Google exec Marissa Mayer "really impressed" with Apple's AirPort WiFi base stations
Marissa Mayer, Google's Vice President of Location and Local Services, offered a glowing endorsement of Apple's AirPort wireless router products on her Google+ social network page, where she also notes that she uses multiple Apple TV in addition to Google's own set top boxes.
Mayer originally posted for advice last month on buying a new wireless router for her home use, noting that "it needs to have support for 20+ connections and good range in terms of distance."
Her Google+ follower Saravana Shanmuga advised "Netgear is worth and we can customize !! where apple is good we cant customize."
Today, Mayer reported that she had initially bought a replacement Netgear N600 wireless router from Walmart, but said "I had continued problems even with the new router, with range and devices getting conflicting IP [addresses]" among her wirelessly connected devices at home, which included "a bunch of phones, tablets, Tivos, Google TVs, Apple TVs, etc."
Mayer added, "So, for Christmas, I asked for an Airport Extreme and 2 Airport Expresses (to chain together and create a mesh with better range). I set them all up last night, got all the devices connecting, and so far so good. It's not really a fair comparison, since there are 3 routers to the Netgear's 1, but iStumbler showed a lot more signal strength throughout the house, rarely less than 45%."
Mayer concluded, "I was really impressed with Apple's Airport Utility and how simple it made the set-up and chaining of routers. Hard to make the experience of setting up of a home network beautiful, but at least it was easy. I kind of wish I had gotten a Time Capsule for backups, but I was pretty focused on getting a good router system. Plus, that's what DropBox is for."
Apple quietly updated its Airport Extreme and Time Capsule products last June without fanfare, increasing their output power up to 2.8 times for improved range and reception while switching to a new Broadcom chip shared by the 2011 MacBook Pro.
While NPD hasn't published recent market share figures for WiFi routers, but its last public figures from mid 2008 indicated Apple's share of the router market was 10.6 percent, larger than the Mac's share of PC sales at the time. Apple was reported to be in fourth place behind Cisco's Linksys brand, D-Link, and Netgear, which Mayer reported issues with, despite its reputed "customization" options.
Mayer originally posted for advice last month on buying a new wireless router for her home use, noting that "it needs to have support for 20+ connections and good range in terms of distance."
Her Google+ follower Saravana Shanmuga advised "Netgear is worth and we can customize !! where apple is good we cant customize."
Today, Mayer reported that she had initially bought a replacement Netgear N600 wireless router from Walmart, but said "I had continued problems even with the new router, with range and devices getting conflicting IP [addresses]" among her wirelessly connected devices at home, which included "a bunch of phones, tablets, Tivos, Google TVs, Apple TVs, etc."
Mayer added, "So, for Christmas, I asked for an Airport Extreme and 2 Airport Expresses (to chain together and create a mesh with better range). I set them all up last night, got all the devices connecting, and so far so good. It's not really a fair comparison, since there are 3 routers to the Netgear's 1, but iStumbler showed a lot more signal strength throughout the house, rarely less than 45%."
Mayer concluded, "I was really impressed with Apple's Airport Utility and how simple it made the set-up and chaining of routers. Hard to make the experience of setting up of a home network beautiful, but at least it was easy. I kind of wish I had gotten a Time Capsule for backups, but I was pretty focused on getting a good router system. Plus, that's what DropBox is for."
Apple quietly updated its Airport Extreme and Time Capsule products last June without fanfare, increasing their output power up to 2.8 times for improved range and reception while switching to a new Broadcom chip shared by the 2011 MacBook Pro.
While NPD hasn't published recent market share figures for WiFi routers, but its last public figures from mid 2008 indicated Apple's share of the router market was 10.6 percent, larger than the Mac's share of PC sales at the time. Apple was reported to be in fourth place behind Cisco's Linksys brand, D-Link, and Netgear, which Mayer reported issues with, despite its reputed "customization" options.
Comments
Good for her commenting on this .. I want to tear my eyes whenever I see WLAN router recommendation threads and people recommend non-Apple gear.. they do not know what they do not know.
Actually, there is one thing...QoS. With more and more people switching to VoIP, we need some way to keep voice traffic prioritized over everything else. And the AirPort Extreme doesn't allow for that.
Seven clicks to save and then import the TM config file (the Airport config utility even remembered the path to where it was saved) and the seven keystrokes were re-entering the password.
All of the Macs on the network found the new hard drive and Time Machine kicked in automatically.
Highly recommended.
I just wish I could install Ubuntu on it... Damned walled garden!
Great. Now we're going to have Google routers that are open to allow you to do what you want with it. They will give it to you for free, you just have to agree to let Google pilfer through every bit sent and received through it.
Android OS is based on the open Linux and most consumer routers run on Linux. Would a vendor using Android be of much benefit over Linux? Is there anything in Android outside of the kernel they would need, assuming we're not talking about a router with a 4" touch display?
I agree with Marissa, I went through about a dozen WLAN routers over the years -- and eventually got an Airport Extreme.. I was hooked, everything just worked and I stopped having issues. I'll never buy a non-Apple WLAN router ever again!
Good for her commenting on this .. I want to tear my eyes whenever I see WLAN router recommendation threads and people recommend non-Apple gear.. they do not know what they do not know.
They are the best and easiest consumer routers. The only problem is that even Apple's routers are feeling the strain of having so many 802.11 connected devices on a single network. We even have wall thermometers and bathroom scales with WiFi.
Sure, they can handle more than enough IP addresses but the processing data for multiple devices at once in a household seems to be bottlenecking at the processor. I wouldn't be surprised to see Apple use their ARM SoC/PoP designs based on an iOS(Darwin) in the future to help facilitate more devices running at optimal speeds.
The way to reduce the cost is to start with an Apple Airport Extreme.
I wasted so much time and money trying different brands, configurations, settings, daily / weekly hard resets, always wishing I had an Apple. I though it was our internet service, or me. I finally broke down and got one six months ago, set it up in 6 minutes and it's been flawless.
There's even an iPhone App to manage everything (but it's so simple there's nothing to manage)
Fully Recommended, 100 out of 100, anybody who recommends anything else has not used both.
The only problem is that even Apple's routers are feeling the strain of having so many 802.11 connected devices on a single network.
It is starting to get pretty bad indeed. I can't even get straight answers as to why it is a problem, or if anything short of the Cisco approach to separate radios and controllers can handle 30+ devices.
Marissa Meyer's opinion is about as important as my Mother's when it comes to Technology.
So your mom has an M.S. in Computer Science from Stanford?
I am pretty happy with the setup, but Time Machine was a pain on the TC. I had automated backups for 4 months before I changed my Mac's name and then Time Machine would not read any of the backups on TC. I fiddled around a little and Time Machine recognised it and then promptly deleted all my backups and started anew!
Now I only use the TC as a network drive. I haven't been bold enough to try Time Machine again!
Seriously- I hope they come out with new expresses with that.
On another note- why does a vp of google ask for anything for Christmas. Just buy it when ya want. Lol
I agree with Marissa, I went through about a dozen WLAN routers over the years -- and eventually got an Airport Extreme.. I was hooked, everything just worked and I stopped having issues. I'll never buy a non-Apple WLAN router ever again!
Good for her commenting on this .. I want to tear my eyes whenever I see WLAN router recommendation threads and people recommend non-Apple gear.. they do not know what they do not know.
I used net gears for years & they've always been very reliable but had fewer features than others. My last netgear was an N capable router. I was bummed to find out at the time that since N was draft not all chipsets played nice together. I had various weird issues with certain devices but overall it still was a very solid router. After having that for a couple years I traded it for a linksys I could mod with ddwrt (at the time linksys out of the box had goofy DNS & I use opendns). I had lots of issues with the router & finally gave up on ddwrt & reluctantly went back to base firmware. Turns out the issues were with the router itself & I continued to have issues. Just so happens around this time I happened on an older N capable dual band AIrport Extreme (not simultaneous) for next to nothing. Jumped on it, got a 2TB USB drive & attached it to the USB port, now I run backups over the wifi to the USB drive & also host some shared storage. The range is incredible (by the way positioning near an outlet or copper pipe can boost the signal to areas of the house otherwise unreached) and the thing just works flawlessly. I will definitely be replacing it with another should it ever bite the dust.
Couple of side notes:
1) Linksys is garbage, if a sales person at the store ever recommends one to you run the other way cause they don't know the first thing about what they are trying to sell you.
2) whatever router you own & ISP you use make sure your router & modem are plugged into an APC/UPS, it will greatly extend the life of your devices and prevent those constant reboots you're probably always having to do. It is a battery backup, a 350VA & can be found at any Walmart or like an office maxx. It is NOT a surge strip, they are not the same. An added bonus is that when the power goes out during a storm I still have Internet for like 45min so I can keep up with the weather.
So your mom has an M.S. in Computer Science from Stanford?
not quite. Neurosurgeon from Stanford, MD.
not quite. Neurosurgeon from Stanford, MD.
So... less relevant than the Google VP then?