New Time Capsules and Airport Extreme’s have been rumored for a while now. In fact, right before WWDC, the rumors were heating up that we would see both of these refreshed and possibly having some kind of feature to do with the cloud. But as we know, this did not happen. Well, here we are about two weeks after WWDC and both of these items saw a somewhat minor, in my opinion, less than stellar, refresh. Let me show you.
First, the bigger of the two updates, the Time Capsule. For those of you that don’t know what the Time Capsule is. It is Apple’s version of a wireless router and automatic wireless backup drive in one. Previously the Time Capsule came in 1TB and 2TB models, costing $299 and $399 respectively. Now, Apple has done away with the 1TB model and have a 2TB and a 3TB model. It doesn’t look like anything else has changed for the Time Capsule. But, as Apple usually does, they left the prices the same. So now you can get a 2TB model for $299 and the 3 TB model for $399. So price wise, this new model is a better deal, even if they didn’t do a whole lot to make this Time Capsule different than the previous version.
Next up, the Airport Extreme. This is the stripped down version of the Time Capsule. In fact it is half of what the Time Capsule is, in that, it is only a wireless router. Like the Time Capsule, nothing that we can see with the eye has changed in this router nor has any of the specs. What changed, if anything is what we cannot see, which is speed. Also, the price didn’t change for the Airport Extreme, it still cost $179.
So the question now is, will these two products do what we thought would happen? Are they ever going to be connected to the cloud in some way in the future? Or is this what the Time Capsule and the Airport Extreme have become and we ourselves are trying to make it something different? It is really hard to tell. They are both solid products that I have used before. I still have a 1st generation Time Capsule that still works well. In my opinion, I think Apple believes that these products, while good products, don’t sell really that well enough for Apple to pour time, resources, and money into making it a lot better. Would more people buy these products if there were some how connected with Apple’s new iCloud and where Apple is going with the cloud? What do you think?