And there are plenty of home routers out there at similar price points that are just as capable and just as simple. I had my Amplifi up and running in a couple of minutes and the only reason it took that long is I had to configure it for my Fixed IP.
There are plenty of good choices out there that are better than the Airports (I know, I switched from an Airport Extreme and two expresses to the Amplifi and solved all our weird WiFi issues) and the only way forward for Apple was either drop the product or spend engineering resources on a new mesh system. I am sure they looked ar Eero and Orby and Velop and Amplify and Google and all the others and decided there wasn’t any need for Apple to be in that space anymore because all of those products work and most of them are dead simple.
It’s as @MMTalker pointed out, Apple doesn’t make Laserwriters anymore, because that problem was solved.
You can do this, but I’ve always wondered how it would complicate support if there were any problems. For instance, here’s a list of modems sold by Best Buy.
I owned my own cable modem when I was with Comcast. Other than having to call them to activate it, it worked better than the junker they were leasing us and I had no problem with support. Wirecutter has a good guide to them.
My worry isn’t if the Apple hardware will last, but how long the Airport Utility software will continue to work. Now that Apple has officially discontinued the line, will they support the software much longer? Is it 64-bit? Will it run as the OS is upgraded over the next few years? What about security issues?
Without the software, the hardware may not be configurable or updatable.
My Extreme just arrived via FedEx. Plugged it in and it did a firmware upgrade. It wanted to extend my existing network so I let it configure itself that way, renamed the unit and thought about setting it up in another room as an extender. I decided against that for now and will store it as a spare although I may revisit its use as an extender.
I’ve tried other brands such as Netgear and Asus but never had the good experience I’ve had with Airport. I’ve been a Mac user in one form or another since 1986 so I suppose there is some brand loyalty showing.
Same here. In fact, despite their instructions (and those included with the modem) I didn’t even have to call them. It worked right out of the box. I paid $80 for it, while Comcast wanted $10/month to rent theirs. LOL.
That’s exactly my experience. As long as I can get my hands on a decent Airport setup, I’m not getting anything else. There’s few things I enjoy less than having to troubleshoot wifi issues. Wireless issues in general (not just 802.11) are usually quite painful. I imagine if I were on the whole IOT bandwagon it would be a lot worse. For now, I’m not getting near that.
That’s an excellent point. My hope is that Apple will provide at least security updates for another few years. Until then 802.11 will have hopefully have advanced to a point where you might want something better than 802.11ac anyway. That said, as long as it works to do the job it’s intended to I’ll be happy.
With our cable provider you can buy a box, but you have to rent a card from them to use it with. The fee for the card is barely less than a box rental, and the boxes you can buy are not HDMI compatible.
Never had any issues myself, but have heard of others dealing with Comcast tech support on an outage that they were quick to blame the personal modem. I’ve always had good luck with those sent out on trouble calls vs. phone support techs.
Being one of those Apple users that believed in Steve Jobs and his “It just works” and STILL DO I find myself a little unhappy with Apple’s decision to end the Airport products. For me, Airport Extremes are easy to set up and despite the slow updates for security offered just what I need for a “connected home.”
What I don’t get is that in all of the articles out since Apples announcement, no one, at least those I’ve found address the inherent lack of security in ALL consumer grade routers. Except, David Horowitz. Everything he proposes in his paper on router security makes since to me, though it is several years old now. Again I’m just a “user” I understand the mechanics of how all this works, beyond that, nope.
So, for now, I’ve purchased another AirPort Extreme as Apple states they will provide support for the next five years. I realize a lot of you guys and gals understand this “stuff” inside and out and I appreciate reading articles like this and checking out the comments. I’d love to hear or read what John Siracusa would say about this but again this is why I have you guys.
So 2 cents from a 60 y/o Apple Fan Boy, that and 25 cents will get you…
This is because not ALL consumer-grade routers have poor security.
Routers have gotten a lot better about security. Good ones do not ship with “admin/admin” login and password, do not enable uPNP on the WAN, and do not run Internet-facing ftp/http servers. There are many good choices (most of them have been mentioned in this thread). When I installed my AMPLIFI the first thing I did was check Shield’s Up:
Excellent point on whether Apple will keep AirPort Utility going and up-to-date. Given Apple’ performance in keeping any app software other than IOS current, it does not augur well for AirPort Utility.
The documentation for AirPort Extreme, AirPort Express and Time Capsule has always been a bit light on given how convoluted Apple has organised its network services.
I wouldn’t give much thought to that. Airport Utility has rarely needed an update over the years, and when it was it almost always involved working with new Airport Hardware, rather than bug, security or OS updates. There was that terrible attempt to simplify it by removing a bunch of features that v5.6.1 had, but since then very little has changed. In fact, I can still use AU 5.6.1 with High Sierra, using a well known AppleScript hack, and it appears to be fully functional.
Hopefully you already know how to check whether an app is 64-Bit or not, but just in case, AU 5.6.1 and 6.3.8 are both 64-Bit.
Hopefully there won’t be a need for another security related firmware update as there was in December. I would guess that would be more likely than the need to update AU. That last one did not require an AU update and even 5.6.1 was able to handle it for the original AirPort Express running Leopard or Snow Leopard.
I have always found setting and managing a network on Apple to be interesting. Stuff is spread across different parts of the Apple system. I have to take a deep breath if I want to modify or add.
Recently I wanted to extend a network and despite efforts could not get a router to connect using AirPort Utility. Ended up using the Windows side of my iMac and getting a connection was quite straightforward and quick.
Re: replacing Airport routers with mesh routers
I have been looking for a router to replace my sister-in-laws failing router for her 1200 square foot condo.
According to tests done by Michael Brown for PCWorld and MacWorld in mid 2017, the Airport Extreme/Time Capsule router is considerably faster than any of the mesh routers he tested when connecting with a Macbook Pro in the same room as the router, and the airport beat most of the mesh routers when the Macbook was in another room 33 feet from the router (See 2nd graph on this page):
So I started looking at non-mesh routers, and I didn’t find anything inspiring. Right now, I am back to getting an Airport Extreme or Time Capsule before they are all sold out.
Speed is only one metric and for most people, the least important one once you get past “dial-up modem speed range.”
The problems that a mesh system solves are dead spots, drop outs, and just overall reliability, especially at the edges of the range. Also, testing a router with one laptop in 2018 is a bit disingenuous. Let’s test with 20 or 30 devices like TVs and lights and iPhones and iPads and your doorbell and cameras and and and.
The reason that I switched from my airport network was because when we got to 40-50 devices, performance was poor enough that I was feeding complaints from the family. No such complaints now.
@lbutler
Thanks, good data. My in-laws are very happy with their new Airport Extreme and external hard drive for Time Machine backups, but they only connect with five devices, two at a time.
I have a Ubiquiti Edge router and several Wi-Fi devices, and I will move up to a mesh router as we add more connections – I recently started adding some Home Kit devices.
