Engineers Say They've Created a Way to Detect Bombs and Guns Using Basic Wifi - <AUTHOR> https://gizmodo.com/a-group-of-engineers-say-theyve-created-a-way-to-detect-1828361739 <comment><USER2> The paper [1] is interesting, although they spend too much space writing about the purported benefits. The concept here is to exploit WiFi gear's usages of many different frequencies. Measuring the amplitude and phase shift on each channel provides some info about what each channel bounced off of and diffracted around.

Inevitably, they then dump all the data into a neural net. They trained on about 15 objects, which is a reasonable start. They didn't go on to testing with enough objects to be useful. "The results show that our system can detect over 95% dangerous objects in different types of bags and successfully identify 90% dangerous material types." By "dangerous" they just mean metal or liquid. It's not like they can tell a gun from a soup can.

[1] [http://www.winlab.rutgers.edu/~yychen/papers/Towards%20In%20...](http://www.winlab.rutgers.edu/~yychen/papers/Towards%20In%20baggage%20Suspicious%20Object%20Detection%20Using%20Commodity%20WiFi.pdf)

<comment> fake-name > The concept here is to exploit WiFi gear's usages of many different > frequencies. Measuring the amplitude and phase shift on each channel > provides some info about what each channel bounced off of and diffracted > around.

This exists. They're just reimplemented non-cooperative SFCW radar. It's not new.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> It seems like they can detect liquid and metal, which is very different from detecting bombs and guns. That's like building a face detection library and saying you can find terrorists. If mostly you just identify people with water bottles or laptops, what problem would this really solve?

<comment><USER4> Pattern recognition of common bomb and gun configurations? Or better, any non- standard configuration.

<comment><USER5> That might be able to detect something like a hand grenade (but honestly I'm dubious), but finding "non-standard configurations" seems like it requires a full up strong AI. It has to be able to look at a jumble of components in a configuration it has never seen before and recognize that it is a bomb. This is hard problem for humans and hits on several hard aspects of AI at once.

<comment><USER4> Or just recognize it as not-a-bomb. Easier - e.g. the set of metal things normally in luggage may be small

<comment><USER5> Bombs aren't necessarily made out of metal.

<comment><USER6> The fusing wires almost certainly are, unless you're dealing with a nation- state or, possibly, a major corporation.

<comment><USER7> Unless you just use a fuse, Looney Toons/Shoe Bomber style.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Can't wait to see the day police show up at peoples houses because an opaque AI/ML/Statistical-thingy said they were creating bombs, when in fact it was a loaf of bread (or whatever). Minority report gets more and more real.

<comment><USER9> 99% accuracy sounds impressive until you realize this thing will flag 1% of _all objects_ as potentially threatening.

<comment><USER10> And of course it'll entirely miss the 2,600 rounds of ammo in my apartment.

<comment><USER9> And the box of tannerite, and the separate containers of powdered iron and aluminum...

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Paper (PDF): [http://www.winlab.rutgers.edu/~yychen/papers/Towards%20In%20...](http://www.winlab.rutgers.edu/~yychen/papers/Towards%20In%20baggage%20Suspicious%20Object%20Detection%20Using%20Commodity%20WiFi.pdf)

</comment><comment><USER12> My first reading of that headline was that "bombs" means unexploded ordnance (which is a regular problem for construction projects in my home town thanks to WW2 air raids). I'm not sure if this means I'm sheltered or level-headed.

</comment><comment><USER13> Another take on this paper would read, "Engineeers have created a way to weaponize Wi-Fi signals for invisible and invasive surveillance".

This turns consumer level tech into a militant authoritarian's dream. Have they also developed ways to identify when this technology is being used surreptitiously?

<comment><USER14> This method appears to just measure the Tx and Rx paths on an off-the-shelf modem, so you'd have to physically check the router, or I'm sure this could be handled in firmware. They're measuring phase and amplitude differences from unmodified traffic on 2.4GHz so you can't detect it as an outsider.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> My cynical post script to the title, without reading the article: "in a laboratory setting".

<comment> rm_-rf_slash Agreed. When this method is applied in, say, Germany, to safely detect WWII ordinance, then it will have proven itself.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Reminds me of _Wi-Vi: See Through Walls with Wi-Fi Signals_ from 2013:

[http://people.csail.mit.edu/fadel/wivi/](http://people.csail.mit.edu/fadel/wivi/)

</comment><comment><USER17> This technology can prove useful for public safety since there are WiFi almost everywhere these days and all entry points in malls or schools can be covered very easily. There is a chance this can be misused as well.

<comment><USER18> My mom worked at a bank that installed what they called a "man trap". Essentially there's a large magnetometer between two sets of heavy doors that locks the doors if it detects someone with a firearm (or any large block of magnetic material) has tried to enter the bank.

On any given week, they'd catch about a half dozen police officers, a maintenance person or two who still had their tools on them, and the occasional delivery person.

After a few weeks they disabled the system entirely.

<comment><USER19> An interesting article about false positives and negatives and their impact in the reliability of a detection system. (I believe it has been linked in HN before) It explains why "95% accurate" is BS.

[https://blog.danslimmon.com/2012/11/02/car-alarms-and- smoke-...](https://blog.danslimmon.com/2012/11/02/car-alarms-and-smoke-alarms- the-tradeoff-between-sensitivity-and-specificity/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment> fake-name "Researchers rediscover non-cooperative radar, news at 11"

It's really, really, really hard to do this with cooperative RF sources and way way more bandwidth. This is horseshit.

</comment><comment><USER20> So we see forcing the use of clear backpacks as an invasion of privacy but don't see tech that scans a backpack as invasive?

</comment><comment><USER21> I'm curious if I can do this at home, and if so if there are any plans online besides the paper. I'd love to play around with it.

</comment><comment><USER22> This headline immediately make me think of Arthur C. Clarke's "The Trigger".

<comment><USER23> "The Trigger" (2000): [https://archive.org/details/trigger00clar](https://archive.org/details/trigger00clar)</comment></comment>


Writing a thesis in Markdown - <AUTHOR> https://www.theurbanist.com.au/2018/02/writing-a-thesis-in-markdown/ <comment><USER2> Brilliant work. I suspect that this approach will catch fire in the academic community. An important next step is to create a Docker image with the necessary software and add it to DockerHub, so users like myself don't have to install LaTeX.

<comment><USER3> [https://hub.docker.com/r/accupara/business- cards/](https://hub.docker.com/r/accupara/business-cards/)

This was originally intended to create business cards using latex. No reason why you can't use the installed Latex for everything else.</comment></comment>


Testing for "reverse" Heartbleed - <AUTHOR> http://blog.meldium.com/home/2014/4/10/testing-for-reverse-heartbleed

<comment><USER2> If you don't want to expose your client to a third-party, you can download the pacemaker[1] (Python 2/3) tester locally and test that way.

[1] [https://github.com/Lekensteyn/pacemaker](https://github.com/Lekensteyn/pacemaker)

</comment><comment><USER3> So when NetCraft's report [0] shows 17% of servers out there appear to be vulnerable, that's just for one direction ... internal servers using HTTP in the other direction might not get patched immediately since they're "not vulnerable". Sheesh.

\</comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment>----

[0] [http://news.netcraft.com/archives/2014/04/08/half-a- million-...](http://news.netcraft.com/archives/2014/04/08/half-a-million- widely-trusted-websites-vulnerable-to-heartbleed-bug.html)

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Note: while building this tool, we discovered key sites that were patched yet still vulnerable to Heartbleed including reddit! (now fixed)

<comment><USER4> Patched, but still vulnerable... how come?

<comment><USER5> They probably patched their public-facing web servers, but not their internal link-fetching app servers.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Can wordpress be coaxed into performing outbound requests? Pingbacks and the like? Next-level malicious spam comments forcing WP into heartbleeding outbound, even if the wordpress install itself never had SSL?

<comment><USER6> It can be coaxed into performing outbound requests, whether it is related to this specific issue I wouldn't know.

[http://blog.sucuri.net/2014/03/more-than-162000-wordpress- si...](http://blog.sucuri.net/2014/03/more-than-162000-wordpress-sites-used- for-distributed-denial-of-service-attack.html)

They are pretty good at staying on top of WP related vulnerabilities.

<comment><USER5> That's rough. I bet there are a lot of sloppy wordpress installs that never bother patch the heartbleed thing "since they're not using SSL".

e: "sloppily maintained", if you will

<comment><USER7> As far as I understand, the sloppy ones are the sysadmin behind those sites, not the WordPress installs. And as far as I know, lazy sysadmins don't discriminate regarding what technology they are lazy with.

<comment><USER8> Actually, they do generally discriminate.

Software which is easy to set up initially, but hard to upgrade, tends to be much more likely to be out of date than software which is easier to upgrade.

Things that consist of "a big blob of PHP plus a lot of extensions" tend to fall into this camp. PHP apps are generally very easy to get set up the first time, and popular ones like Wordpress have lots of extensions you can add on; but then once you've been running that for a while, you discover that if you upgrade, these n extensions all break, and rather than bothering to find replacements, you just don't bother upgrading.

How do you fix this? Make upgrading easy, don't rely on extensions, or make sure you have bulletproof, stable APIs so that no one worries "if I upgrade, all these things are going to break."

<comment><USER7> Since 3.7 WordPress auto-upgrades itself in the background (for minor versions), like Chrome does. So not sure what are you talking about.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I don't understand what I am supposed to do with the URL they generate. Can someone explain this?

<comment><USER10> You give a URL that exists on an HTTPS webserver you control that you've patched to send SSL Heartbeats that have a payload size much greater than the real payload.

If the client code (at whatever site you are targeting) is vulnerable then each heartbeat response you get from the client site may give you up to 64KB of its memory contents.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> curl on cygwin seems to be vulnerable.

As if this couldn't get worse...

<comment><USER12> There is an update available to openssl 1.0.1g which fixes the issue with curl. Just run setup.exe again to get it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Heartsuck?

</comment><comment><USER14> I don't trust.</comment>


Porting the GNU Hurd to the L4 Microkernel (2003) [pdf] - vezzy-fnord https://www.cs.cmu.edu/~412-s05/projects/HurdL4/hurd-on-l4.pdf

<comment><AUTHOR> There's been quite a few hurd articles lately. I wonder what the interest is?

Maybe focusing on only the drivers needed to make it run well in VMware or openbox would improve the usability story. I've always thought it was interesting, but a lot of people wrote it off after linux took off. I can't help but think that hardware performance has improved to the point that the supposed perf penalties of microkernels wouldn't matter.

<comment> vezzy-fnord The performance penalties aren't intrinsic to microkernels, so much as to Mach because of the heavyweight RPC mechanism and its elaborate port right and type checking of messages. L4 calls are actually really fast precisely because such policy is left to userland.

Debian GNU/Hurd runs really well under virtualization, btw.

<comment><AUTHOR> I certainly don't want to rehash some of the arguments about it, because I wasn't a fan of them at the time...but I was referring to the context switch penalty of running multiple system level services is separate processes.

Mind you, I've always thought that argument was specious for several reasons...but in a naive implementation breaking a kernel unto multiple processes would have to have higher context switch overhead.

I've always though, though, that not everything needs to be process isolated, and using more of a message pass system could probably overcome context switch overhead in multiprocessor system's

EDIT: GOD DAAMN PHONE. I think that the reliability gains may more than make up for any perf problems.

<comment><USER2> The toll on performance is the price of stability and modularity.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Can't read the 84 pages now but if I'm not mistaken Hurd and L4 are both (micro)kernels. I don't understand what it means to port a kernel to another kernel.

It would have made sense for me if they had ported the GNU tools to work with L4.

Can somebody enlighten me ?

<comment><USER4> Hurd is the higher level services of a micro-kernel, but uses existing kernels for the actual part in kernel space (normally GNU Mach).

So this would be replacing Mach with L4, retaining Hurd for the user space operating system components.

<comment><USER3> Thanks it makes sens now.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I thought that this plan was abandoned.

<comment><USER6> Which is very unfortunately. It would be nice to have Hurd running on seL4!

<comment> vezzy-fnord L4 was deemed too low-level to implement a proper object-capability architecture, so it was canned.

GNU Mach is here to stay.</comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: MagicMovieSorter – yet another way to find movie to watch, magic way - <AUTHOR> https://magicmoviesorter.com/ <comment><USER2> Doesn't seem to work on iOS. ;(

<comment><AUTHOR> Did you select birthday in left menu?</comment></comment>


Apple Abandons Development of Wireless Routers - <AUTHOR> https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-11-21/apple-said-to-abandon-development-of-wireless-routers-ivs0ssec <comment><USER2> What I miss most about Apple was that Apple was the company that made reasonable decisions for you, when it came to security and all those technical details that was/is endemic in any computing. They had Opinions with a capital O - and made sure that every product you'd buy would be guaranteed to work with other products. If you had the money, you could focus on what you were trying to get DONE rather than spend forever learning about the implementation details. Abstract people from the hardware - focus on the use cases.

Now it seems they're leaving people who depended on that behind. No company offers an ecosystem that doesn't require "fiddling" to get things to work correctly. Maybe this is the way it has to be, but I really wonder what Apple's strategy is going forward, because its clear that they've slowed down or stopped development on everything other than their phones/pads and the occasional laptop. What are all their engineers doing? What is the use of having hundreds of billions in the bank if you're not investing it in growing or creating product lines?

<comment><USER3> Disclaimer: I work for Google.

FWIW, having played around with Google's routers, they work _pretty well_ , even from iOS. Chromecasts "just work" in the old Apple sense of the term: you plug it in, you find the thing you want to watch online that you want on your TV, press the button in Chrome and hey presto, you got your cat video on your OLED.

If you're OK with having Google store data on you[1], I'd say the Google hardware division has a lot of what you talk about here.

[1] Before the flood of angry HN replies come in, I get that is not everyone, but knowing what I know about Google's privacy practices, I am perfectly happy with that.

<comment><USER4> > Chromecasts "just work" in the old Apple sense of the term: you plug it in, > you find the thing you want to watch online that you want on your TV, press > the button in Chrome and hey presto, you got your cat video on your OLED

I wish. Chromecast could not mirror or could not stream audio. Eventually, I was fed up and I bought an Apple TV.

<comment><USER5> Couldn't mirror in what sense? I know that you can cast your entire screen from a desktop or from an Android. Unsure about iOS devices.

<comment><USER6> On iOS, chromecast support is up to the app. This means no streaming movies you got from Amazon or Apple. This kind of behavior might make sense from a service, but not from an appliance.

That said, chromecast has probably my favorite interface for interacting with the set-top box. I mourned moving on to the apple tv.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> For the past decade I've been blindly buying Apple products (but been using Macs since late 90s), while looking at alternatives with disdain. Paying the Apple premium allowed the tech to get out of the way. Very happy to continue paying, but it seems like Apple is forcing me to leave. In this relationship, I'm the one getting dumped. I'm not sad about it, but from a business perspective why they are actively pushing me away? Canceling product lines (routers, mac pro), not updating the active ones (mac mini, iMac), and being difficult with the products they do update (MBP, iPhone).

On a relative basis, Apple has infinite resources. It has cash, the brand and can attract the right people to run the business. Each product line, like the routers and mac pro can be focused on because they have the resources to do it. Most companies re-focus on core products because they are spread too thin - Apple is not.

<comment><USER8> I think the answer is margins.

If you're not making 40+% profit margins you're bringing the company's overall margins down and have to go.

<comment><USER9> Its not about margins (well, it is, but not primarily): its about story.

The AirPort line was born during a time when your ISP only provided you with a modem, if that. Wireless connectivity was a brand new world that required new hardware.

We're not in that world anymore: ISPs set up (and support!) wireless access with their networking at no extra charge. To most consumers, the AirPort went from being the simplest gateway to wireless coverage to being an accessory for the Apple-centric household. That's why you saw so many features added to the AirPort over time (hard drive, print server, airplay server). Bluetooth speakers, airplay receivers, AirPrint, etc. have over time obsoleted these uses.

There's another story for the Mac Pro - although many professionals who look to the Mac as an option among many systems probably won't like it.

<comment><USER10> The ISP story you're talking about does not apply to the entire world. There are hundreds of ISPs who still charge for a WiFi router separately. No firmware updates coming in is a huge concern for all these routers and devices.

<comment><USER11> Indeed. And where I live, pretty much everyone has municipal fiber. There is no ISP-provided default router—just an ethernet jack in your wall.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> This restriction of their efforts on only the most profitable offerings like this seems like a continued step backwards for a company which used to do so much innovating. If all you work on is the iteration and merging of existing devices, you're going to be left in the cold as you're out-innovated by your competitors.

This is what happened to Microsoft, and it took many years and a major internal upset to get them back on a positive track. And now look at Microsoft since they've started diversifying and innovating again: they are providing an OS (and hardware) which is genuinely interesting to professionals in a variety of fields. They are going to steal Apple's thunder here soon, unless Apple really makes an effort.

<comment><USER13> Or someone else will come around to do the same. I really think we need a very solid and paid-for desktop Linux OS.

Something that is well designed and innovative. I for one would pay for one.

<comment><USER14> A commercial Linux distro aimed at consumers would be cool, but things aren't so bad as it is. Making the switch will surely require some adaptation and getting used to, but when you get settled, things are pretty smooth, and only getting better. I've been happily running Debian as my primary OS for 8 years now, and I spent a few of those years running Linux exclusively.

The way I see it, Apple excels on the whole overarching synergy thing, while Linux excels on individual component quality. Considering that each component is an independent project, the Linux ecosystem will never be as homogenous as Windows or Mac. That said, it's a trade many of us happily make for the power of choice.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> So what is Apple working on now?

• iPhone 7 looks like iPhone 6 sans the headphone jack. So no design changes for 3 years. To me, 7 does not feel like a significant update over 6.

• Macbook Pro got a touch bar. Otherwise, minor design changes since last revision. Does not feel like a significant update.

• iMac not updated for 12 months. No significant design changes for years, but the screen resolution is now Retina.

• Macbook Air not updated since March 2015 (still low resolution). No significant design changes since introduction.

• Mac Mini not updated since 2014. No design changes since 2011.

• Mac Pro not updated since 2013.

• iOS 10 and macOS are minor revisions.

• Thunderbolt display and now Airport extreme/express are dead

• The iPad Pro 9.7" looks like iPad air (1 or 2). iPad pro 12.9" looks like any existing iPad but bigger. The iPad minis all look alike.

• They didn't release new iPads this fall. Isn't that a first?

It feels like the hardware line-ups are getting more confusing: Two different iPad sizes called Pro as wells as "Air 2" and the minis. It made sense that the Pro was the largest one, but they confused us by releasing a smaller Pro that looks like an Air 2, but has a better display than the large Pro. How many iPads do we need?

There is the main iPhone line (... 6 6S and 7) that comes in two sizes, and then the evil cousin called iPhone SE which looks like a 5.

The laptop line is getting more messy too. The Macbook is like a slower Macbook Air but with higher resolution and 12". They killed the 11" Air, but we now have 3 laptops at 13" (Air + two types of Pro). Is the 13" Pro without touch bar option really necessary?

All these series ("", Air, Pro, SE, Mini) which pop in and out of existence feels like they are trying different names for marketing reasons (especially for the iPads).

I appreciate the yearly impressive but predictable CPU/GPU and software improvements, but it is really starting to feel like they are either struggling a bit, or working on something that takes a lot of resources from non-essentials and focus.

<comment><USER16> This reminds me of when Jobs came back to Apple and the first thing he did was clean house. At the time they have tons of different computer models (Performa 2xx, 3xx, 4xx, 5xx, 6xx, 63xx, 65xx, etc.) built specifically to cater to dealers. Jobs came in and said that they only needed 4 computing devices; home desktop, home portable, pro desktop, pro portable. This made is much easier to decide what to purchase - everyone loved it! Except the dealers, I guess.

Anyway, it just feels like there are way to many different models now. Are they trying to please the bean-counters and not the customer? What advantage is there is having so many different types of computing devices that really are very similar?

<comment><USER15> That's exactly how I feel too.

The worst part is that the old Macbook Pro was my go-to model previously, but the new one just feels like a more expensive step in the wrong direction.

I don't really want a touch bar (I use an external keyboard 75% of the time), and I do actually like to have the earphone jack, SD card, Magsafe, and traditional USB ports.

... So despite the messy list of models, there isn't really one that I want anymore.

Oh, well. Maybe it will make sense in a year or two.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Ugh, this is the first news that I've seen that I feel is really _bad_. Monitors were ok, that seemed understandable since they were for professionals to go with the mac pro. Apple's monitors were at best "prosumer".

Wifi though has always been a very big PITA for consumers, and Apple's hardware/software integration has always been a better bet for ease of configuration, and honestly, reliability.

The optimist in me hopes that maybe they'll have something better for us, or are making an acquisition to replace their current product lineup completely.

The pessimist in me thinks that maybe they're leaving this market to avoid needing to develop hardware that meets its publicly stated standards for protecting consumer privacy. Potentially they have been approached/mandated to enable some kind of backdoor in it, and they chose to stop producing it, rather than comply. /tinfoil_hat

<comment><USER18> If you really want high performance networking, use wired. It is stupid to connect a television set, for instance, via WiFi. You should plug in anything that doesn't move around, and leave the limited bandwidth WiFi for those who need it.

People won't listen though because in 2016 it seems most people think wires are ritually unclean.

<comment><USER19> > People won't listen though because...

... they don't particularly want to lift floorboards, and drill through floors and ceilings if the wireless solution is 'good enough'.

<comment><USER20> Exactly. I have a few things wired in the house where they're actually close enough to a switch. But for phones and tables and laptops (we have several), wired is not an option.

This is also shitty news because I had very high confidence that an Apple router would not ship with any kind of malware or other crap I don't need. Now, I have to find something better, comparable in price, and works well with Mac household.. Sad face.

<comment><USER21> > and works well with Mac household.. Sad face.

Apart from Apple's and Google's idiotic antics, what routers require anything more than a browser to configure?

<comment><USER22> Requiring a browser implies that the device has a full web stack on it, including one of Perl, PHP, or Node.js. That's the last thing I want on my WiFi router, or any router!

As annoying as it is for some, the configuration interface for Apple AirPort used a simple SNMP interface. Now, lots of SNMP software has had bugs and remote exploits, but all things being equal it's a much simpler interface to export and requires shipping less code, not least because it doesn't have to support a GUI, directly or indirectly.

That said, I always configure my WiFi router (AirPort or w'ever) in bridging mode and put them behind my gateway. And I try to disable any web GUI entirely if at all possible. People who use the built-in WiFi capabilities of their Cable or DSL modems are begging to be hacked.

<comment><USER23> > Requiring a browser implies that the device has a full web stack on it, > including one of Perl, PHP, or Node.js.

Not really, CGI can be written in anything, shell scripting, C, whatever. But security-wise, it doesn't much matter the language because the programmers working on the web interfaces of such embedded devices rarely do a good job.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> I see a major problem at Apple. They are being run by committee. Tim Cook is not a visionary or entrepreneur at heart. He is a logistics guy.

The best run technology companies are run by dictators with a strong technology and product background (Jobs, Elon Musk, Reed Hastings). Let me say it again... Yes dictator. You are never going to get a large group of people to agree on something, if you do it's watered down, compromised, and lacks ambition.

<comment><USER25> I think this is more about their growth than any of that. Things like routers and monitors just aren't worth making to them anymore. I'm not sure a different CEO would have seen things differently. I think a lot of people have seen this sort of thing coming, but I wonder if it's happening now because they're not breaking financial records every quarter anymore and want to cut non-essential (from their perspective) biz units.

Recall that one of the first things Jobs did upon his return was to focus the product mix, and he got rid of lots of stuff. Cameras, printers, and most famously the Newton.

<comment><USER26> Yeah, but Jobs did that when the company was in steep decline and genuinely at risk of failing. The current Apple is in a very different place financially.

<comment><USER25> True. But he did that in order to refocus on the company on what was important to it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> Third-party routers have gotten a lot better in reliability since I got my first AirPort (when getting a consumer router that would do 100 MBit NAT routing was nearly impossible, and my parents had one of those lamp timers on their ADSL router to reboot it every day at 3 AM).

I felt this coming as long as Apple never added iOS backup support to the Time Capsule. The APFS migration seemed like it would be the final bullet.

Had to ditch my latest-model Time Capsule when I got fiber since Apple doesn't let you change the MTU (required for my PPPoE over fiber), and getting faster Time Machine backups than Apple's anemic CPU could muster was just a plus. I was hoping to reuse it as an 802.11ac bridge to my TV/Media center, but, nope, Apple removed wireless bridging as a feature a couple years ago.

Good riddance.

edit: just got reminded they spent a bunch of money developing special paper and ink for a $300 book instead of this. OK, yeah, no there's logic here.

<comment><USER28> APFS is my theory too. Given that Time Machine would need to be wholly re- written to support APFS, and the Apple strategy is to move everything to iCloud, this makes total sense.

I also expect that APFS will make superior alternatives to Time Machine from third-parties possible, so IMO in the long term this is a net plus. It is probably unfortunate for Apple that this news got out before Time Machine 2: iCloud Bugaloo could be announced, though.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> I think what you are witnessing here is a shift in demographics within the company. When Jobs was around, product was king. When engineers said we needed these components, the business folks would figure out how to make the economics work.

Now what we are witnessing is the product people are not in charge. The business folks are. So you start to see them tell the product folks they can't do something because it is not cost effective and that is profound.

<comment><USER30> There was an interesting idea floating around Designer News—Without Steve Jobs nobody can contain Johnny Ive.

Jobs was a champion of the user. Tim Cook's specialty is in logistics, and probably defaults to Ive on many product decisions. In the mean time Ive continues designing beautiful products that focus on beauty and compromise on function.

I doubt that's the case, but I like the theory.

[https://www.designernews.co/stories/76730-jony-ive-shows- app...](https://www.designernews.co/stories/76730-jony-ive-shows-apple-design- studio)

<comment><USER31> Isn't Johnny Ive responsible for a lot of the awful skuemorphic design?

<comment> matthew-wegner No, that was supposedly Scott Forstall (and Ive flushed it all with iOS 7 once Forstall was fired).

<comment><USER31> Thanks.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> It's kind of funny:

I recently decided that Apple's ecosystem no longer works for me, and that I'm gradually going to start putting most of my tech eggs into other baskets.

And whaddaya know? Between the monitors, the wireless routers, and the high- end professional workstations, Apple seems to agree with me that their ecosystem no longer works.

I guess it's nice to have some confirmation.

<comment><USER32> > other baskets

Which other baskets? There seems to be nothing out there today that Just Works the way Apple products once did. :-(

<comment><USER11> At this point, I'm just hedging my bets: Windows for creative stuff; Linux for development; still using iOS for my phone (maybe the Pixel 2 will finally convert me to Android).

I don't find that Mac OS X (sorry, macOS) or iOS "just work" as much as they used to, so that's not really a requirement going forward. The platforms to which I migrate just need to be heading the right direction (which is to say, the opposite direction of Apple).

Microsoft is looking like a newly reawakened company. Between the Surface Studio announcement and the Connect() conference, it seems that Microsoft is serious about pursuing both developers and creative types (I'm in both camps, and Apple is underwhelming me in both areas).

Right now, I'm using Windows and Linux to get work done, but Microsoft's efforts at improving the Linux development story might eventually let me boot just one OS again.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> That's just too sad. I was thinking recently how my 3 year old AirPort express was the best router I've owned. These routers were always super easy to configure and I remember maybe one reboot in its lifetime... it powers: 2 MBP pros; 2 iPhones 1 Apple TV 1 Roomba 980 cleaning bot 1 Footbot - Air quality monitoring 1 Apple Watch 1 Sony PS4 ... everything working flawlessly

Sad day for me.

<comment><USER34> You would be shocked at how good an ASUS router is comparably. I always have people tell me I have over killed my houses wifi but the speed are awesome and I own a home built in 1894 and has plaster walls.

I don't understand how a router can be simpler then just typing in the password unless your trying to accomplish something more complex.

<comment><USER35> Yup, the trick is simply to not buy a shitty router. I got an Netgear AC1900 Nighthawk, and its working flawlessly.

<comment><USER36> Yup, and that trick _used_ to be "go buy an Airport". Now the trick will be "go read a bunch of web pages and hope you make a good choice". I'm not looking forward to it when my AirPort Extreme dies.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> I'm all in the Apple ecosystem, but I'm starting to feel pushed out. First the Mac Pro, then Displays, now this? Is Time Capsule next? My airport extreme is the most reliable home router I have ever owned.

<comment><USER38> Time Capsule really should be next. Apple doesn't have any real comparative advantage in backup software. The Time Capsule interface is interesting, but it's not what most people need from a backup solution (what most people need is set-it-and-forget-it that works from arbitrary locations).

<comment><USER39> I disagree with this. I think that Apple's time capsule is not well suited to an _offsite_ backup solution, and it probably shouldn't even be the primary.

But if you're in the Apple ecosystem anyway, I think it's really convenient to take complete disk images for a full system restore. I think it's cool to use a 3-2-1 backup chain with a backup system image.

Granted, this is coming from someone who uses Tarsnap, Arq and Crashplan; but I've used Apple time capsules and I really admire their usability. In a restore scenario I don't have to choose particular files or folders, I just have to choose a date and the entire system is back. This is not without its downsides (no granularity in restore), but it's super convenient if it's what you need.

If I were in a decision making position, I'd get rid of the Apple routers like they are doing and double down on time capsules by providing an integrated offsite solution, perhaps marketed with end to end encryption as a nod to privacy advocates.

<comment><USER40> Huh? I've only ever used Time Machine to grab individual files from backup, which is dead easy. (Okay, I have grabbed all the most recent files when doing a full system restore.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> So I've ignored all the chatter of the headphone jack and the MBP and chalked them up to being in a transitionary period both for wireless and USB-C.

But this move seems to indicate a fundamental misunderstanding of the Apple ecosystem. Starting with the WiFi in a consumer's house, today, the Apple 'System' provides you with the entire experience from simply using your iPhone/iPad to easily playing your music on your speakers through AirPlay to watching content on Apple TV to backing up your computers via TimeMachine and providing remote access through Back-To-my-Mac.

Further, the devices provide guest and "Mesh" like functionality to have an extended WiFi network -- before mesh wifi technology existed.

All this and easily configured though, most appropriately, an app.

Shutting down this most fundamental base functionality of AirPort to me is a signal that Apple really doesn't want to be in the business beyond iPhones and iPads.

This coming at a time when the competition is actually ramping up providing WiFi devices (Google WiFi) and providing something that Apple has had for years.

It's mind boggling.

<comment><USER42> Apple can easily sell something like the Eero at the Apple stores and provide a similar (app based) setup. Apple tends to try to innovate where they think other companies are dropping the ball but the wifi router space is getting quite crowded. Not really an opportunity for Apple to blow everyone out of the water.

<comment><USER43> Agreed. I think Apple can still sell the entire experience if you shop at their store, they just no longer feel the need to have the Apple logo on each product you buy. For monitors there's a strong argument that the monitor is a very visible piece of technology and so should retain the Apple design, but routers generally are put in some out-of-the-way place and, as long as they work well, it doesn't really matter who makes them.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER44> I can relate to the sadness of those witnessing the slow-motion atrophy of an epic company. Apple have been the company that "did it right", that made it "just work" and got out of your way, all while looking ridiculously beautiful, without compromising on engineering quality and with sensible security baked in. Once upon a time I thought/hoped Apple would by Sun - what a world that would have been!

Given that's no longer the company we're being left with, is there a window of opportunity for a new entrant to step in and start filling that void using the same principles of design and cohesion that Apple have made famous? A sort of "Apple for Nerds"[1].

[1] BTW, this is not Google, nor should it be any company where the "customer" is actually the product.

<comment><USER45> >Given that's no longer the company we're being left with, is there a window of opportunity for a new entrant to step in and start filling that void using the same principles of design and cohesion that Apple have made famous?

Xiaomi can steal the entire process and product sell that same product for half the price

<comment><USER46> >Xiaomi And it will never be of apple's quality during its heyday, or even of the quality apple offers now. Copying isn't enough, or sony snd toshiba or samsung woukd be able to make comparable laptops.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER47> The problem with Apple's internal culture is that even though engineers are brilliant and fully capable, products are designed from the top down.

Apple employs people who are a very passionate about wireless technology. VERY passionate. They just don't get the resources or freedom to take their products to the next level. They have to wait for someone from above to be sold on the idea. Yet, it never happens because the engineers are told to keep fixing bugs and keep things humming along. File a radar, and keep doing your job.

Probably what happened, a few senior engineers got yanked onto the Watch project or this fabled car thing. They worked and worked and worked on it, and left the junior guys fixing macOS/iOS airport bugs. Then when it came time to build a new revision, they noticed suddenly they were WAY behind the market. Meanwhile, engineers continued fixing macOS/iOS bugs, this time for 3rd party systems, and bam, someone in upper management probably asked, "umm, why are we still building our own thing?" They probably merged the OS wireless teams with the driver team and called it a day.

So here we are today, Bloomberg most likely got a tipoff from a disgruntled employee who didn't like they were killing the project.

</comment><comment><USER48> How does Tim Cook not see that the ease of use of their entire ecosystem (from routers, monitors to software utilities) is what justified spending twice as much on a mac or an iPhone as a competitor's product? Thinning that ecosystem makes their hardware premiums much harder to justify.

<comment><USER49> Unless Apple is going to put 5G chips into all their future devices and get into the carrier business.

<comment><USER50> If they only want regional markets, sure, but they can forget a global market at that point.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER51> I'm less bothered by an exit from routers than monitors and the other changes. That said they were nicely implemented and reliable.

All of the current changes are taking away.

Aesthetics were and are a huge part of the appeal of an Apple filled desk. Not a one of the other makes gets close yet Apple haven't even asked LG to make their 5k screen look _nice_ or even complementary.

After the underwhelming MBP with rubbish travel-free keyboard, and not having a monitor to sit alongside my iMac, they seem incoherent. Where's the new Mini, Pro, 34" curved Cinema screen or iMac?

We just need someone else to discover aesthetics and they have a real problem to contend with. I care what the overall look is of things in my home.

</comment><comment><USER52> I think its harder and harder for Apple to charge $199 for a router when you can get a modem/router combo for $70, or "free" from comcast. The margins on these devices are declining fast. Additionally Google just released their router, and netgear/linksys etc have been dominating that market for ages.

Why allocate the manpower when the others on the market have caught up with ease of use and this generates less than 1% of your revenue?

<comment><USER53> Wasn't this always the case with Apple's routers? (cheaper or free alternatives)

<comment><USER52> yeah but back in the day the price difference wasn't as stark. Linksys routers used to be $150-200, now they're $40-80

<comment><USER54> The decent ones are still $200 or more.

Sure, they'll sell you a cheap, shitty N router for $30, but it'll probably catch fire.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER55> The Apple Router is an absolute Joy to use. Most people, especially enthusiast keeps talking about range, speed etc. But none of them is as important as stability! What is the point if connection suddenly dropped, or you need a reset. It is by far the best consumer Router. While its competition has improved, ASUS, TP-Link, Netgear, Linksys, DLink. They are properly the biggest 5 consumer brand routers, it still hasn't reached the Airport Extreme yet.

The Airport are based on NetBSD, and if you follow Apple you could trust them leaving no backdoors opened.

I fully agree with some have said that we need Time Capsule, or a local iCloud Storage that sync between the local and online iCloud. Making iPhone / iPad and Mac backup much faster and has a iCloud Subscription comes with it.

I was hoping, with Apple making ways towards wireless, to make their own WiFI chipset. The 802.11ax that makes everything better in 2.4/5Ghz and a 60Ghz implementation of 802.11ay.

</comment><comment><USER56> I'm on Apple's side on this one.

I know a lot of people who have worked, or currently work, at Apple, and a lot of other Apple fans who buy almost all of their technology products from Apple. I don't think any of them ever bought an Airport.

Airports were a lot more expensive than most consumer routers, and ease of setup is not a huge differentiator. With most routers, you go through the pain of setting them up the day you buy them, and that's it. Even non-technical don't seem to have too much trouble setting up their generic consumer routers.

I would much rather see Apple focus its engineering resources on a good iPhone 7 than waste them on a wifi router that is not nearly as important to the company's ecosystem and revenue.

<comment><USER11> My own anecdotal evidence is that there are at least two dozen Airports in my neck of the woods because that's what I recommended to friends, family, and coworkers who wanted a wireless router than "just worked." And "just work" they have. This post is being routed through a Time Capsule.

My own opinion is that Apple is being shortsighted by culling so much of what made their ecosystem deep _and_ wide. The bean counters are running Apple now; I wouldn't touch their stock with a ten foot pole.

</comment></comment><comment><USER57> This is pretty disappointing. I'm not an Apple fanboy, but after I went through a new router every 6-8mo for two years (none of which were low end) - I decided to try the Apple one. It's now been at least 3 years or so with zero issues.

Here's to hoping AC is good enough for the foreseeable future. I'm presuming it will be for the average joe.

<comment><USER58> This. Exactly this. I'd blow through routers but I've been using the Airport Extreme happily for several years.

<comment><USER57> My sister has the original Airport Extreme (2007, b/g/n). She got it when they graduated college in 2007, still no issues, and `n` is still more than enough for a large portion of the population. That is what originally made me try out the APE.

</comment></comment></comment><comment> noir-york Another sad decision by Apple. My Airport Extreme and multiple Expresses worked great. Loved the Utility app to help configure them - handy little tool.

With Apple's resources the router division cannot have been a distraction, nor would not having it materially or even to any large extent, affect Apple's numbers. Maybe this reflects a retrenching mindset taking hold within Apple?

<comment><USER59> _" Loved the Utility app to help configure them - handy little tool."_

I agree. It may very well be just what I was used to, but I've always found the networking/configuration software very straightforward.

<comment><USER60> Until you need access to a feature that the latest version of the tool doesn't support, so you have to jump through hoops to find and download an old version and attempt to get it to run on a newer unsupported version of OS X. I see no good reason not to just provide a web interface which enables you to configure the router from any computer with a web browser.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER61> It's 2016 and Wi-Fi is still a pain. Security is non-trivial, firmware is not patched, joining a network is complicated, extending coverage is very tricky.

My solution has been to use a TP-Link router running OpenWRT as the router, and a UniFi as an access point. I run the Ubiquiti controller on a separate server. This gives me very good performance and coverage, but the ease of use is zilch. It requires me to know way more than an average person should need to know just to get the network set up.

I have never used the Airport routers from Apple, but I understand that they aimed at fixing a lot of these issues. Ultimately I chose not to go with them because they were still not a turnkey solution, while not giving me nearly the performance (speed and coverage) I wanted.

I wonder who will be the go to recommendation from now on.

<comment><USER62> +1 on the UniFi gear. I think it's the closest to what apple was trying to go for but a lot more complex. Their site isn't all that clear what you need when you're looking at the products and their documentation kind of assumes you can read their mind - especially if you get an edgemax router with a first gen firmware on it. But, once it's all up and running adding new devices is actually quite nice with the controller app.

<comment><USER63> There is a reason for this, if I remember correctly, some of the core Ubiquiti engineers were actually senior devs at Apple. I have personally quite enjoyed Ubiquiti, for all their faults, I still find them better than almost every alternative at the current moment.

<comment><USER64> How do you compare it to just buying nice off-the-shelf APs and installing OpenWRT on them? I've been doing that for quite a while now and it's reasonably painless. The things I've seen mentioned are that Ubiquiti makes the config easier (don't really care at this point) and has better support for seamless handoff which was an issue when doing VoIP over WiFi sounded like a good idea but these days normal cell coverage is too good and too cheap to bother.

<comment><USER62> I've found their APs to be far better - There's a reason a lot of businesses have ended up installing them. I used to buy regular aps and install openwrt but I could never quite get the performance out of them that I wanted. I've been able to max out my gigabit connection with the UAC-PRO

<comment><USER64> The hardware does seem tempting. I've been planning on buying one of their APs and just using it like my others by installing OpenWRT as well. Their bullet line in particular seems quite tempting for simple outdoor applications. I'm not too keen on not using open source firmware because I don't like having lock-in going forward, and the added features don't seem particularly tempting for me.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER65> The bean counter mentality ruins product companies again and again (see autos) and yet even a company as powerfully idea-driven as Apple falls victim to it.

I was skeptical of the predictions of apples implosion once Steve was gone. How important can one guys contribution be?

Oops.

</comment><comment><USER66> Seems like Apple has missed the point. I buy expensive devices for the ecosystem, and that ecosystem includes the routers (of which I have four in my house). I also bought the expensive devices because they would expand to meet my needs: my 2011 17" MBP came with 8GB RAM and now has 16GB. It now appears that Apple is the iPhone company. Someone has looked at the numbers and decided that everything else is tiny by comparison. Except its only tiny by comparison to iPhone.

</comment><comment><USER67> That's annoying. Airport routers have been the only ones I've bought that don't randomly quit working or require periodic restarts.

Time to look at something like Ubiquiti I guess.

<comment><USER68> Ubiquiti routers are really great. I highly recommend them; I've never had to restart one.

<comment><USER69> I agree 100%, but they don't have an AP + CloudKey + Security Gateway in one unit. That is what many people effectively want for home use.

<comment><USER70> Well, it's not at all equivalent to an AP, Cloudkey and SG, but they DO have a consumer product: [https://amplifi.com/](https://amplifi.com/)

Unfortunately details are sparse on their incredibly annoying, scroll- hijacking marketing site. But it seems to be a simple enough, plug-and-play mesh network setup, and the industrial design is quite nice. I think Ubnt just doesn't have the marketing machine needed to really push it in the consumer space.

<comment><USER71> I bought an Amplifi with high expectations, and my expectations were exceeded. The router is great, but my favorite part is the included smartphone app. It makes diagnosing network problems, enabling guest networks, figuring out who's using all the bandwidth a cinch.

As I write this, I realize it sounds like an ad, so for clarity: I'm in no way affiliated with Ubiquiti - just a satisfied customer.

<comment><USER70> Super happy to hear that. I've been thinking of getting one for my parents since their house is quite large. What kind of sqft are you covering?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER72> Wow, so no more simple Time Machine backup product, and no more to stream music to (maybe they couldn't accept that they had a headphone jack?). This sounds like it's actually quite the departure from their previous strategy to have a digital hub with numerous features about the home.

I honestly think they have become myopic. They aren't seeing the big picture of what some of the less profitable products and features are accomplishing. They just aren't making enough income.

<comment><USER73> Hmm, pretty much any NAS out there (Synology, QNAP or WD) will expose itself as a TimeMachine target as soon as you turn it on. What's not simple about those (+ they give you actual protection from HDD failure)?

<comment><USER74> It used to be just one small neat white box, and now it becomes two less neat boxes: a router with pointy antennas and a NAS. More things to plug, more wires to run, more devices to setup.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER75> In case anyone is looking for replacements: Ubiquiti makes some really great professional grade stuff (in regard to design and hardware).

I would recommend pairing a couple Unifi AP AC Pro Access Points (with a maximum throughput of around 1.3Gbps on the 5Ghz band) with a Unifi Security Gateway and for most scenarios you will be done and probably never look back. If you really are into networking you could also take a look at their EdgeMax series which has some router features the more simple Unifi products do not provide (like a shit ton of routing features, and the ability to hook it up directly onto a fiber cable using the provided SFP port)

Take a look at [https://www.ubnt.com/](https://www.ubnt.com/) if you are interested. Hope this helps :)

<comment><USER51> Not saying you're wrong, but when I was looking at router replacements the Amazon reviews didn't inspire confidence. I ended up buying another Netgear putting DD-WRT on it.

eg [https://www.amazon.com/Ubiquiti-Unifi-Security-Gateway- USG-P...](https://www.amazon.com/Ubiquiti-Unifi-Security-Gateway-USG- PRO-4/dp/B019PBEI5W)

<comment><USER76> The main complaints I've seen about the security gateway are mostly that it just doesn't have a lot of features, and some people hit some bad performance. It's really lacking some important features for anyone even remotely a power user. But it seems like they're porting over a lot of features from the EdgeMAX router line to the Unifi line -- so in a few version cycles, you'll get more powerful routing, full VPN, DPI, etc. etc. I'd probably wait on buying a security gateway, though I admit, they're nice for "coherence".

The EdgeMAX line is apparently great. I've never used it, but their basic routers are about as cheap. You just don't get fancy SSO/integration, but they are reliable and fast as hell, from what I've heard.

That said, I wouldn't let the security gateway dissuade you too much. Their Unifi product line is still generally very good, especially WiFi. I have a small atom board running pfSense as my router, but it's backed by 2x Unifi AC AP Pros (802.11ac), along with a Unifi switch, and a Unifi Cloud Key for running my controller. It works really well, allows remote access, decent breakdown of where my bandwidth comes from vis a vis APs and switch, etc. The AC AP is probably one of the best direct APs I've ever used in terms of quality, though there was a firmware bug that annoyed my Apple devices for a short time...

Unifi is almost certainly never going to get close to the features of pfSense, but maybe in a few years down the line when I retire it I'll look again. The WiFi APs and stuff are good though, I'd recommend them, even if you don't go with the switch/router.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> As an Apple shareholder, and very happy user of Time Capsule this is extremely disappointing. My time capsule is the best value for a solid wireless AC router with 2TB of disk backup which I use to backup my iMac and MacBook Pro with Time Machine.

Can anybody name a solid alternative for $299?

<comment><USER77> I personally think that a good alternative is the Synology Router (RT1900ac I believe is the model number) and plug a USB hard drive into its USB port.

The router itself is $150 and you can easily find even like a 5TB external HDD for another $150.

</comment></comment><comment><USER78> Good riddance. I've had an AirPort for years, and the thing never worked right. If you're all apple, things are fine, but if a Linux or Android device connects to your network (I use both), you can forget it: The connection will be awful, and it will slow down and drop constantly.

And yes, it actually is the AirPort, as said devices actually work fine on other networks.

<comment><USER79> This is true. I worked for a couple years at a ~10 person start up whose office used AirPorts. Indeed, it was reportedly rock solid for Apple devices, but flaky as hell from Linux.

</comment></comment><comment><USER80> My Airport Extreme finally died a few weeks ago and I replaced it with an OnHub (the TP-Link one). Couldn't be happier -- my Wifi range extends well beyond the perimeter of my house, speeds (appear) to be faster with less connection issues _and_, I can monitor router activity and other stuff directly from their App (though that is the one area it could use a few more features).

Google is definitely winning some points in the "simple and works" category. Pricey but worth it, IMHO.

</comment><comment><USER81> The Post-Jobs Apple:

\- Steer Apple towards its more established areas of expertise, where margins and competitive advantage is high, and the rest of the competition is dismal;

\- Clip non-innovative departments where purpose and identity are lost;

\- Concentrate resources where Apple's leadership is comfortable in;

\- Sunset all else.

<comment><USER82> This starts to sound increasingly like Balmer Microsoft. Optimize profits, kill creativity.

<comment><USER83> I don't agree with that assessment. If Balmer was following that strategy, MS would have moved to just 2 products: Windows and Office.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER84> According to the NetBSD Wikipedia page[1] the firmware in Apple wireless routers is based on NetBSD.

I have heard a few people say that their Apple router has been very reliable, so maybe it has to do with it running NetBSD, or at least I would like to think that is the cause.

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NetBSD#Examples_of_use](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NetBSD#Examples_of_use)

</comment><comment><USER85> _" sharpen the company's focus on consumer products that generate the bulk of its revenue"_

I'm sure Apple of all companies knows this, but revenue of a particular product doesn't necessarily show the whole picture when some of your brand's appeal is that customers can buy all Apple products and be fairly confident they work well together.

Separately, I'm very happy with Ubiquiti products, but I'm also a power user.

</comment><comment><USER86> I hate this. One of the draws for me to Apple has always been their vertical integration: everything made by Apple (> 90% of the time) just worked. I never had any issues with my airport extreme and was looking forward to what cool things they would do with them: mesh networking, integrating home automation points? Fuse them with Apple-TV? Alas, just put all your eggs into the Iphone I guess.

</comment><comment><USER87> When are we going to get an airplay express now the airport express is going away. And I don't want to maintain a raspberry pi or deal with some airplay speaker's bad airplay implementation.

<comment><USER88> There isn't any maintenance. I've had 2 RPi Shairplay servers running in my parents' house for 3 years now, no service calls.

<comment><USER87> How often do you update them? Do they autoupdate themselves like an apple airplay router could? Has that gone wrong?

<comment><USER88> I let Debian install security updates automatically; they haven't broken anything so far. The devices are only available from the LAN and only expose SSH, Bonjour, and the actual Airplay protocol server, so I'm not too worried.

I wrote a systemd unit for the daemon so it comes up again on a power cycle, and encapsulated the config in a puppet repo for repeatable deploys (did the first one by hand, developed puppet and used it for them both when it came time for the second installation).

Hardest part was WiFi, you have set some config flag to keep the dongle from falling asleep when idle. But I caught that on the first day of deployment, and it hasn't been an issue since.

If you don't want a Linux project or an expensive project, there are cheap Bluetooth audio receivers on Amazon.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER89> Damn - I'm speechless. What the heck is going on in Cupertino? The Airport Extreme is THE best wireless router you can buy. Also, it has the integrated Time Capsule which is incredible

</comment><comment><USER90> if you think about it - they've abandoned monitors, routers, Mac minis, MacBook airs, iPods, what the hell are all those people who worked on these products are doing now? I can understand if they had some other great products in the works but Mac Pro has not been updated for a while, iPhone and MacBook updates are pathetic, looks like Apple is now focused more on marketing and social buzz than creating actual products...

</comment><comment><USER91> Displays, wireless routers, next headless macs?

<comment><USER92> Don't scare me with that prediction! I <3 my Mac mini!

<comment><USER93> The last _good_ Mac Mini is from 2012, so the Mac Mini is even more neglected than the Mac Pro.

If they ever release a new Mac Mini, it will probably be their last.

<comment><USER92> That isn't making me feel any better! Nor is your username spiderfarmer.

<comment><USER10> Sadly, that's the truth. I have a Mac mini from 2007 that's still going good, but I didn't feel that the 2012 model would be a good replacement when it came out. The 2014 model was a disaster beyond that (down to dual core, no more user upgradable RAM or HDD). Short of a miracle, the Mac Mini is dead or will be updated with something even worse than the outdated and expensive model still on sale.

<comment><USER93> It honestly makes me wonder if I should stick with Apple. Every product I loved apart from the iPad, iPhone and Macbook Pro has been cancelled or ignored and these 3 remaining products are updated with such small increments that I don't think Apple is leading us into the future of computing.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER94> It's awesome to see all the discussion here regarding eero and mesh networking as a whole!

If you have been waiting to update your home WiFi, there is no better time than now. I'm excited to share that from Black Friday through Cyber Monday, you'll be able to find eero at a discount, including $100 off a three pack. For those that already love Apple products, I'm confident that eero will be a very comfortable networking solution for you.

We have thousands of happy Apple customers. Plus, if you already use a Time Capsule for backing up your data or an Airport Express for Airplay, you can bridge these to an eero network so you can continue to use these features that may be essential to your current home network.

Let us know if you have any questions! Feel free to give us a call at 1-877-659-2347 or email us at firstname.lastname@example.com.

</comment><comment><USER95> I don't see any reason for the AirPort. I can only think of a few scenarios with respect to consumers and Wifi:

1\. The router they get from their ISP is good enough, they can get support for their internet access and their wifi from one place and they don't mind paying the $7-$10/month. This seems like it would be the easiest for the non- tech user.

2\. A combined router/cable modem is desired but you don't want to pay $7-$10/month. Buy a device that is compatible with your cable modem -- again something that I don't see Apple making.

3\. You want a separate ISP modem and more advanced wifi router -- the only case that an updated Airport would satisfy.

4\. You want an easy to configure mesh network for better coverage -- buy some Eero devices.

5\. You want a versatile travel router -- one that can serve as a regular router (ethernet -> wifi bridge), a wifi->ethernet bridge, a wifi->wifi bridge (to create a private network from a public network), or an extender. There is already a $30 router that can accomplish that. I have one of these:

[https://www.amazon.com/TP-LINK-TL-WR802N-Wireless- Repeater-3...](https://www.amazon.com/TP-LINK-TL-WR802N-Wireless- Repeater-300Mbps/dp/B01CVOLGOG?th=1)

<comment><USER96> 6\. You want to back up your Mac, so you buy a Time Capsule.

</comment></comment><comment><USER97> My assumption is that voice assistants (alexa, google home) and mesh network access points (ubiquiti, eero, google wifi) will fast converge soon into a single device.

</comment><comment><USER98> I have a friend at Apple. The wireless team will be moved to Dongle department.

<comment><USER13> Can't tell if sarcasm or real.

</comment></comment><comment><USER99> I'm actually pretty disappointed to hear this. With all the known security vulnerabilities with other routers, and Apple's stand against the surveillance state, I was 100% certain the only choice I could make for a new wireless router was going to be Apple.

Now looks like I'm back to the drawing board w/ my research.

</comment><comment><USER100> I'm astonished to hear Apple is abandoning no longer developing monitors and routers. The only way to understand their behavior is from the accounting and finance side. Someone in accounting/finance must've pointed out that they don't make a lot of money making and selling routers and monitors and such. So it seems like an easy win to drop those lines of the business.

BUT, I suspect this will prove very short-sighted in the long run, and possibly endanger the company as a whole. The one thing Apple is (it seems) overlooking is the ecosystem effect. While some may not buy Apple monitors or routers, many do. Sure they last a long time and you don't need to constantly buy another one, and there may be viable substitutes, but if you're one of those people who considers themselves Apple-only (I have a non-techy friend like this) then eliminating Apple products just reduces their attachment to all things Apple. Pretty soon they start realizing that, hey, this non-Apple router works just fine! Hey, this non-Apple monitor works just fine, too! And the importance of the brand is reduced. Then they inevitably start thinking about how maybe a non-Apple laptop might be just as good (too) and cost a boatload less. Or maybe the new Pixel phone is as good as their aging iPhone. After all, they've heard good things about the camera.

So, yes, in strict accounting terms it may make sense to eliminate product lines with thin margins and low volume, but on the whole it props up the whole brand. Personally, I like knowing that I could go buy an Apple monitor. I know they're exceptional quality, and beautiful to boot. I may not have the cash to do it now, or even soon, but it's something to look forward to. Same with their excellent routers. But now? I guess I'll have to keep an eye on what Microsoft is up to.

It's ironic to me that Apple has lost sight of what supports and nurtures their brand, while it seems Microsoft has discovered Apple's secret sauce. Microsoft is creating beautiful expensive products which are almost certainly thin margins and low volume, but is doing so because of the cachet that comes from doing so. From the perception that the Microsoft brand is associated with beautiful, high quality, electronics. This rubs off on everything else they do. And man, do those new Surface Studios look nice.

I've been gradually moving the whole family to Mac-land, but now I may have to rethink. It seems Apple has lost touch and is now run by accountants and analysts--not designers and engineers.

</comment><comment><USER101> They already abandoned my Airport Express.

It's too old and can't be managed with the new version of the Airport Utility. The old version (which was very difficult to find) wouldn't run on a modern MacOS.

Fortunately I have a 10 year old Mac Pro and was able to download the old version of the software and make it work, but it's just not worth the effort every time I have to reconfigure it. IMO the Airport Utility software was already pretty wonky, it was a bit confusing to try to connect to the unit. You'd have to do a few resets of the device before it would show up.

Once it works, it works GREAT though.

Oh well, I've got all Meraki gear in my house and it works flawlessly. 4k streaming over wifi, no problem. That said, I was lucky enough to buy a house wired with cat5, so all of my bandwidth-hungry devices are wired anyway.

Ubiquiti is probably the way to go for most people though. Get rid of the consumer junk.

<comment><USER102> How old is your Express? I managed my Express from MacOS two days ago.

<comment><USER103> The original 802.11g AirPort Express only works with the old AirPort Utility. Which is really unfortunate, because they're perfectly viable otherwise, for things that don't need speed, or just as a place to plug in some speakers.

<comment><USER101> Yeah, it's a shame because it's a great device. Good reason not to rely on devices that need proprietary software to configure them, I suppose. Though, to be honest, I ran into an issue on 2 Linksys routers where the UI was incompatible with any Mac browser (it threw an error any time you tried to commit a change), so relying on browser-based UI is not perfect either.

I can't imagine it would have been difficult for Apple to simply retain compatibility with the old AX; they just chose not to, which is frustrating.

I've not learned my lesson since now I have cloud-dependent Meraki gear :)

<comment><USER103> The old AirPort Utility actually ran on more recent OSes for a while with some simple tweaks. And I'm sure the code for the old devices could have been included in the new versions of AirPort Utility. Frustrating indeed.

You're right that web-based isn't perfect. In my experience, the odds are at least better.

I am starting to feel like I should just resign myself to considering this sort of hardware to be disposable, and assume that it'll stop working due to software obsolescence after a few years, just as surely as if it lets out the magic smoke one day.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER104> From my point of view, the market is saturated with all these startups offering mesh wifi services that are already "Apple-fied" in terms of simplicity to setup and activate.

Why bother developing in that space when you can just buy whichever startup matures to the largest market share? Throw those engineers somewhere else.

</comment><comment><USER105> This is sad. I loved Apple routers and hoped for an upgrade anytime soon.

I know there is enough hate towards Apple here and I will probably still buy their new 15" Macbook, but I'm hoping for either Apple to get back to what they did before, or some other company stepping in and taking over the things Apple stopped doing.

Looking at Google for example: Started building high-end phones (iPhone), released a pretty good router (Airport), actively pushing chromecast (AppleTV). What if Google were to make a powerhouse of a laptop that's not running ChromeOS? Could that be viable?

The next Macbook I buy will hopefully last another 5-6 years, or hopefully longer. So for me 5-6 years for Apple to build something truly impressive. Who knows? Maybe Apple really does have a broader vision that we just don't see yet.

</comment><comment><USER106> I'm not sure if this is good or bad news for companies like Eero. In the short term, this is great news because of less competition for the extremely easy to use Wi-Fi router, but I have wonder why Apple got out of this business since they often see technology trends years down the road.

<comment><USER107> Apple should just buy eero with change they can find in the couch. There is a real benefit to apple's business model to ensure a extremly high quality, easy to install wifi option exists. The market is so confusing with different standards and wildly different quality levels between devices. being able to walk into an apple store and get the one that is guaranteed to just work is really valuable. Even if an apple owned eero just breaks even, high quality wifi is so critical to both the mac and ipad product lines it's worth the investment.

<comment><USER106> Agreed, it would make Apple more successful in the home than all of their HomeKit efforts have been so far.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER108> To those asking about replacements... I built a home router with about $150-250 of parts, an old, small in space HD, and an old comouter case I had laying around. I have wireless access points on 2/3 floors (old Cisco router for the basement, an N ASUS router for the rest of the house). I used PF Sense on the box. I have wired internet on as much as I can and wish I could use it for more. I don't understand the desire for everything to be wireless. My TVs, desktops, gaming consoles, etc. do not move.

I have never been happier with my internet setup. The only time I have had issues was when FIOS was out. The only restarts I have had to do was when my power went out. It has been close to two years now and this is the least amount of maintenance I have ever had to do.

<comment><USER109> Quite a few folks are living in places where they aren't allowed to start making holes in walls or between floors to run network cables.

<comment><USER108> Aah, that is completely fair. I am lucky in that I can run those wires. A scenario where someone couldn't didnt cross my mind. Thanks for pointing it out!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER110> Not affiliated (but a customer): I will probably go with a Turris router for friends and family, whenever they ask me for help.

Previously I tried to find a cheap OpenWRT based router, but then I kinda inherited the burden of supporting that: Initial configuration is non-trivial even with Luci, but that's a one-off thing and it usually Just Worked afterwards. And started to bit-rot, because I certainly didn't leave remote access for me to update the thing and had no inclination to do that either.

Enter Turris: A powerful router based on OpenWRT. Automatic updates included. For basic setups you get a really, really easy UI, for advanced stuff you can still open Luci or ssh in.

</comment><comment><USER111> I'm getting really frustrated by Apple's attitude to the Mac. Apple let key product lines stagnate, let the ecosystem wither and die (see monitors and now airport).

They are building an ecosystem around the apple watch (see all the watch bands, and iOS), but at the same time killing all of the supporting ecosystem to macOS.

Whats more frustrating is that apple does not outline its vision for macOS so we all have to divine what they f __k they are doing. They fire the head of automation, and the more changes they make like this, the lest I 'm willing to trust Apple with the future of my computer. Apple is slowly eroding the trust with its users.

</comment><comment><USER112> Interesting to see all the love for AirPorts here. In my experience, they've been pretty garbage, and it was a great relief when we finally ditched them and bought some TP-Link equipment instead, and now we have far less trouble with the office wifi.

</comment><comment><USER113> > _Apple shares rose 0.9 percent to $111.07 at 11:03 a.m. in New York Monday._

I wish business articles would cease the silly habit of quoting the stock price as if it has anything to do with the story. They're implying that the shares rose because Apple dropped wireless routers.

A 1% change in the stock price is completely normal and random day-to-day fluctuation for any large company. Even if it were a 5% change, you still couldn't say what caused it unless you went out and spoke to the buyers and sellers. It could be due to something completely unrelated like the whole market experiencing a rally or a sell off.

</comment><comment><USER114> I hope they still make an airplay device that can take over for my Airport express.

<comment><USER115> For Airplay, I replaced my Airport Express w/ a RaspberryPi running Shairport a few years ago. Works much better, perhaps because the Pi is on wired ethernet, for one less streaming signal over the wireless (?).

[https://computers.tutsplus.com/articles/using-a-raspberry- pi...](https://computers.tutsplus.com/articles/using-a-raspberry-pi-as-an- airplay-receiver--mac-54316)

[https://github.com/abrasive/shairport](https://github.com/abrasive/shairport)

<comment><USER87> You can connect an express on ethernet too, and it works pretty good for me. And I don't have to maintain a rasberry pi.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER116> I love the reassuring sound of my hard drive in my Airport Timecapsule spinning up when I got back to my desk at home.

The Timecapsule was pretty much plug and forget, easy to use. Now when it comes time to retire the Timecapsule I'll have to look outwith the Apple ecosystem and find something else, tinker with its configuration (more than likely for hours) and hope it continues to support my devices with firmware updates.

I'm sure my QNAP NAS has Timecapsule functionality but I'm new to the NAS world and I don't think my onsite backup is something that I feel comfortable trusting with it yet.

</comment><comment><USER117> What are some good alternatives? I have the last "tower" version.

<comment><USER118> Netgear and Asus make good routers. Also last I checked I believe Netgear had the fastest wireless router on the market. Someone please correct me if I'm wrong!

<comment><USER73> Both Netgear and ASUS AC1900 routers are good, you just need to buy off the top of the line (~80-120EUR price range).

<comment><USER82> How regularly and how long do they provide security updates?

(No attack, just wondering...)

<comment><USER50> I have an Asus RT-AC87U, which I bought in 2014, and it gets a few updates a year. Not sure how long they'll keep up.

Ok, just checked RT-AC66U as well, which is from 2012, and it still gets updates too.

<comment><USER119> Asus has semi-unified firmware for product line. It makes keeping things up to date easier. Quality went down hill on the RT-N66U (wireless instability), and rather than stick with older firmware that had more security holes than I could continue to track or try to fix it, I went with Ubiquiti equipment.

<comment><USER50> Ah, that's a shame. I have nothing but good things to say about mine, but if issues like that happens in the future I'll likely move to merlin/tomato/some wrt (if the hardware is still viable).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER120> Hopefully they will open up PowerNap backups [1] to non-Apple hardware. For my next home router I'd like to go the scooter computer [2] route, but having to have the MacBook open and awake to back up is obnoxious.

1\. [https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204032](https://support.apple.com/en- us/HT204032)

2\. [https://blog.codinghorror.com/the-scooter- computer/](https://blog.codinghorror.com/the-scooter-computer/)

<comment><USER121> Where does it say that PowerNap backups require Apple storage?

</comment></comment><comment><USER122> I wonder what would happen if Adobe released Photoshop for Linux. Or if Ableton for Linux was released. I'm pretty sure those would make them try A LOT harder on the desktop front.

</comment><comment><USER123> Hmm, since there is currently a great Airport with 802.11ac support out there, what would Apple develop right now? Might it be that they'll come out with a new product when 802.11ax is due to ship, which might be a few years down the road?

For the rest, I'll repeat what everyone says. The Airport is an essential part of the Apple ecosystem. It just works. I'd be surprised if they actually drop the product.

</comment><comment><USER124> Sometimes people make the mistake thinking that people want the perfect solution when often good enough is fine. One great example is .mp3 vs lossless audio compression. The average listener (myself included) don't care about about perfect audio. We are perfectly happy with good enough.

Wireless networking falls into this category. Yes a wired home network would be faster by for the vast majority tasks wireless is fine.

</comment><comment><USER125> I'm surprised Apple could never figure out a way to make a profitable wi-fi router. Every household needs one, so what prevented them from differentiating their products from generic routers? It really could have been a hugely profitable product.

I would have gone with a server approach to a wi-fi router, one that does everything in MacOS Server - email, VPN, web, etc..

<comment><USER126> Here is my guess: Your average iPhone user probably have never heard about the airport router.

</comment></comment><comment><USER127> Really do not like the ISP routers, that bundle the DSL/Cable-model with a Wireless-router together. Just let the modem be modems, and let the router be router, this way you can use any router model you prefer and do not need get stuck with the ISP ones.

</comment><comment><USER128> I don't understand why this cannot be a differentiation for a product competing with Amazon Echo and Google Home, certainly you can install one in each room and will provide better networking and see your presence and respond in context.

</comment><comment><USER129> What's next, the iMac? =(

<comment><USER130> I honestly wouldn't be surprised.

</comment></comment><comment><USER131> Unhappy, settled on the airport express a while ago as a nice little box that was secure and kept out of the way. No faith in other companies to deliver a streamlined experience without vulnerabilities.

</comment><comment><USER132> Much late to the convo...

Although my old Apple router is still chugging along perfectly well, I'm bummed about this change. First router I have ever felt 100% comfortable with the configuration and operation.

</comment><comment><USER133> I always used routers that allow installing customizable OS, so Apple was never a good choice. Something like Linksys WRTs today are way more interesting than whatever routers Apple made.

</comment><comment><USER134> This seems consistent with their decision to get out of displays.

</comment><comment><USER135> This sucks.. Of the apple routers I've owned they have "just worked".. which is the best feature of any router I have ever encountered IMO.

</comment><comment><USER136> They are probably looking at competitors entering the space. Starry, Google, and more are entering the $200 "we'll take care of that for you" market.

</comment><comment><USER137> I've never really liked AirPorts, but they were featurful. Honestly though, if Ubiquity would slap a Web UI on their stuff, they'd take-over the market.

</comment><comment><USER138> They may just throw a router into the next AppleTV. AppleTV is already positioned as the "center of your home" for HomeKit-enabled devices.

</comment><comment><USER139> This is the way the world (of Apple) ends, not with a bang but with a whimper. One for each unit that turns off the lights...

<comment><USER27> When Steve Jobs came back, he killed off a bunch of accessories - printers, cameras, Newton, etc etc. Apple isn't in dire straits as they were them, but just like how back then their printers and cameras weren't innovative, neither are their routers now

Killing off accessories is fine. But if they're not focusing on that anymore, and no new Macs in ages, what the hell ARE they focusing on?

<comment><USER140> iPhones, watch bands, $300 books and iPhones. Oh, and also iPhones.

<comment><USER27> Yeah the book thing kind of ruins any supportive argument doesn't it

<comment><USER141> The book is probably a case of somebody working on it to make a handful of copies to satisfy somebody's ego. Selling more copies is just gravy.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER142> I wonder if this has anything to do with agencies like the NSA "requesting" Apple to put backdoors in their future routers..

</comment><comment><USER143> Worrying that they outlived displays and Mac Pros

</comment><comment><USER144> Time for our daily 2 minutes of Apple hate!

</comment><comment><USER145> I have a feeling that we'll see new wifi-emitting hubs from Apple in the near- term. They just won't be what we conventionally think of as routers, and will feature a host of new features to support a new ecosystem of Apple products for the connected home. e.g. thermostats. The new centralized hubs will be different enough in concept from airports to support abandoning the airport line completely.

</comment><comment><USER146> Wireless routers don't sell like hot cakes, but this was never the point of Apple making them.

Just try to imagine Steve Jobs setting up a generic router.

* * *

Now imagine him searching for a wireless router and seeing some Google product in the top rankings.

(EDIT: I tried to play with the "Steve wouldn't allow this" trope and failed — removing it to reduce the noise)

<comment><USER147> > If there's one thing Steve wouldn't allow is this move.

Can we _please_ not bring this up. What makes you think you know anything about what Steve Jobs would have liked?

<comment><USER146> I'm sorry. I don't like this argument either (it's used for every minor annoyance related to Apple) and I'm not comfortable ascribing intentions to a deceased person.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER148> Do they still sell Time Capsule?

<comment><USER59> There's still a product page.

[http://www.apple.com/shop/product/ME182LL/A/airport-time- cap...](http://www.apple.com/shop/product/ME182LL/A/airport-time-capsule-3tb)

I can imagine that they would want people to migrate to iCloud. That would be less helpful for those that don't have a (reliable) internet connection.

<comment><USER149> I have a great connection but I don't want my data in the cloud if I can avoid it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER150> This is wild speculation...

Why would Apple need to upgrade the AirPort Extreme anyways?

</comment><comment><USER151> Dear Apple users,

There are still wifi routers that you can use. Which one you choose makes almost no difference whatsoever. Just like with Apple, you can go out and buy a random wifi router, take it out of the box and plug it in, and it will just work. Stop freaking out.

Love, the non-Apple universe.</comment>


A Year After Program, Under 100 Hyundais Returned - <AUTHOR> http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=122372379

<comment><AUTHOR> FatWallet Finance discussion of the article: <http://www.fatwallet.com/forums/finance/981895>

I think this comment really nailed it: _I never understood the program. If I lost my job, I'd still need a car to drive to interviews._

<comment><USER2> while this is definitely a marketing angle for them, not everyone would still need a car to drive to interviews, and not everyone could necessarily still afford a car if they lost their job.

<comment><AUTHOR> Certainly not _everyone_ would still need it and be able to afford it but the fact that many people would still need their car helps to explain why so few Hyundais were returned.</comment></comment></comment>