A New Old Airport Extreme

I ordered a new Airport Extreme the day that Apple announced them.

No, no, I didn’t order a new one.

I ordered an old one.

“Huh-whuh?” you ask.

Why did I order an old one? Because the new one doesn’t have something the old one has.

“Huh-whuh?” you ask again. (You know, you really ought to get that checked.)

What’s more, in all of the news article about the new AirPort Extreme, I haven’t seen anyone mention it. Not one mention.

You’ve heard about the 802.11n, the draft of the new wireless protocol that Apple claims is 5x faster and has 2x the coverage. You may have heard that Apple has secretly put 802.11n compatible AirPort cards in their current machines. How current? Oh, well, as current as the version after what I bought.

Oh well. There’s always newer technology coming along. 802.11n isn’t finalized yet, and the hardware is still expensive. In a few years it’ll be more affordable and a bigger deal to me.

I don’t need the Mac Mini-ish new form factor.

The new sharing options would be cool. Being able to hook up a bunch of hard drives would actually be really cool. But since I can’t use the 802.11n speeds, it wouldn’t be much use.

Besides, I need the functionality which is missing from the new one.

Namely: the built-in modem.

I know, I know. Everyone should have DSL or cable by now. Neither are available where I live. Satellite is, but it’s slow and expensive. Really expensive. Too expensive.

We have DSL at the office, so it’s only an issue when I’m at home.

Still I realize that not many people are using modems anymore. But Apple’s AirPort Extreme was the only dialup-compatible base station that I could find. Not Linksys, not D-Link, not any of the others. None of them have a modem.

So why does it strike me as a particularly strange and bad idea for Apple?

Because Apple removed the option to build in a modem with their laptops. Steve Jobs apparently lives in a world where no one ever travels outside of the realm of high speed Internet WiFi. I’d be happy to host him here in middle America for a few days.

But while there was no modem built-in (even optionally), at least I had my Airport Extreme. Until they removed it from the Airport Extreme.

Clearly this isn’t perceived as a big loss, since no one has even mentioned it. I don’t expect a lot of sympathy on this, but it was something unique which Apple had and no one else did. With the MacBook, I can always connect a USB modem. With a network, I can’t.

(Hrm. Apple offers a USB modem for MacBook users. I wonder if it would work in the USB port of the new AirPort Extreme? I somehow doubt it, but perhaps.)

I realize that a dialup WiFi network strikes some of you as odd. But if you had no other options, what would you do? Buy a USB modem to hook to your MacBook and carry it around room to room?

Anyway, I was glad to get another AirPort Extreme (at a pretty good discount since the new ones had come out). Hopefully it will last a long time.

Update: 15 Jan 2007: I just had a second phone line installed for the computer so I won’t miss calls while online. Welcome to 1997.