Into which category does the AirPort Express fall? Apple's ambitions for the product are grandiose, but reading the product description on Apple's site made it sound like a very compelling product. The biggest problem with it was that it wasn't really very good at being a watch and it never quite made it to market. It ran Palm OS 4.1 and could manage most of the typical PDA functions: calendaring, keeping track of contacts, and beam information to other PDAs. One example would be a PDA wristwatch like the Fossil Wrist PDA. Other such Swiss Army knife electronics can feel as though some of the features were thrown in as an afterthought. However, when you unpack it, you discover that the mincing function is supported only with radishes and that if you try to slice and dice elongated root vegetables like parsnips and carrots, you can no longer twaddle turnips. Sure, the Ronco Turnip Twaddler is advertised to slice, dice, mince, and julienne every root vegetable in your garden. The danger with these Jack-of-all-trades devices is that they oftentimes end up being master of none. Looking rather like a PowerBook AC adapter, the AirPort Express is a multipurpose device that can act as an 802.11b/g wireless access point, serve as a bridge to extend the range of your AirPort Extreme or Linksys WRT54G (more on that later), stream music from iTunes to a home stereo system, and finally, share a single USB printer via 802.11b/g. Price: US$129.00 ( shop for this product) What is it, exactly? Hardware requirements: Any Macintosh with an AirPort or AirPort Extreme Card, any Windows PC with a 802.11b or 802.11g wireless card Software requirements: Mac OS X 10.3, Windows 2000, Windows XP, iTunes 4.6 In addition, it can extend the range of an AirPort Base Station and support print jobs over the network to a USB printer. It is a fully-capable, mobile 802.11g wireless access point that can also stream music from iTunes to your home stereo. The AirPort Express is the product from Apple that is meant to tie the two together. Third-party products existed to stream music from a PC to a stereo, but many of them cannot handle AAC, and none of them are capable of streaming Apple's FairPlay DRMed AACs. There was no easy way to play the music you purchased from the iTunes Music Store on your home stereo. However, there was a gap between the computer and the home stereo. iTunes went from version 1.0 to a full-featured music player that allowed you to purchase music online and share it with other computers on the network. The original AirPort was followed by the unfortunately-named AirPort Extreme, which updated the Apple logo on the front of the base station from white to metallic, the status LEDs from green to white, and the innards from 802.11b to 802.11g and its maximum 54Mbps throughput.Īt the same time, Apple was working the music angle. It was one of the first consumer wireless access points to ship, and Apple marketed the base station and AirPort cards as the perfect way to free yourself from the tyranny of Ethernet cables and hubs. Back in late 1999, Apple released its original AirPort Base Station based on the 802.11b specification. What do your home stereo, wireless network, and USB printer have to do with one another? Everything, according to Apple and its new AirPort Express.īefore Apple was all about music, it was all about wireless.
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