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> They shut down their router business while Ubiquiti (run by a former Apple engineer) has run wild in the networking world and looks primed to completely disru

> They shut down their router business while Ubiquiti (run by a former Apple engineer) has run wild in the networking world and looks primed to completely disrupt Cisco over time. Out of everything you listed this is the one that I don't think Apple is really missing out on, as they were never positioned to be a major player outside the prosumer space which often has needs beyond what Apple was providing. The average consumer is an idiot when it comes to networking, most of them run ISP-provided equipment, and those that don't are often informed enough to get hardware to run DD-WRT/etc. or buy a proper prosumer solution like Ubiquiti's. Back when wireless routers weren't provided by default with your internet service, a half-decent one wasn't cheap, and people just wanted a simple solution that "worked" then the Airport had value in ensuring Apple's other products had connectivity. There's no benefit to them doing this now, and Apple is not positioned to get into the prosumer/business SDN market that Ubiquiti is in.

bedhead 8y ago
You're right, one of these things is not like the other. However, I think in the next ten years, Apple will regret having neglected this product category, and Ubiquiti is making inroads into consumer-grade products as well as service providers and enterprise-level networking. I just think it's interesting that Ubiquiti was born out of Apple and was able to turn this into a super interesting and profitable business even though there is a perfectly logical reason as you note. I suppose I just think Ubiquiti is so fascinating that it will be evident one day what a mistake Apple made.
- cmsj 8y ago
  Two brief points: 1) Just because the Ubiquiti founder came from Apple, doesn't mean that Apple should be in the quasi-enterprise networking space that Ubiquiti is. Apple's networking gear was always aiming to be simple, plug-and-play hardware for people who don't want to think about networking. That's pretty much the opposite of Ubiquiti's products. 2) When Apple was still doing things like networking, we had a lot of people complaining that their focus was spread too widely, and their core products were suffering.
  - snuxoll 8y ago
    > Apple's networking gear was always aiming to be simple, plug-and-play hardware for people who don't want to think about networking. This is the real kicker in today's landscape and why it doesn't make sense for Apple to even be in this market, there's no such thing as "plug-and-play" for the majority of consumers these days when for proper functionality you must go into your ISP-provided equipment and disable the WLAN radio, put it into passthrough mode (if that's even possible, some ISP's like AT&T don't even provide equipment with proper passthrough mode), god help you if you use DSL and need to get PPPoE credentials which are automagically configured for you these days by some captive portal when you first plug your equipment in. It's literally harder to use your own equipment these days than it used to be before every ISP started providing integrated gateways, so the current market for standalone equipment is people who need something other than "plug-and-play" - because they already get that from their ISP (even if the hardware usually sucks, it's good enough for the average consumer who thinks they get "their WiFi from Comcast"). Apple doesn't need to be in networking anymore, there's not a large enough market for products like the Airport AP's anymore and if they actually want to compete they have to battle with the likes of Ubiquiti, Cisco, Ruckus, HP (Aruba), etc. - not ASUS, TP-Link, Buffalo, Netgear, etc. Seeing as they have no plans to revive the Xserve, I doubt they care about having a foothold in wiring closets and datacenters.
nunez 8y ago
That, and access points/routers aren't things you buy every year or two. Our AirPort Extreme worked for five years before I replaced it with a Google Wifi mesh (and it was still working when I did so). If it were $1500 or so, then keeping it would make sense (and nobody would buy it), but it was $250. I think Apple got into the AirPort game because they were one of the first companies to push Wi-Fi on everything (a great strategy too, as it's a big reason behind why iPhones are so successful now), and because most ISPs provided crappy access points/routers, they could step in and fill the void.

bedhead 8y ago

You're right, one of these things is not like the other. However, I think in the next ten years, Apple will regret having neglected this product category, and Ubiquiti is making inroads into consumer-grade products as well as service providers and enterprise-level networking. I just think it's interesting that Ubiquiti was born out of Apple and was able to turn this into a super interesting and profitable business even though there is a perfectly logical reason as you note. I suppose I just think Ubiquiti is so fascinating that it will be evident one day what a mistake Apple made.

cmsj 8y ago
Two brief points: 1) Just because the Ubiquiti founder came from Apple, doesn't mean that Apple should be in the quasi-enterprise networking space that Ubiquiti is. Apple's networking gear was always aiming to be simple, plug-and-play hardware for people who don't want to think about networking. That's pretty much the opposite of Ubiquiti's products. 2) When Apple was still doing things like networking, we had a lot of people complaining that their focus was spread too widely, and their core products were suffering.
- snuxoll 8y ago
  > Apple's networking gear was always aiming to be simple, plug-and-play hardware for people who don't want to think about networking. This is the real kicker in today's landscape and why it doesn't make sense for Apple to even be in this market, there's no such thing as "plug-and-play" for the majority of consumers these days when for proper functionality you must go into your ISP-provided equipment and disable the WLAN radio, put it into passthrough mode (if that's even possible, some ISP's like AT&T don't even provide equipment with proper passthrough mode), god help you if you use DSL and need to get PPPoE credentials which are automagically configured for you these days by some captive portal when you first plug your equipment in. It's literally harder to use your own equipment these days than it used to be before every ISP started providing integrated gateways, so the current market for standalone equipment is people who need something other than "plug-and-play" - because they already get that from their ISP (even if the hardware usually sucks, it's good enough for the average consumer who thinks they get "their WiFi from Comcast"). Apple doesn't need to be in networking anymore, there's not a large enough market for products like the Airport AP's anymore and if they actually want to compete they have to battle with the likes of Ubiquiti, Cisco, Ruckus, HP (Aruba), etc. - not ASUS, TP-Link, Buffalo, Netgear, etc. Seeing as they have no plans to revive the Xserve, I doubt they care about having a foothold in wiring closets and datacenters.

nunez 8y ago

That, and access points/routers aren't things you buy every year or two. Our AirPort Extreme worked for five years before I replaced it with a Google Wifi mesh (and it was still working when I did so). If it were $1500 or so, then keeping it would make sense (and nobody would buy it), but it was $250. I think Apple got into the AirPort game because they were one of the first companies to push Wi-Fi on everything (a great strategy too, as it's a big reason behind why iPhones are so successful now), and because most ISPs provided crappy access points/routers, they could step in and fill the void.