4 ms·

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 U

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.

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.