“It’s a new, small square device from Apple Inc. that makes streaming digital content a great experience, but it is not the Apple TV,” Tom Rose reports for The Boston Herald.
“The AirPort Extreme Base Station is a wireless router that delivers the fastest available speeds via the new networking standard, 802.11n. Fans of Apple’s previous AirPort station will be blown away by this one, which at $179 comes in cheaper than the first edition,” Rose reports.
“The router works with both Macs and Windows PCs running 802.11a, 802.11b, 802.11g and, of course, 802.11n wireless connections. The new standard can be enabled, for free with the purchase of the AirPort station, in almost all iMacs and laptops with Intel Core Duo processors,” Rose reports.
“It allows users to set up a networked printer, hard disk or USB hub. Now users throughout the house, or classroom, can share files and documents with ease,” Rose reports. “Another improvement is ability to jump between the 2.4GHz or 5GHz spectrum, a feature that reduces the chance of radio interference.”
“The increase speed and range – which Apple claims to be twice that of its predecessor – are important considerations for Apple TV owners wishing to stream content from computers scattered throughout a large house,” Rose reports.
Full article here.
Related articles:
NY Times’ Pogue: Apple’s Airport Extreme ‘smallest, best-looking, fastest, strongest signal’ – April 12, 2007
Apple releases AirPort Extreme Base Station with 802.11n Firmware 7.1 – April 10, 2007
Computerworld: Apple Airport Extreme’s wireless storage feature works flawlessly – March 23, 2007
Apple’s Airport Extreme sets Wi-Fi on fire for Macs and PCs – March 03, 2007
Apple’s AirPort Extreme vs. Microsoft’s Windows Home Server – February 23, 2007
Hands-on with Apple’s superspeedy 802.11n AirPort Extreme Base Station – February 19, 2007
Apple’s new AirPort Extreme offers increased speed and range – February 18, 2007
High-quality Apple AirPort Extreme 802.11n unboxing photos – February 04, 2007
Apple ships new Airport Extreme Base Stations two weeks early – February 01, 2007
Apple AirPort Utility 1.0 screenshots, 802.11n AirPort Extreme Base Station manuals – January 26, 2007
Apple releases AirPort Extreme Update 2007-001 – January 26, 2007
Apple’s new AirPort Extreme ‘AirPort Disk’ feature: cheap, simple network storage for home networks – January 15, 2007
Apple’s new AirPort Extreme supports 802.11n, enables wireless streaming of HD media – January 10, 2007
Apple introduces new AirPort Extreme with 802.11n – January 09, 2007
Our old extreme network seems to stream just fine- quite a distance apart through walls to our Apple TV. I was kinda pleasantly surprised.
Does anyone know if the attached drive can be used to access from the internet, not only from the network?
Too bad the ethernet ports run at an anemic 100Mbps – a bottleneck for Gigabit Ethernet-enabled Macs.
@J… it can be accessed from the internet, but I’m not sure how. I originally got the instructions from someone here on MDN but lost them. Wait arround, they’ll post it again.
http://mytop-in.net/go/030207160042.html
http://www.topping.com.ua/go/030207160042.html
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Yes, the AE can allow one to “mount” the hard drive over the internet fairly easily.
There is a simple setting to enable in the Airport Utility. Then simply use the Go -> Connect menu item and enter the IP address of your AE. A dialog pops up asking for your credentials, and then will list the partitions on the remote drive to mount on your local desktop.
Of course, you have to leave the drive attached to the AE running.
It works, and works great!
Will it switch frequencies automatically or is it manual?
The fact that a connected USB drive will not spin down when not used is a bummer. WHo wants to run a USB drive 24/7?
One guy:
Agreed. I am concerned about premature wear and tear on the constantly running drive. Bummer.
I suppose one can invest in an internet-enabled power bar to switch on the drive when needed.
My connnected USB drive goes quiesent when not manually connected to a networked CPU. Make sure you de-select the “Automatically discover airport disks” in the “airport disk utility” to insure that the connected disk is not automatically linked to any networked CPU.
Many claim that spinning hard disk up and down repeatedly is more wear on a drive than leaving spin all the time. Unless heat is a concern in some crappy USB enclosure. Or, of course, energy consumption.
Leaving a drive running is no more wear than spinning it up and down 15 times a day.
Mine just came today (1 hour ago), set up was a breeze. Now for an AppleTV
@ Barry & One Guy
We had an old Apple Quadra from the early 1990’s that acted as a 4D database server for jobs in our office. Had only been turned off once (to move to another building) other than that it’s run non stop until a few months ago when we replaced it with a Web Based Database–not because it was damaged. That’s quite a run time.
Replaced a G4 Tower acting as a Server since January 2000, just turned that off a couple years ago, replaced it with a G5. The G4 was then donated to be someone’s home computer. G5’s been running almost 3 years non-stop. All problem free.
> Many claim that spinning hard disk up and down repeatedly is more wear on a drive than leaving spin all the time.
I agree completely.
Google published a recent article in which they found that drives that were left running continously tended to last years longer than those that were turned on and off regularly.
I’d love to use this with my titanium powerbook, but I can’t find anything that claims a 3rd party 802.11 cardbus card will work in it.
To clarify: 802.11*g* card for the PC Card slot.
I’m an idiot. 802.11*n*. (Moderator can delete my post if possible.)
I hooked up my ipod mini to it. Makes it a snap to move a file between the pc and any of the macs in my house.