
If they did the ipod would act as a remote control too for the airtunes!
Solar – what makes you think that’s not something they’re currently working on?
It would be lovely to see Airport connectivity to an iPod. We can only wonder if the 60 Gig iPod that Apple won’t be producing (wink, nudge, nudge) could have Airport connectivity built-in. One caveat that may prevent such a wet dream from coming true for a while might be what always-on Airport connectivity could do to battery life of an iPod. Battery life is already at a premium, even with the improved power management in the latest version. It is said that our eyes are bigger than our stomachs, and in this case, it might be true. Patience is what I counsel. That said, I’d love to see it happen.
Cross your fingers, kids!
is airport express in the apple stores yet?
Oh Great!! ANOTHER insanely great product that I will have to buy (not really complaining
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On the wifi iPod, I guess it would suck battery pretty fast but if they have it so the wifi only comes on in “remote control” mode then it would not be bad. As for streaming from the ipod. If you are streaming to a stationary source then you should be able to have the iPod connected to a charger, no?
Seems like it should be do-able.
Airport iPods is a cool idea, but the power management for something like that might be difficult. Like having to put the wireless card on sleep mode until you select remote option in the menu. I dont really know where im going with this…
Hey ron you know you just called use all gay for using macs you know we could send you to jail, for sexual harresment, and making fun of our beliefs in apple,loser. You suck man even you can’t top this!!!
About playing on 2 airport express at once. (to Express me)
What if you had 2 users both running itunes, and then you use the fast user switching to switch between them. Would that allow you to play at both airport express at once?
JonB:
Interesting. I’ll have to try that.
to Express Me!
Sounds good, let me know what the result is.