Apple Upgrades Airport Extreme, Time Capsule
At the same time that a wide variety of desktop hardware updates were announced today, Apple also heralded the improvement of the Airport Extreme and the Time Capsule.
Perhaps the biggest enhancement for both peripheral devices is their new simultaneous dual-band capability. Both units can now operate at the same time on both the 2.4GHz and 5GHz wavelengths, something that the older models could not do because they were hampered by having just a single antenna. Therefore, if users were taking advantage of the faster 802.11n band with desktops or laptops, they could not also use their iPhones, iPod Touches, or other devices that could only operate on the slower 802.11g band. That restriction is now a thing of the past.
This is a major improvement in both the Airport Extreme and the Time Capsule. Now a network that includes either or both of these two devices can mix and match 2.4GHz 802.11g and 5GHz 802.11n in the same network at the same time. This has been a significant restriction for users of both these devices. In essence, it meant that users were only able to operate at the lowest common denominator of their client hardware, which was often iPhones and Touches, even if all of their desktops and laptops were capable of the faster option.
Both the Airport Extreme and the Time Capsule now also add Guest Networking. This feature allows a network manager to define a separate network for visitors to the network. This Guest Network can have a separate password from the private network and provide different capabilities. For example, it is possible to limit guests to use of the Internet only, while hiding all of the internal computers and peripheral devices from their view.
One special feature of the new Time Capsule is its ability to allow users to access files over the Internet, as long as the owner also has a MobileMe subscription, according to a MacWorld article. Once set up to do so, any remote user logged into the MobileMe account will see the Time Capsule as a drive in the sidebar, and will be able to access the files as if they were logged directly into the local network.
The pricing of both peripherals remain the same. The Airport Extreme is still $179. For the Time Capsule, the 500GB version sells for $299 and the 1TB version for $499. Apple has built a lot of new capabilities into the Airport Extreme and Time Capsule devices, lifting restrictions that had previously limited their usefulness, without raising the price of either device.
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