![]() ![]() The revolutionary vision that was so strong in 1999 is literally missing. Visit now and it takes you to a 404 page. Today’s products are more about filling a category than a need, and I can’t imagine Tim Cook ever green-lighting something as risky or revolutionary as the AirPort-iBook combo anytime soon. But it stopped playing that game long ago. Netgear’s Orbi is a great system, but it doesn’t have the same ease-of-use as AirPort.Īpple could have made a Wi-Fi system that “just works” and combines the all-over coverage of a mesh system with the simplicity of AirPort. And whenever I need to dive into the Orbi configuration page to check something, I lament the loss of my AirPort Utility. Orbi satellites I have around my house are excellent, but I still have an AirPort Extreme Time Capsule hooked up to the one in my office for backups. Routers or mesh Wi-Fi systems, but none of them beat what the AirPort was. It’s been a while since the Airport was a must-have device, but that’s mostly Apple’s fault. The support doc Apple provides for choosing a new router. It took a complicated system and made it easy, a mantra that Apple has gotten further and further away from as it has grown. From the remarkable Airport Express to the ingenious Time Capsule, Apple’s wireless products were always designed with the consumer in mind. Over the years, AirPort evolved into a full wireless solution that worked with any and all devices, but the ease-of-use Apple revolutionized with the original AirPort never went away. The clamshell iBook didn’t necessarily look the part, but AirPort made it one of the most cutting-edge products in Apple’s matrix, and it would take several months for the rest of the Macs to catch up. ![]() That was unheard of in a consumer laptop. The original iBook was the original breakthrough Internet communicator.Įven in 1999, AirPort didn’t deliver the “baby internet.” It had a top speed of 11 megabits per second and more importantly, it embraced privacy with full end-to-end encryption. But by designing its AirPort to work with a candy-colored laptop rather than its more mature PowerBooks, Steve was telling the world that Wi-Fi was the future, and it needn’t be limited to professional users. It would have been easy to target pro users with AirPort, both from pragmatic and a sales standpoints. ![]() The tracks were laid, as he said himself at the Macworld New York 1999 keynote: “iBook is the first computer ever designed right from the start to be optimized for wireless communication.” Obviously, it wouldn’t be the last. Steve knew that many or even most iBook customers would probably balk at such a high price, but that didn’t concern him. He understood in 1999 that wireless technology was as personal as computers were in 1984, and he wanted to showcase its potential to people.Ĭonsider this: While the iBook’s price was already pretty high at $1,599, the Base Station cost $299 and the required AirPort card (which installed by lifting up the keyboard) was another $99, bringing the total price of wireless convenience to just under $2,000. An easier path would have been to target pro users who were already familiar with Wi-Fi and ease Apple’s less-informed user base into the transition.
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