From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia AirPort
AirPort
AirPort isting 802.11b wireless network cards and base stations.
Several of Apple’s desktop computers and portable com-
puters, including the MacBook Pro, MacBook, Mac mini,
and iMac shipped with an AirPort Extreme (802.11g) card
as standard. All other modern Macs have an expansion
slot for the card. AirPort and AirPort Extreme cards are
not physically compatible: AirPort Extreme cards cannot
be installed in older Macs, and AirPort cards cannot be
installed in newer Macs. The original AirPort card was
discontinued in June 2004.
On June 7, 2004, Apple released the AirPort Express
base station as a "Swiss Army knife" product. It can be
used as a portable travel router, using the same AC con-
The AirPort logo as seen in the AirPort Utility icon. nectors as on Apple’s AC adapters; as an audio streaming
Developer Apple Inc. device, with both line-level and optical audio outputs;
and as a USB printer sharing device, through its USB host
Type Wireless Base Stations and cards port.
Release date July 21, 1999 On January 9, 2007, Apple unveiled a new AirPort Ex-
Station,
treme (802.11 Draft-N) Base Station which introduced
Website http://www.apple.com/wifi
802.11 Draft-N to the Apple AirPort product line. This im-
plementation of 802.11 Draft-N can operate in both the
AirPort and AirPort Extreme are local area wireless net-
2.4 GHz and 5 GHz ISM bands, and has modes that make
working products from Apple Inc. based on the
it compatible with 802.11b/g and 802.11a. The number of
IEEE 802.11 standard (also known as Wi-Fi).
Ethernet ports was increased to four—one nominally for
AirPort and AirPort Extreme in common usage can
WAN, three for LAN, but all can be used in bridged mode.
refer to the protocol (802.11b, 802.11g and 802.11n), the
A USB port was included for printers and other USB de-
expansion card or the router.
vices. The Ethernet ports were later updated to Gigabit
In Japan, the line of products is marketed under the
Ethernet on all ports. The styling is similar to that of the
brand AirMac[1] due to previous registration by I-O Data
Mac mini and Apple TV.[2]
[1].
Capsule,
On January 15, 2008, Apple introduced Time Capsule
an AirPort Extreme (802.11 Draft-N) with an internal
Overview hard drive. The device includes software to allow any
computer running a reasonably recent version of Mac OS
AirPort debuted on July 21, 1999 at the Macworld Expo in
or Windows to access the disk as a shared volume. Macs
New York City with Steve Jobs picking up an iBook sup-
running Mac OS X 10.5 and later, which includes the Time
posedly to give the cameraman a better shot as he surfed
Machine feature, can use the Time Capsule as a wireless
the Web. The initial offering consisted of an optional ex-
backup device, allowing automatic, untethered backups
pansion card for Apple’s new line of iBook notebooks and
of the client computer. As an access point, the unit is oth-
an AirPort Base Station. The AirPort card (a repackaged
erwise equivalent to an AirPort Extreme (802.11 Draft-N),
Lucent ORiNOCO Gold Card PC Card adapter) was later
with four Gigabit Ethernet ports and a USB port for print-
added as an option for almost all of Apple’s product line,
er and disk sharing.
including PowerBooks, eMacs, iMacs, and Power Macs.
On March 17, 2008, Apple released an updated AirPort
Only Xserves do not have it as a standard or optional fea-
Express Base Station with 802.11 Draft-N 2x2 radio. All
ture. The original AirPort system allowed transfer rates
other features (analog and digital optical audio out, sin-
up to 11 Mbit/s and was commonly used to share Inter-
gle Ethernet port, USB port for printer sharing) remained
net access and files between multiple computers.
the same. At the time, it was the least expensive ($99) de-
On January 7, 2003, Apple introduced AirPort Ex-
vice to handle both frequency bands (2.4 GHz and 5 GHz)
treme,
treme based on the 802.11g specification. AirPort Ex-
in 2x2 802.11 Draft-N.[3]
treme allows theoretical peak data transfer rates of up
to 54 Mbit/s, and is fully backward-compatible with ex-
1
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia AirPort
On March 3, 2009, Apple unveiled AirPort Extreme
and Time Capsule products with simultaneous dual-band
802.11 Draft-N radios. This allows full 802.11 Draft-N 2x2
communication in both 802.11 Draft-N bands at the same
time.[4]
On October 20, 2009, Apple unveiled the updated
AirPort Extreme and Time Capsule products with anten-
na improvements (the 5.8 GHz model).
On June 21, 2011, Apple unveiled an updated AirPort
Extreme base station, referred to as AirPort Extreme
802.11n (5th Generation).[5] Current AirPort base stations
and cards work with third-party base stations and wire-
Original (Graphite) AirPort Base Station
less cards that conform to the 802.11a, 802.11b, 802.11g,
802.11 Draft-N and 802.11 Final-N networking standards.
It is not uncommon to see wireless networks composed firmware has been developed for these units to extend
of several types of AirPort base station serving old and their useful service life.
new Macintosh, Microsoft Windows and Linux systems. A second generation model (known as Dual Ethernet or
Apple’s software drivers for AirPort Extreme also support Snow) was introduced on November 13, 2001. It features
some Broadcom and Atheros-based PCI Wireless adapters a second Ethernet port when compared to the Graphite
when fitted to Power Mac computers. Due to the nature design, allowing for a shared Internet connection with
of Draft-N hardware, there is no assurance that the new both wired and wireless clients. Also new was the ability
model will work with 802.11 Draft-N routers and access to connect to America Online’s dial-up service—a feature
devices from other manufacturers. unique to Apple base stations. This model is based on
Motorola’s PowerPC 855 processor and contained a fully
functional original AirPort Card, which can be removed
AirPort routers and used in any compatible Macintosh computer.
An AirPort router is used to connect AirPort-enabled
computers to the Internet, each other, a wired LAN, and/ AirPort Extreme Base Station
or other devices.
Development of chipsets
AirPort Base Station AirPort Extreme Base Station
The original AirPort (known as Graphite) features a mo-
dem and an Ethernet port. It employs a Lucent WaveLAN The AirPort Base Station was discontinued after the up-
Silver PC Card as the Radio, and uses an embedded AMD dated AirPort Extreme was announced on Jan-
Elan processor. It was released July 21, 1999. The Graphite uary 7, 2003. In addition to providing wireless connection
AirPort Base Station is functionally identical to the Lu- speeds of up to a maximum of 54 Mbit/s, it adds an ex-
cent RG-1000 wireless base station and can run the same ternal antenna port and a USB port. The antenna port al-
firmware. Due to the original firmware-locked limita- lows the addition of a signal-boosting antenna, and the
tions of the Silver card, the unit can only accept 40-bit USB port allows the sharing of a USB printer. A connected
WEP encryption. Later aftermarket tweaks can enable printer is made available via Bonjour’s "zero configura-
128-bit WEP on the Silver card. Aftermarket Linux tion" technology and IPP to all wired and wireless clients
on the network. A second model (M8930LL/A) lacking
the modem and external antenna port was briefly made
2
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia AirPort
available, but then discontinued after the launch of ilar to the functionality provided by Time Capsule.[9]
AirPort Express (see below). On April 19, 2004, a third However, this feature was later discontinued.[10]
version, marketed as the AirPort Extreme Base Station (with On March 3, 2009, Apple unveiled a new AirPort Ex-
Power over Ethernet and UL 2043), was introduced that sup- treme with simultaneous dual-band 802.11 Draft-N ra-
ports Power over Ethernet and complies to the UL 2043 dios. This allows full 802.11 Draft-N 2x2 communication
specifications for safe usage in air handling spaces, such in both 802.11 Draft-N bands at the same time.
as above suspended ceilings. All three models support the On October 20, 2009, Apple unveiled an updated
Wireless Distribution System (WDS) standard. The model AirPort Extreme base station with antenna improve-
introduced in January 2007 does not have a correspond- ments.
ing PoE, UL-compliant variant. On June 21, 2011, Apple unveiled an updated AirPort
An AirPort Extreme base station can serve a maxi- Extreme base station, referred to as AirPort Extreme
mum of 50 wireless clients simultaneously. 802.11n (5th Generation).
AirPort Extreme 802.11n AirPort Express
Main article: AirPort Extreme Main article: AirPort Express
AirPort Extreme 802.11n
AirPort Express base station
The AirPort Extreme was updated on January 9, 2007, to
support the 802.11n protocol. This revision also adds two
The AirPort Express is a simplified and compact AirPort
LAN ports for a total of three.[6] It now more closely re-
Extreme base station. It allows up to 10 networked users,
sembles the square-shaped 1st generation Apple TV and
and includes a feature called AirTunes (predecessor to
Mac mini, and is about the same size as the Mini.
AirPlay). The original version (M9470LL/A, model A1084)
The new AirPort Disk feature allows users to plug a
was introduced by Apple on June 7, 2004, and includes an
USB hard drive into the AirPort Extreme for use as a
analog–optical audio mini-jack output, a USB port for re-
network-attached storage (NAS) device for Mac OS X and
mote printing or charging the iPod (iPod Shuffle only),
Microsoft Windows clients.[7] Users may also connect a
and a single Ethernet port.
USB hub and printer. The performance of USB hard dri-
The Airport Express functions as a wireless access
ves attached to an AirPort Extreme is slower than if the
point when connected to an Ethernet network. It can
drive were connected directly to a computer. This is due
be used as an Ethernet-to-wireless bridge under certain
to the processor speed on the AirPort extreme. Depend-
wireless configurations. It can be used to extend the
ing on the setup and types of reads and writes, perfor-
range of a network, or as a printer and audio server.
mance ranges from 0.5 to 17.5 MB/s for writing and 1.9 to
25.6 MB/s for reading [8]. Performance for the same disk
connected directly to a computer would be 6.6 to 31.6
Time Capsule
MB/s for writing and 7.1 to 37.2 MB/s for reading. Main article: Time Capsule (Apple)
The AirPort Extreme has no port for an external an- Time Capsule is a version of AirPort Extreme with a built-
tenna. in hard-drive currently coming in either 2 TB or 3 TB
On August 7, 2007, the AirPort Extreme began ship- sizes, with a previous version having 1 TB or 500 GB. It
ping with Gigabit Ethernet, matching most other Apple features a built-in design that, when used with Time Ma-
products. chine in Mac OS X Leopard, automatically makes incre-
On March 19, 2008, Apple released a firmware update mental data backups. Acting as a wireless file server,
for both models of the AirPort Extreme to allow AirPort Time Capsule can serve to back up multiple Macs. It also
Disks to be used in conjunction with Time Machine, sim-
3
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia AirPort
includes all AirPort Extreme (802.11 Draft-N) functionali- Integrated AirPort Extreme 802.11a/b/g
ty.
On March 3, 2009, the Time Capsule was updated with
and /n cards
simultaneous dual-band 802.11 Draft-N capability, re- As 802.11g began to come standard on all notebook mod-
mote AirPort Disk accessibility through Back to My Mac, els, Apple phased out the user-installable designs in their
and the ability to broadcast a guest network at the same notebooks, iMacs and Mac minis by mid 2005, moving to
time as an existing network. an integrated design. AirPort continued to be an option,
On October 20, 2009, Apple unveiled the updated either installed at purchase or later, on the Power Mac G5
Time Capsule with antenna improvements resulting in and the Mac Pro.
wireless performance gains of both speed and range. Also With the introduction of the Intel-based MacBook Pro
stated is a resulting performance improvement/time re- in January 2006, Apple began to use a standard PCI Ex-
duction on Time Capsule backups of up to 60%. press mini card. The particular brand and model of card
During June, 2011, Apple unveiled the updated Time has changed over the years; in early models, it was
Capsule with a higher capacity 2 TB and 3 TB. Atheros brand, while since late 2008 they have been
Broadcom cards. This distinction is mostly of concern to
those who run other operating systems such as Linux on
AirPort cards MacBooks, as different cards require different device dri-
An AirPort card is an Apple-branded wireless card used vers.
to connect to wireless networks such as those provided MacBook Air Mid 2011 13" [11] and MacBook Air Late
by an AirPort Base Station. 2010 (11", A1370[12] and 13", Model A1369 [13]) both use
Broadcom BCM943224PCIEBT2 Wi-Fi card (main chip
AirPort 802.11b card BCM43224: 2 × 2 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz[14]).
The original model, known as simply AirPort card, was a In early 2007, Apple announced that most Intel
re-branded Lucent WaveLAN/Orinoco Gold PC card, in a Core 2 Duo-based Macs, which had been shipping since
modified housing that lacked the integrated antenna. It November 2006, already included AirPort Extreme cards
was designed to be capable of being user-installable. It compatible with the draft-802.11 Draft-N specification.
was also modified in such a way that it could not be used Apple also offered an application to enable 802.11 Draft-
in a regular PCMCIA slot (at the time it was significantly N functionality on these Macs for a fee of $1.99, or free
cheaper than the official WaveLAN/Orinoco Gold card). with the purchase of an AirPort Extreme base station. [15]
An AirPort card adapter is required to use this card in the This card was also a PCI Express mini design, but used
slot loading iMacs. three antenna connectors in the notebooks and iMacs,
in order to use a 2 × 3 MIMO antenna configuration. The
AirPort Extreme 802.11g cards cards in the Mac Pro and Apple TV have 2 antenna con-
nectors and support a 2 × 2 configuration. The Network
Corresponding with the release of the AirPort Extreme
Utility application located in Applications → Utilities can
Base Station, the AirPort Extreme card became available
be used to identify the model and supported protocols of
as an option on the current models. It is based on a
an installed AirPort card.[16]
Broadcom 802.11g chipset and is housed in a custom en-
closure that is mechanically proprietary, but is electrical-
ly compatible with the Mini PCI standard. It was also ca- Security
pable of being user-installed. AirPort and AirPort Extreme support a variety of security
Variants of the user installable AirPort Extreme card technologies to prevent eavesdropping and unautho-
are marked A-1010 (early North American spec), A-1026 rized network access, including several forms of cryptog-
(current North American spec), A-1027 (Europe/Asia raphy.
spec (additional channels)) and A-1095 (unknown). The original graphite AirPort base station used 40-bit
A different 802.11g card was included in the last itera- Wired Equivalent Privacy (WEP). The second generation
tion of the PowerPC-based PowerBooks and iBooks. A ma- model (known as Dual Ethernet or Snow) AirPort base
jor distinction for this card was that it was the first "com- station, like most other Wi-Fi products, used 40-bit or
bo" card that included both 802.11g as well as Bluetooth. 128-bit Wired Equivalent Privacy (WEP). AirPort Extreme
It was also the first card that was not user-installable. It and Express base stations retain this option, but also al-
was again a custom form factor, but was still electrically a low and encourage the use of Wi-Fi Protected Access
Mini PCI interface for the Broadcom WLAN chip. A sepa- (WPA) and, as of July 14, 2005, WPA2.
rate USB connection was used for the on-board Bluetooth AirPort Extreme cards, using the Broadcom chipset,
chip. have the Media Access Control layer in software. The dri-
The AirPort Extreme (802.11g) card was discontinued ver is closed source.
in January 2009.
4
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia AirPort
AirPort Disk [4] AirPort Extreme Base Station (802.11 Draft-N) –
Technical Specifications
An AirPort Disk is essentially a hard disk connected to [5] AirPort Extreme Setup Guide
an AirPort Extreme Base Station or Time Capsule (though [6] Apple.com – AirPort Extreme Product page.
AirPort Express does not support it). AirPort Disks can [7] Apple.com – AirPort Extreme – Sharing, Retrieved
be accessed from Windows and Linux as well as Mac OS on January 17, 2007.
X. The AirPort Extreme uses the SMB/CIFS protocol for [8] "Airport Extreme (5th Gen) and Time Capsule (4th
FAT volumes, and both SMB/CIFS and AFP for HFS+ parti- Gen) Review - Faster WiFi". Airport Extreme (5th Gen)
tions. AirPort Extreme Base Stations do not support NTFS and Time Capsule (4th Gen) Review. AnandTech.
or exFAT volumes. http://www.anandtech.com/show/4577/airport-
It should be noted that although Windows does not extreme-5th-gen-and-time-capsule-4th-gen-
support the HFS+ (Mac OS Extended) file system when review-faster-wifi-/7. Retrieved 24 October 2011.
directly connected to an HFS+ volume (unless a third- [9] "Time Machine now works with AirPort Extreme’s
party filesystem driver or program is used), a HFS+ vol- AirDisk feature". Engadget.com. March 19, 2008.
ume on an AirPort Disk can be easily accessed from Win- http://www.engadget.com/2008/03/19/time-
dows. This is because the AirPort Extreme uses the SMB/ machine-now-works-with-airport-extremes-
CIFS protocol to allow access to the disk, and hence ac- airdisk-feature/. Retrieved March 19, 2008.
cess from Windows is filesystem-independent. Therefore [10] Mac OS X 10.6 Help: Disks that can be used with
HFS+ is a viable option for Windows as well as OS X users, Time Machine
and more flexible than FAT32 as the latter has a 4 GiB file [11] MacBook Air 13" Mid 2011 Teardown: Step 6, iFixit.
size limit. 2011-07-21. Retrieved on July 30, 2011.
Recent firmware versions cause the internal disk and [12] iFixIt MacBook Air 11" Model A1370 Teardown,
any external USB drives to sleep after periods of time as iFixit. October 21, 2010. Retrieved on July 30, 2011.
short as 2 minutes. [13] Installing MacBook Air 13" Model A1369 AirPort
Bluetooth Card, iFixit. 2010-11-22. Retrieved on
See also [14]
July 30, 2011.
MacBook Air 13" Mid 2011 Teardown: Step 7, iFixit.
• AirPlay 2011-07-21. Retrieved on July 30, 2011.
• Apple TV [15] Apple Introduces New AirPort Extreme with 802.11
• iTunes Draft-N, Apple. 2007-01-09. Retrieved on
• Sleep Proxy Service[17] April 7, 2007.
• Time Capsule [16] AirPort Extreme 802.11 Draft-N* Enabler @ Apple
• Timeline of Apple products Store
• Wi-Fi [17] "Mac OS X v10.6: About Wake on Demand (Apple
• Wireless access point Article HT3774)" (in several languages). Apple.
• Wireless LAN August 27, 2009. http://support.apple.com/kb/
• IEEE 802.11 HT3774. Retrieved September 15, 2009. ""Setting
up Wake on Demand," "Setting up a Bonjour Sleep
Notes Proxy""
[1] "アップル – AirMac Express". Apple, Inc..
http://apple.com/jp/airmacexpress. Retrieved External links
June 22, 2008. • Current AirPort products
[2] Apple Introduces New AirPort Extreme with 802.11 • All AirPort products
Draft-N, Apple.com, retrieved 1/9/07. • AirPort manuals
[3] AirPort Express Base Station (Early 2008) – • AirPort software compatibility table
Technical Specifications • Apple AirPort 802.11 N first look at ifixit
Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=AirPort&oldid=460970868"
Categories:
• Apple Inc. peripherals
• Macintosh internals
• Wi-Fi
• ITunes
5
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia AirPort
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