AirPort Extreme and Time Capsule Update Details: Dual-Band, Guest Networks, Remote File Access

[fightthefad]

How does the file sharing via MobileMe differ from file sharing using Back to My Mac?

i'm not quite sure what you're looking for here but i'm going to take a stab at it by using the example that i have a MacBook and i have a Time Capsule. when i am at school i would love to be able to access files from my Time Capsule at home let's say to watch a movie i have stored on there because i have a long break between classes and no homework.

with Back To My Mac, i can't do this because my Time Capsule on its own is not considered a machine and therefore can't access files from it using that service at will. this MobileMe will permit that type of interaction, similar to a Back To My Mac, but more like a Back To My Mac Peripheral Device. is that what you are asking?

 

[rockosmodurnlif]

The reason it costs more is for the same reason you are complaining about it costing more. Could you get similar functionality from two separate and cheaper devices? Yes. Do people see the value in having it all in one device? Yes, and clearly you do, which is why you are complaining. It costs more because people are willing to pay more for it. I'm sure you knew that though, you just like to complain.

Don't like it? Don't buy it.

Reassuring to read some common sense.

 

[georgetang]

Time Machine is recognized in the Airport Utility, but Time Machine doesn't work...so...how do you get this to do backups? or was this bricked with today's update?

It worked after 2007 updated.

I really do not know why you guys can't get it work.

Lots of people have it work without problem.

1st time backup please do so offline (external HDD plugged directly to Macbook, or Mac). This is faster.

Then, once done, have the external HDD mounted in Airport as Disk and then go to Time Machine preference and change disk to Airport Disk.

That's all I did, and I believe many others too.

Now, Time Machine runs every hour for backup.

 

[Eidorian]

Very tempted by the new AirPort Extreme.

Same, I had to reset my current router twice today. Then again I did change the channel from 3 to 4. It's working for now...

 

[HailToTheVictor]

It worked after 2007 updated.

I really do not know why you guys can't get it work.

Lots of people have it work without problem.

1st time backup please do so offline (external HDD plugged directly to Macbook, or Mac). This is faster.

Then, once done, have the external HDD mounted in Airport as Disk and then go to Time Machine preference and change disk to Airport Disk.

That's all I did, and I believe many others too.

Now, Time Machine runs every hour for backup.

Ok. I have subsequently been able to get the machine to recognize there is a drive attached but this appears under the shared devices tab. When I go into the Time Machine prefs and set the disk it start prepping for a backup, but then TM says there is not enough room on the drive for the backup. I believe what TM is doing is creating a whole new backup and not adding the changes to the previous TM backups. So, I think that this could be worked around by starting fresh, which is what I will probably end up doing with my new tb drive, but can anyone else confirm any of this?

 

[klittle32]

i'm not quite sure what you're looking for here but i'm going to take a stab at it by using the example that i have a MacBook and i have a Time Capsule. when i am at school i would love to be able to access files from my Time Capsule at home let's say to watch a movie i have stored on there because i have a long break between classes and no homework.

with Back To My Mac, i can't do this because my Time Capsule on its own is not considered a machine and therefore can't access files from it using that service at will. this MobileMe will permit that type of interaction, similar to a Back To My Mac, but more like a Back To My Mac Peripheral Device. is that what you are asking?

Exactly. Many thanks.

 

[bubbamike]

Why is it cheaper to purchase an Airport Express Base Station + an external 1TB USB hard drive ($179 + $129 = $308) than to buy the 1TB Time Capsule ($499)? Both options offer the same functionality, and a seperate USB hard drive means you can upgrade the storage at a later date, which isn't supported on the TC.

Someone at Apple really dropped the ball; the Time Capsule should NOT cost this much anymore. 1TB hard drives are cheap as dirt these days!

Don't forget that Apple is using an enterprise grade drive so you can add $50 to your cost estimate. Still expensive but a higher grade of drive.

 

[nkawtg72]

How does the file sharing via MobileMe differ from file sharing using Back to My Mac?

i'm not quite sure what you're looking for here but i'm going to take a stab at it by using the example that i have a MacBook and i have a Time Capsule. when i am at school i would love to be able to access files from my Time Capsule at home let's say to watch a movie i have stored on there because i have a long break between classes and no homework.

with Back To My Mac, i can't do this because my Time Capsule on its own is not considered a machine and therefore can't access files from it using that service at will. this MobileMe will permit that type of interaction, similar to a Back To My Mac, but more like a Back To My Mac Peripheral Device. is that what you are asking?

More accurately, MobileMe is simply a service that provides features, ie Back to My Mac. Up to now the only devices you could activate on the service were your actual CPUs. As such, using BTMM to do a remote file share would only get you access to your CPU and its attached drives.

Now that AEBS/TC support MM, you will be able to use MM to remote in to your AEBS/TC to access their internal/attached drives.

As several people have pointed out, the ability has been in the now "old" AEBS/TC for a while. The problem was it required you to maintain some sort of DynamicDNS service to reliably connect. As one person pointed out this also was not an encrypted connection.

Apple's MM service is a DynamicDNS service(they don't market it that way) and with MM built-in, it makes the feature that's been there all the while that much easier to use. Add to it, MM supports certificates/encryption, so I would imagine that this new feature will be secure.

 

[chasemac]

got no idea if this has been mentioned as i haven't read any other posts.. but anyone else notice that apple is still offering both versions of the Airport Express Base Station.. aka old and new versions... that doesn't normally happen with this sort of update...?!

Yes. And at the apple retail store in my area they have the older version for $179. On the apple site it is $150. I was kinda puzzled when the apple employee said that they didn't have the new one but it would be available later this week.

 

[TrailingZee]

Probably no cool new AirPorts for a while

I too find it astonishing that AirPort updates are the best new product news on a day when all of Apple's desktop Mac lines were "updated"....

And from what I've heard, the guy who was the brains behind all of these cool AirPort Base Station products over the last seven or eight years just left Apple a couple of months ago during this project cycle! So I would imagine that we won't see many more cool new wireless base station gizmos coming out of Apple anytime soon.

 

[emt1]

And from what I've heard, the guy who was the brains behind all of these cool AirPort Base Station products over the last seven or eight years just left Apple a couple of months ago during this project cycle! So I would imagine that we won't see many more cool new wireless base station gizmos coming out of Apple anytime soon.

I don't think it required any serious brain power to come up with the ideas of dual-band operation and remote file sharing. These have been long requested features.

 

[fightthefad]

More accurately, MobileMe is simply a service that provides features, ie Back to My Mac. Up to now the only devices you could activate on the service were your actual CPUs. As such, using BTMM to do a remote file share would only get you access to your CPU and its attached drives.

Now that AEBS/TC support MM, you will be able to use MM to remote in to your AEBS/TC to access their internal/attached drives.

As several people have pointed out, the ability has been in the now "old" AEBS/TC for a while. The problem was it required you to maintain some sort of DynamicDNS service to reliably connect. As one person pointed out this also was not an encrypted connection.

Apple's MM service is a DynamicDNS service(they don't market it that way) and with MM built-in, it makes the feature that's been there all the while that much easier to use. Add to it, MM supports certificates/encryption, so I would imagine that this new feature will be secure.

i wouldn't say "more accurately", maybe more "technically".

 

[TrailingZee]

I don't think it required any serious brain power to come up with the ideas of dual-band operation and remote file sharing. These have been long requested features.

Uhhh yeah I would have to disagree...if you think back of all the stuff we've gotten over the last 8 years...802.11g, WPA, 802.11n, AirTunes, USB printer sharing, Time Capsule, simultaneous dual-band, remote file sharing, the list goes on and on and add in the fact that we are able to get all of these high quality features in devices that are competitively priced for all the stuff they pack into one, I think that requires a heck of a lot of serious brain power. I would suggest a lot more than most 20 year olds have.

 

[emt1]

Uhhh yeah I would have to disagree...if you think back of all the stuff we've gotten over the last 8 years...802.11g, WPA, 802.11n, AirTunes, USB printer sharing, Time Capsule, simultaneous dual-band, remote file sharing, the list goes on and on and add in the fact that we are able to get all of these high quality features in devices that are competitively priced for all the stuff they pack into one, I think that requires a heck of a lot of serious brain power. I would suggest a lot more than most 20 year olds have.

Apple didn't come up with most of that. Also, I'm going to say it again... those features are not ingenious.

1. Audio sharing
2. Printer sharing
3. File sharing
4. Dual band

Not unique to Apple. They're cool... but the loss of an employee at Apple has no affect on Apple's future in the wireless market.

 

[georgetang]

Ok. I have subsequently been able to get the machine to recognize there is a drive attached but this appears under the shared devices tab. When I go into the Time Machine prefs and set the disk it start prepping for a backup, but then TM says there is not enough room on the drive for the backup. I believe what TM is doing is creating a whole new backup and not adding the changes to the previous TM backups. So, I think that this could be worked around by starting fresh, which is what I will probably end up doing with my new tb drive, but can anyone else confirm any of this?

My experience is the following:

1st time machine backup do it offline (external hdd to MAC directly).

then, mount external hdd to airport extreme base station as disk drive.

change time machine preference to airport disk.

then run 2nd time machine backup online through airport extreme base station.

then it'll check or backup every hour.

do not load other stuff into the external hdd like I did.

The space would ran out for time machine to work properly.

I've did upgraded my MBP's 200GB Hitachi to 320 Hitachi, and recover my system using Time Machine.

But then I've started loading loads of stuff into the external hdd, eventually time machine is not working due to insufficient space.

Therefore, I'm buying new 2nd Iomega Minimax for my other files.

in conclusion, that's how I made it work.

 

[jlin615]

Oh no, I just purchased a Airport Extreme weeks ago

If dual-band is hidden feature in the previous model, I wish they offer like a dual-band enabler for $1.99

 

[ant7783]

This may sound stupid but

With the new airport extreme, will it work with my Wii, 360, and PS3 wirelessly as well. I thought it would but I am reading alot about keeping the old g and b router

 

[Eidorian]

Oh no, I just purchased a Airport Extreme weeks ago

If dual-band is hidden feature in the previous model, I wish they offer like a dual-band enabler for $1.99

Doubtful since it is a physical hardware thing. I remember mention that the original Airport Extreme 802.11n on has one antenna so you were limited to one mode of operation.

 

[georgetang]

Doubtful since it is a physical hardware thing. I remember mention that the original Airport Extreme 802.11n on has one antenna so you were limited to one mode of operation.

Besides, if you have bought it recently, just return it.

Unless dual band it's a deal breaker for you.

I personally fine with my AEBS-n has been working without a problem for almost 2 years straight.

 

[alphaod]

Oh no, I just purchased a Airport Extreme weeks ago

If dual-band is hidden feature in the previous model, I wish they offer like a dual-band enabler for $1.99

So did I. I had 2 choices, suck it up or buy the new model.

I chose the latter

 

[barefootman]

no price drop

Quite the contrary. Here in Australia the prices have gone up considerably.

 

[Bevz]

Great, But....

Great news... Remote access to my Airport disc would be great! I have an external drive at the moment holding all my media content, although not plugged into my AE (yet lol); looking forward to firmware update to enable the ability to access this content remotely from my laptop! But... I only bought the AE about 2 or 3 months ago... Oh well, dual band would have been nice, but if they release a new iphone in June with n wi-fi i'll be happy ;-) Be nice if apple offered an upgrade option for people who had bought an AE within, say, the last 3 months... Seems reasonable...

One question: Is it definately confirmed that apple are releasing a firmware update which will enable this on older AE's or is it just a rumour (read the appleinsider article and sounded like just a rumour)?

 

[alphaod]

Great news... Remote access to my Airport disc would be great! I have an external drive at the moment holding all my media content, although not plugged into my AE (yet lol); looking forward to firmware update to enable the ability to access this content remotely from my laptop! But... I only bought the AE about 2 or 3 months ago... Oh well, dual band would have been nice, but if they release a new iphone in June with n wi-fi i'll be happy ;-) Be nice if apple offered an upgrade option for people who had bought an AE within, say, the last 3 months... Seems reasonable...

One question: Is it definately confirmed that apple are releasing a firmware update which will enable this on older AE's or is it just a rumour (read the appleinsider article and sounded like just a rumour)?

Well I don't see Apple releasing firmware for it since it would draw people away from buying the new router; they also still sell the old one, so again unlikely that they would update it.

As for iPhone getting N-wireless, unlikely as well seeing there are no cards for that spec and G is fast enough for a mobile device.

 

[ipoppy]

Simultaneous dual-band support - Operates simultaneously on both 5 GHz (802.11n) and 2.4 GHz (802.11b/g) frequencies to allow all wireless products to connect on the best available band. On previous models, users wishing to permit 802.11b/g devices such as many older Macs or the iPhone or iPod touch to connect to their access point were required to run in "mixed mode" at 2.4 GHz, negating some of peformance benefits of 802.11n-enabled devices running on 5 GHz networks.

Guest networking - Creates a secondary network to allow family and visitors to connect to the Internet, while keeping the primary network with attached printers, drives, and other devices secured. The secondary network can be configured with a different password from the primary network or can have no password at all.



Access files on a networked drive from anywhere - Allows MobileMe subscribers to register their AirPort Extreme Base Station or Time Capsule with their MobileMe account, providing them access to their files from anywhere via the Internet. Drives will appear in the Finder sidebar like any other attached drive, acting just like a personal file server with remote access.

Article Link: AirPort Extreme and Time Capsule Update Details: Dual-Band, Guest Networks, Remote File Access

Generally speaking its nice update. Personally Simultaneous dual-band support its for me at this moment because I got old machines running on b/g profile along with new ones on n-profile. But soon that will change because of plans buying Mac Pro which will replace mine old iMac.

Guest networking nice feature as well but I never had such circumstances to demand that option. But that may change once my friends will start caring more wi-fi enable equipment with them.

So I think I will stick with my old TC since Access files on a networked drive from anywhere will be enable anyway. Thats what I need when I am away from home and I would be seriously upset if Apple would not give that feature for previous TC owners.

 

[Shuttleworth]

Did the Airport Express price go up yesterday? It's £79 , I thought it used to be £65.