Wireless Periferals

surfratsurfrat
Posted:
in Future Apple Hardware edited January 2014
Hello all!



It's good to see that appleinsider is back up and running again! It's been much too long.



Well, I guess my question for you all is: Wouldn't it be great if apple could come out with a new "Aiport-Type" device that also let you plug in your printer, USB speakers, and anything else that would require coming back to your desk after surfing the internet wirelessly.



I curently own a Firewire PowerBook and have the frist version of aiport. I love it, it makes browsing the internet fun because I'm not stuck to my desk when I want to do school work or anything like that.



The only thing that is a bummer is when I wanna listen to music or print files I have to come back to my desk to plug everything back in! And despite the fact that the PowerBook has built in "speakers," I wouldn't really classify them as ones worthy of playing music out of.



Well, just a curious thought. If anyone has any thoughts or information on future devices I'd be glad to hear em!

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 5
    composercomposer Posts: 212member
    It certainly seems feasible. But I wonder what would happen if you tried to print something while listening to music.



    Anyway, with the exception of the USB speakers, you could hook up the printer by getting an ethernet hub, and hooking it up to your printer. 'Course, you'd probably need something like an HP Jetdirect box to fully accomplish that. Yeah, I agree that it would be cool if all your peripherals could jack into the base station.



    Just a few thoughts,



    Composer
  • Reply 2 of 5
    emaneman Posts: 7,204member
    That's not a bad idea. I'd love for Apple to do that but I don't see it happening for a while.
  • Reply 3 of 5
    enderender Posts: 353member
    I like the idea of wireless peripherals, but not for the reason you suggested. In the case of printers, speakers, etc., you need to be near them anyway. If you print something, you can't retrieve the paper wirelessly .



    I would like to see wireless devices because then I could put all of my stuff where I want it, rather than being limited by the wires. I have a huge desk with my DP 500 G4 sitting under it and 3 17" monitors sitting side by side on top of it (AGP Radeon, 2 PCI Rage Pro). In addition, I have my amp, 2 speakers (with two under the desk), SCSI burner, USB SmartMedia card reader, HP 932 DeskJet printer, numerous reference books, and all of my CDs/CD-ROMs. I have very little space for anything else.



    I would love to set up a printer station somewhere else in the room, ditch the amp and go with wireless USB-esque type speakers (the ones that are controlled directly by the computer, not by the amp connected to the computer), and have my burner put away unless I needed it. If it were wireless, I could pull it out of the drawer, set it on the desk, burn the disk, and put it back in the drawer.



    Even though we seem to be moving into a sort of 'wireless era', I don't expect such devises to be coming within the next couple of years. Bandwith will need to be much improved for many things (especially for external media devises such as hard drives and DVD/CD type drives), and some form of security will need to be implemented. And what would happen if you have all of these devices within range of more than one computer? Who gets to use em? Hehe... it's MY CD-RW! No! It's mine! Mooommmmmmm, sis won't let me burn a disk!



    Still, a very cool idea.



    -Ender
  • Reply 4 of 5
    corvettecorvette Posts: 561member
    [quote]Originally posted by Ender:

    <strong>I like the idea of wireless peripherals, but not for the reason you suggested. In the case of printers, speakers, etc., you need to be near them anyway. If you print something, you can't retrieve the paper wirelessly .



    </strong><hr></blockquote>



    What if you want to keep your printer concealed in a closet? You may have to get up to get the paper, but that's easier than plugging everything in.
  • Reply 5 of 5
    enderender Posts: 353member
    That's similar to what I was saying. Instead of having a printer taking up space on my desk (when I print a few documents a week, if that), I would rather have it somewhere separate. Somewhere that I cannot reach if I have to run a cable.



    So I guess maybe our reasons are the same, after all .



    -Ender
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