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· Announcement

AirPort Extreme 802.11n (5th gen) and Time Capsule (4th gen)

Apple announced two products on 21 June 2011: AirPort Extreme 802.11n (5th gen) and Time Capsule (4th gen). The day spanned Networking and Storage.

It was the 5th of 8 dated moments the archive holds for 2011, 49 days after the previous one, 3 May 2011.

AirPort Extreme 802.11n (5th gen) product photograph

Raimond Spekking · CC BY-SA 4.0

What Apple announced

AirPort Extreme 802.11n (5th gen)

Networking · AirPort · discontinued 10 June 2013

AirPort Extreme is a discontinued line of residential gateways made by Apple Inc. that combine the functions of a router, network switch, wireless access point and NAS as well as varied other functions. The latest model, the 6th generation, supports 802.11ac networking in addition to older standards. Versions of the same system with a built-in network-accessible hard drive are known as the AirPort Time Capsule.

Apple discontinued its wireless routers in 2018, but as of 2023 continues limited hardware and software support.

Time Capsule (4th gen)

Storage · AirPort, drives · discontinued 10 June 2013

The AirPort Time Capsule (originally named Time Capsule) is a wireless router which was sold by Apple Inc., featuring network-attached storage (NAS) and a residential gateway router, and is one of Apple's AirPort products. It is essentially a version of the AirPort Extreme with an internal hard drive. Apple describes it as a "Backup Appliance", designed to work in tandem with the Time Machine backup software utility introduced in Mac OS X Leopard 10.5.

Introduced on January 15, 2008 and released on February 29, 2008, the device has been upgraded several times, matching upgrades in the Extreme series routers. The earliest versions supported 802.11n wireless and came with a 500 GB hard drive in the base model, while the latest model, introduced in 2013, features 802.11ac and a 3 TB hard drive. All models include four Gigabit Ethernet ports (3 LAN ports, 1 WAN port) and a single USB port. The USB port can be used for external peripheral devices to be shared over the network, such as external hard drives or printers. The NAS functionality utilizes a built-in "server grade" hard drive.

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AirPort Extreme 802.11n (5th gen) product photograph
AirPort Extreme 802.11n (5th gen)

Raimond Spekking · CC BY-SA 4.0

Time Capsule (4th gen) product photograph
Time Capsule (4th gen)

Malabooboo at Flickr · CC BY 2.0

Also in 2011

Sources

  1. AirPort Extreme 802.11n (5th gen) · Wikipedia
  2. Time Capsule (4th gen) · Wikipedia

Dates on this page are announcement dates, not shipping dates. Product summaries are drawn from the linked articles, and specification claims in them are the publisher’s, not independent testing. Photograph credits and licences are listed in full on the image credits page.