Changes in Apple periferals coming?

Posted:
in Future Apple Hardware edited January 2014
I was just browsing the Apple Store site and I don't know how long this promotion has been going on, but I notice that Apple is offering a $100 instant rebate on portable and Base Station combo buys. Does that mean a new Airport system is around the corner?



I started a thread earlier this spring about features wanted on the Base Stations. Could we be getting what we want?



Would it be in Apple's best interests to include a few more Fast Ethernet ports (for a total of say 3 or 4), perhaps a USB Print Server and a Firewire port to hook up your iPod to share your music and files over the network? That would really make a 20GB iPod worth it IMHO.



I also noticed a rebate on the iPods in a combo buy with any Mac. Both rebates end as of June 30. Does that mean anything to anyone or would that just be speculation?
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Comments

  • Reply 1 of 22
    Nah, Apple has learned that coustomers love promo bundles. They help make up for the $100 price increase Apple added to the iMacs and Apple still turns a profit and moves more product. We have been seeing new promo bundles comming out even on products that still have long legs.



    Would you say the same thing about the flat panel promo that has been going on in several forms since December?
  • Reply 2 of 22
    zosozoso Posts: 177member
    [quote]Originally posted by The Power of X:

    <strong>I was just browsing the Apple Store site and I don't know how long this promotion has been going on, but I notice that Apple is offering a $100 instant rebate on portable and Base Station combo buys. Does that mean a new Airport system is around the corner?

    </strong><hr></blockquote>



    IIRC Intel has validated and started shipping products based on 802.11a, which should boost the theoretical bandwidth to 54 Mbps (I guess it's really about half as much in the real life, but still much better than the current 11...) I hope Apple will adopt that new standard soon!



    ZoSo
  • Reply 3 of 22
    jasonppjasonpp Posts: 308member
    How many people saturate a 11Mb connection? What are you doing to get frustrated that it's not fast enough (besides downloading movies) I would have thought 11Mb would be fast enough for the best home Internet connections. Cable and DSL max out at what, 300Kb/sec or so?



    I'm not saying there's no reason to go 802.11a, expecially in situations where security and a high number of users (University campus?) are important.



    Why not offer dual capacity? 802.11a/b system would be a great way for people to upgrade slowly. First their base stations and then their cards.
  • Reply 4 of 22
    If Apple uses any new standard, they'll use 802.11g, which is on the same wavelength as current airport hardware (802.11b), 2.4GHz. I think it increases bandwith to either 22Mbps, or to the 54Mbps spec, not sure which.



    For a company like Apple, backwards compatibility is very important, considering the large number of users(like me) who have older generation Airport hardware.
  • Reply 5 of 22
    warpdwarpd Posts: 204member
    [quote]How many people saturate a 11Mb connection? What are you doing to get frustrated that it's not fast enough (besides downloading movies) I would have thought 11Mb would be fast enough for the best home Internet connections. Cable and DSL max out at what, 300Kb/sec or so? <hr></blockquote>Don't forget that airport is also a networking standard. For a person that needs to move 200-400mb Photoshop files over the network, 11mbps just won't cut it! This is the thing preventing a lot of small graphics pros/shops from going wireless.



    [ 05-30-2002: Message edited by: warpd ]</p>
  • Reply 6 of 22
    kd5mdkkd5mdk Posts: 81member
    BS. Shops that need to copy huge files around will never use wireless. It willnever deliver the kind of bandwidth they want. What they want is Gigabit to the desktop, which means cheaper switches. That's it.



    If Apple moves to something, it will be 802.11g (22Mbs) or hopefully 802.11X, which fixes the amazing security holes in WEP. That's what they need most.



    802.11a does nothing useful. It's faster, but you'll lose that speed pretty fast with multiple users, and the range penalties are harsh.
  • Reply 7 of 22
    bigcbigc Posts: 1,224member
    someone seems to be mixing their Bytes=B and their bits=b.
  • Reply 8 of 22
    davegeedavegee Posts: 2,765member
    [quote]Originally posted by KD5MDK:

    <strong>BS. Shops that need to copy huge files around will never use wireless. It willnever deliver the kind of bandwidth they want. What they want is Gigabit to the desktop, which means cheaper switches. That's it.</strong><hr></blockquote>



    Never say never... Where I work we use wireless to connect a building that don't have tunnel access and I think the networking group was telling us that they are doing point-to-point wireless at Gigabit speeds. Think Tsunami. I realize this is a p-t-p wireless bridge and roaming isdifferent but still it is wireless and I'm pretty sure it's gigabit... Oh and I'm also pretty sure it cost just a 'tad' more than Airport cards. But a p-t-p gigabit &gt;7 mile wireless bridge is still pretty effing cool.



    As for 802.11a I agree the speed is nice but from what I've read so far the signal doesn't travel indoors (walls/floors etc) nearly as well 802.11b and I too think 802.11g might be a much better bet.



    Dave



    [ 05-30-2002: Message edited by: DaveGee ]</p>
  • Reply 9 of 22
    warpdwarpd Posts: 204member
    Obviously gigabit ethernet is preferable!! All i am saying is that if the bandwith was increased to 22mb or even 54mb it would make wireless more attractive to a broader networked environment. Most shops won't saturate gigabit, and can't affoard the switches anyway. But 10/100 they can easily utilize.
  • Reply 10 of 22
    programmerprogrammer Posts: 3,457member
    Saying you only need 11 Mbps is like saying you'll only ever need 640K of RAM.



    (hopefully you're old enough to get this joke, I just realized that I'm dating myself with it)
  • Reply 11 of 22
    [quote]Originally posted by DaveGee:

    As for 802.11a I agree the speed is nice but from what I've read so far the signal doesn't travel indoors (walls/floors etc) nearly as well 802.11b and I too think 802.11g might be a much better bet.

    <hr></blockquote>



    That would be kinda weird. How well a signal propogates through matter is a function of its wavelenght and the property of the material. Since 802.11a and .11b both use 2.4GHz, then all I can think of is one protocol is less tolerant than the other in terms of its signal coding.



    Which protocol was running at 5GHz? Was that 802.11x? If I remember correctly, their motto was, "The air is cleaner at 5GHz," or something along those lines.



    If Apple does update their Airport standards, I would guess that they would go with 11g, as it is backwards compatible with their existing hardware, with some improvements in bandwidth. It would make sense from a consumer's point of view, but that's not always the same view as Apple's (e.g., Quartz Extreme).
  • Reply 12 of 22
    davegeedavegee Posts: 2,765member
    802.11a up to 54 Mb/s in the 5 GHz band

    802.11b up to 11 Mb/s in the 2.4 GHz band

    802.11g up to 54 Mb/s in the 2.4 GHz band (enhanced version of 802.11b)



    802.11h enhanced version of 802.11a, provides better spectrum sharing (for Europe)

    Dave
  • Reply 13 of 22
    bigcbigc Posts: 1,224member
    [quote]Originally posted by DaveGee:

    <strong>802.11a up to 54 Mb/s in the 5 GHz band

    802.11b up to 11 Mb/s in the 2.4 GHz band

    802.11g up to 54 Mb/s in the 2.4 GHz band (enhanced version of 802.11b)



    802.11h enhanced version of 802.11a, provides better spectrum sharing (for Europe)

    Dave</strong><hr></blockquote>



    IIRC/FWIW part of the reasons for using 5Ghz and 2.4Ghz wireless signals has something to do with the difference in the frequecies used by the military in Europe versus military frequency set aside in the US.
  • Reply 14 of 22
    jasonppjasonpp Posts: 308member
    I knew someone was going to pull out the 640k joke.. there's always a dead-horse beater around when you need one.



    Good point about the file transfers..



    a 400MB file would take almost 5 minutes over Airport today.. and that's only if you get all the bandwidth.



    I'm positive that Apple will bring to market the best value solution they can. I do think Airport 2 is on its way soon. I just hope Apple gives current uses a easy way to upgrade.
  • Reply 15 of 22
    davegeedavegee Posts: 2,765member
    [quote]Originally posted by Bigc:

    <strong>



    IIRC/FWIW part of the reasons for using 5Ghz and 2.4Ghz wireless signals has something to do with the difference in the frequecies used by the military in Europe versus military frequency set aside in the US.</strong><hr></blockquote>



    Tests have shown that the 2.4Ghz band (802.11b/g) does better indoors (when up against 802.11a 5Ghz) and is approved for use in europe where the 5Ghz band (802.11a) isn't and that's why we have 802.11h in hopes that with the better spectrum sharing it will be approved (already has been? I don't know..) for use in Europe.



    UltraWideBand (UWB) is what I'm keeping my eye on... It's still too early to tell and I don't know gobbs about it but that could turn out to be really huge if the wireless gods (FCC) let them play.



    Dave
  • Reply 16 of 22
    jasonppjasonpp Posts: 308member
  • Reply 17 of 22
    davegeedavegee Posts: 2,765member
    [quote]Originally posted by JasonPP:

    <strong>Weird.



    I was just going to get info on UWB....



    check out this PDF



    <a href="http://www.timedomain.com/Files/downloads/techpapers/LPRA_nov2001.pdf"; target="_blank">http://www.timedomain.com/Files/downloads/techpapers/LPRA_nov2001.pdf</a></strong><hr></blockquote>;



    Cool info... Makes things much easier to understand... thanks!



    Dave
  • Reply 18 of 22
    badtzbadtz Posts: 949member
    I read something a lil' while back that apple might implement a new/better compression scheme, developed by cisco. Still uses 802.11b, but with better compression, which means new airports.



    in the future, i'd say 802.11g. backwards compatibility, and faster
  • Reply 19 of 22
    davegeedavegee Posts: 2,765member
    [quote]Originally posted by Badtz:

    <strong>I read something a lil' while back that apple might implement a new/better compression scheme, developed by cisco. Still uses 802.11b, but with better compression, which means new airports. in the future, i'd say 802.11g. backwards compatibility, and faster </strong><hr></blockquote>



    Isn't that what 802.11g is?



    802.11b but with better compression (thus 54Mb/s and b changes to g) yet still providing support for the slower 802.11b stuff since it uses the same 2.4Ghz band?



    Or is this cisco stuff something more still? As in greater than 54Mb/s or 802.11g++? If you have a ref/link I'd love to read more about it...



    Dave
  • Reply 20 of 22
    badtzbadtz Posts: 949member
    DaveGee:



    <a href="http://maccentral.macworld.com/news/0204/22.wireless.php"; target="_blank">http://maccentral.macworld.com/news/0204/22.wireless.php</a>;



    Before you click on it, let me tell you.... I LIED!



    It's with us robotics, not cisco And it doubles the current output of 11mbps to 22mbps.
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