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Speaking of, I sorely miss the AirPort Time Capsule* product line. It made backup of multiple computers a breeze and saved my skin in grad school when I thought

Speaking of, I sorely miss the AirPort Time Capsule* product line. It made backup of multiple computers a breeze and saved my skin in grad school when I thought I’d lost everything. * https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/AirPort_Time_Capsule https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/AirPort_Time_Capsule

lotsofpulp 3y ago
I never understood why Apple gave up this market to Netgear/Amazon/etc. It’s an instant buy, and the number of people in the Apple ecosystem has only grown.
- dangus 3y ago
  Because selling commodity networking hardware is extremely low margin. Why sell a $150 network backup box when you can sell mostly-unused cloud storage (no hardware, no returns, no warranty replacements) for $120 a year?
  - lotsofpulp 3y ago
    Because Apple branding is proven to be able to extract more margin? I would easily pay a couple hundred dollars more. They already had the product, the employees, and people were already loyal to the product.
    - dangus 3y ago
      When Apple sells their other hardware they can make money with other things that go along with it. App royalties, cloud storage, TV shows, movies, and music, accessories (watch bands, phone cases, more royalties especially with lightning stuff but also with MagSafe). When you sell a router that’s it. You’ve got to provide security updates forever for free or convince your customers to upgrade at some point. Some router companies are trying to do the service thing but I don’t know how successful that is. From what I can see TP-Link’s annual sales revenue is reported to be $2.8 billion. That’s the world’s leading networking company in sales with close to a 20% global marketshare. For comparison, Apple makes $8 billion per quarter just on home/wearables/accessories, which is only 10% of its total revenue. $385 billion in revenue for all of 2023. That means if Apple put a bunch of effort into making networking equipment and took 100% of TP-Link’s marketshare, it would increase their revenue by less than 1%.
      - PlunderBunny 3y ago
        But there must be so many people that buy iPhones, iPads, and macBooks that don't then give Apple any recurring revenue too.
        airstrike 3y ago
        The % that does give them recurring revenue more than makes up for that difference Plus network effects of having more devices "out there"
        dangus 3y ago
        Whatever the number of iPad users is that pays for additional services, it’s a lot more than the 0% of AirPort Extreme customers buying anything that directly goes along with their network equipment. Apple sells dozens of accessories like cables, adapters, cases, etc. Plus, iPads can cost upward of $1,000 and have high profit margin upgrades at every price point (internal storage space). Their network equipment didn’t drive Mac sales, it was really the other way around: a Mac user might consider Apple network equipment, but there was no strong driving factor that would send you that direction. Apple also couldn’t price their network equipment far above their competitors because it has very few differentiators. WiFi is WiFi is WiFi. For an iPad, Apple can charge more money because it has iPadOS which is only one of two choices in the mobile OS space. Network equipment is almost completely vendor agnostic commodity equipment. Maybe doing Time Machine backups or streaming iTunes music over your network would lead you to AirPort products, but both bring in zero recurring revenue for Apple and have been made obsolete in terms of convenience and customer preferences by cloud storage and music streaming/AirPlay. Let’s not forget that Apple was never actually able to maintain any kind of market leader status on WiFi equipment. Their best case scenario of eclipsing a market leader like TP-Link never happened because their product line was simply not popular. That’s why it was discontinued in the first place.
- goosedragons 3y ago
  How many people do you know that have their own WiFi router VS. some crap provided by the ISP?
- seec 3y ago
  All that can be easily explained by infinite greed. Cook cut all the small things that weren't making enough billions and that's it. Oh, and he would like very much to sell you their overpriced lackluster cloud "service". The reality is that with all the building block in place, Apple could have made a very interesting "personal cloud" solution, using one of their custom low power chip to make a device running a simplified version of macOS server, that could act as a router/backup/smart devices coordinator and all that jazz. With many people having (almost) symmetrical fiber connection (at least with enough upload that access is realistic) it could have been a great product. Problem is, after they sell you said device, you are good for quite a number of years and that can't fly in the vein pursuit of endless growth. More money, moaarrrrr....
bonestamp2 3y ago
It was a great product line. I think they got out of that market for the same reason they killed the car, the market was getting over saturated and it was a race to the bottom.
- PlunderBunny 3y ago
  But Apple never races to the bottom - they sell premium products that their customers pay a premium price for - the customers know that the hardware quality, integration and support are good [1]. I don't understand how a market that's crowded makes a difference to their value proposition. [1] I owned two macBooks with butterfly keyboards. I know it's not always good.
thefz 3y ago
What can it do that any NAS can't? Curious.
- mckn1ght 3y ago
  Maybe nothing, I haven’t tested the waters after scrapping my last one, I just have a USB connected drive and separate router now. Is there a good all-in-one you’d recommend?
- goosedragons 3y ago
  Nothing. It's a bit more convenient for Mac users in terms of setup.

lotsofpulp 3y ago

I never understood why Apple gave up this market to Netgear/Amazon/etc. It’s an instant buy, and the number of people in the Apple ecosystem has only grown.

dangus 3y ago
Because selling commodity networking hardware is extremely low margin. Why sell a $150 network backup box when you can sell mostly-unused cloud storage (no hardware, no returns, no warranty replacements) for $120 a year?
- lotsofpulp 3y ago
  Because Apple branding is proven to be able to extract more margin? I would easily pay a couple hundred dollars more. They already had the product, the employees, and people were already loyal to the product.
  - dangus 3y ago
    When Apple sells their other hardware they can make money with other things that go along with it. App royalties, cloud storage, TV shows, movies, and music, accessories (watch bands, phone cases, more royalties especially with lightning stuff but also with MagSafe). When you sell a router that’s it. You’ve got to provide security updates forever for free or convince your customers to upgrade at some point. Some router companies are trying to do the service thing but I don’t know how successful that is. From what I can see TP-Link’s annual sales revenue is reported to be $2.8 billion. That’s the world’s leading networking company in sales with close to a 20% global marketshare. For comparison, Apple makes $8 billion per quarter just on home/wearables/accessories, which is only 10% of its total revenue. $385 billion in revenue for all of 2023. That means if Apple put a bunch of effort into making networking equipment and took 100% of TP-Link’s marketshare, it would increase their revenue by less than 1%.
    - PlunderBunny 3y ago
      But there must be so many people that buy iPhones, iPads, and macBooks that don't then give Apple any recurring revenue too.
      - airstrike 3y ago
        The % that does give them recurring revenue more than makes up for that difference Plus network effects of having more devices "out there"
      - dangus 3y ago
        Whatever the number of iPad users is that pays for additional services, it’s a lot more than the 0% of AirPort Extreme customers buying anything that directly goes along with their network equipment. Apple sells dozens of accessories like cables, adapters, cases, etc. Plus, iPads can cost upward of $1,000 and have high profit margin upgrades at every price point (internal storage space). Their network equipment didn’t drive Mac sales, it was really the other way around: a Mac user might consider Apple network equipment, but there was no strong driving factor that would send you that direction. Apple also couldn’t price their network equipment far above their competitors because it has very few differentiators. WiFi is WiFi is WiFi. For an iPad, Apple can charge more money because it has iPadOS which is only one of two choices in the mobile OS space. Network equipment is almost completely vendor agnostic commodity equipment. Maybe doing Time Machine backups or streaming iTunes music over your network would lead you to AirPort products, but both bring in zero recurring revenue for Apple and have been made obsolete in terms of convenience and customer preferences by cloud storage and music streaming/AirPlay. Let’s not forget that Apple was never actually able to maintain any kind of market leader status on WiFi equipment. Their best case scenario of eclipsing a market leader like TP-Link never happened because their product line was simply not popular. That’s why it was discontinued in the first place.
goosedragons 3y ago
How many people do you know that have their own WiFi router VS. some crap provided by the ISP?
seec 3y ago
All that can be easily explained by infinite greed. Cook cut all the small things that weren't making enough billions and that's it. Oh, and he would like very much to sell you their overpriced lackluster cloud "service". The reality is that with all the building block in place, Apple could have made a very interesting "personal cloud" solution, using one of their custom low power chip to make a device running a simplified version of macOS server, that could act as a router/backup/smart devices coordinator and all that jazz. With many people having (almost) symmetrical fiber connection (at least with enough upload that access is realistic) it could have been a great product. Problem is, after they sell you said device, you are good for quite a number of years and that can't fly in the vein pursuit of endless growth. More money, moaarrrrr....

bonestamp2 3y ago

It was a great product line. I think they got out of that market for the same reason they killed the car, the market was getting over saturated and it was a race to the bottom.

PlunderBunny 3y ago
But Apple never races to the bottom - they sell premium products that their customers pay a premium price for - the customers know that the hardware quality, integration and support are good [1]. I don't understand how a market that's crowded makes a difference to their value proposition. [1] I owned two macBooks with butterfly keyboards. I know it's not always good.

thefz 3y ago

What can it do that any NAS can't? Curious.

mckn1ght 3y ago
Maybe nothing, I haven’t tested the waters after scrapping my last one, I just have a USB connected drive and separate router now. Is there a good all-in-one you’d recommend?
goosedragons 3y ago
Nothing. It's a bit more convenient for Mac users in terms of setup.