Somewhere in my cellar I have an original plumbago AirPort Base Station . It ’s one of the few non - working Apple product I could n’t add myself to recycle , and the reason is two - fold . One , it ’s one of the Apple ’s best designs . In an age where router were ugly boxwood with giant antennas , Apple ’s curved base station really did look like a UFO . Even after it stopped working , I kept it on my shelf for years .
The other cause is its account . Even more than the iPhone , iMac , iPad , and iPod , the AirPort Base Station is , to me , the greatest example of Steve Jobs ’ champion . The original AirPort was n’t a product for Apple ’s power users , it was made for consumers at a time when wireless networking in homes was a foreign concept . It boiled down complicated setting and Byzantine constellation screens to just a single plug - and - play organisation .
As we all get it on , it was n’t cheap . It only worked with one Cartesian product , the candy - colored iBook . But even without huge sales , the shock the original AirPort had on the industry was straightaway and massive , at least as peachy as the iBook itself .
And now it ’s dead . And we ’ll belike never see another product like it from Apple ever again .
Portable wonder
In 1999 , the iBook was a wild product for Apple . Designed in concert with Lucent Technologies , it was as revolutionary and bold as the floppy effort - less iMac , and the stakes were just as high . But the addition of AirPort upped the stake considerably . Steve Jobs see a fully wireless world before the rest of the manufacture , and the AirPort was the first step to receive there . The iBook didn’tneedAirPort , but AirPort demand a Mac to get off the ground . And Steve chose the most improbable of notebook computer for its institution .
An easier way of life would have been to target pro users who were already conversant with Wi - Fi and ease Apple ’s less - informed drug user base into the passage . But Steve did n’t want it that way . He sympathize in 1999 that wireless applied science was as personal as computers were in 1984 , and he wanted to showcase its potential to masses .
look at this : While the iBook ’s price was already pretty high at $ 1,599 , the Base Station cost $ 299 and the ask AirPort carte ( which installed by airlift up the keyboard ) was another $ 99 , bring the total price of wireless convenience to just under $ 2,000 . Steve knew that many or even most iBook customer would likely baulk at such a high price , but that did n’t touch him . The track were laid , as he allege himself at the Macworld New York 1999 keynote : “ iBook is the first estimator ever project right from the scratch line to be optimized for wireless communicating . ” manifestly , it would n’t be the last .
A future without wires
It would have been well-fixed to target pro user with AirPort , both from pragmatical and a sales stand . But by plan its AirPort to work with a candy - colored laptop rather than its more matured PowerBooks , Steve was order the world that Wi - Fi was the future , and it need n’t be limited to professional user .
The original iBook was the original breakthrough net communicator .
Even in 1999 , AirPort did n’t deliver the “ baby net . ” It had a top speeding of 11 megabits per second and more importantly , it embraced privacy with full terminal - to - ending encryption . That was unheard of in a consumer laptop . The grapple iBook did n’t necessarily look the part , but AirPort made it one of the most newspaper clipping - border products in Apple ’s intercellular substance , and it would take several calendar month for the rest of the Macs to catch up .
Over the years , AirPort evolved into a full wireless solution that worked with any and all devices , but the ease - of - use Apple revolutionized with the original AirPort never went away . From the remarkable Airport Express to the ingenious Time Capsule , Apple ’s wireless products were always project with the consumer in psyche . It took a complicated system and made it easy , a mantra that Apple has gotten further and further forth from as it has raise . I think , just readthe support docApple provides for select a new router .
Short-sighted and simple-minded
It ’s been a while since the Airport was a must - have twist , but that ’s mostly Apple ’s error . Nowadays , you’re able to purchase any number ofrouters or mesh Wi - Fi organization , but none of them vanquish what the AirPort was . TheOrbisatellites I have around my house are first-class , but I still have an AirPort Extreme Time Capsule hooked up to the one in my situation for backups . And whenever I need to dive into the Orbi contour page to check something , I keen the personnel casualty of my AirPort Utility .
Netgear ’s Orbi is a majuscule scheme , but it does n’t have the same easiness - of - economic consumption as AirPort .
Apple could have made a Wi - Fi organisation that “ just works ” and commingle the all - over coverage of a interlocking system with the simplicity of AirPort . But it stopped playing that secret plan long ago . Today ’s products are more about filling a family than a need , and I ca n’t opine Tim Cook ever green - lighting something as risky or revolutionary as the AirPort - iBook combo anytime shortly . chew the fat www.apple.com/wireless now and it carry you to a 404 page . The radical visual sensation that was so secure in 1999 is literally missing .
It ’s not about the decline of the Mac or the uselessness of the Touch Bar , or even the terribleness of the MacBook Pro ’s keyboard . It ’s about a long - terminus visual sense that just is n’t there anymore . Products like the iPhone X , Apple Watch , and even HomePod are all build up to trade now , but where will they be in 10 years ? Argue about features and design all you desire , but the vision Steve delivered with AirPort just is n’t there . iPhone X may represent the start of the next 10 years of iPhone , but Apple ’s overall vision is decidedly myopic . It ’s the same rationality why it ’s take Apple old age to deliver on its hope of a newfangled Mac Pro . It ’s not because it does n’t have the team or the resources , it ’s because the vision of the be Mac Pro was so short - sighted , Apple had to scrap the whole things and start from square one .
AirPort was n’t just a foundation to grow on , it was the first pace in a tenner - longsighted plan that surrender the iPod , iPhone , and iPad , and free us of wire and tethers . So maybe I ’ll go cut into it out of my depot boxes . Because it might take a while before we see anything quite so visionary from Apple ever again .
