AirPort is a discontinued line of wireless routers and network cards developed by Apple Inc. using Wi-Fi protocols. In Japan, the line of products was marketed under the brand AirMac due to previous registration by I-O Data.
Apple introduced the AirPort line in 1999. Wireless cards were discontinued in 2009 following the Mac transition to Intel processors, after all of Apple's Mac products had adopted built-in Wi-Fi. Apple's line of wireless routers consisted of the AirPort Base Station (later AirPort Extreme); the AirPort Time Capsule, a variant with a built-in hard disk for automated backups; and the AirPort Express, a compact router.
In 2018, Apple discontinued the AirPort line. The remaining inventory was sold off, and Apple later retailed routers from Linksys, Netgear, and Eero in Apple retail stores.
Overview
AirPort debuted in 1999, as "one more thing" at Macworld New York, with Steve Jobs surfing the web on an iBook using wireless internet technology for the very first time in a public demo of an Apple laptop. The initial offering consisted of an optional expansion card for Apple's new line of iBook notebooks and an AirPort Base Station. The AirPort card (a repackaged Lucent ORiNOCO Gold Card PC Card adapter) was later added as an option for almost all of Apple's product line, including PowerBooks, eMacs, iMacs, and Power Macs. Only Xserves did not have it as a standard or optional feature. The original AirPort system allowed transfer rates up to 11 Mbit/s and was commonly used to share Internet access and files between multiple computers.
In 2003, Apple introduced AirPort Extreme, based on the 802.11g specification, using Broadcom's BCM4306/BCM2050 two-chip solution. AirPort Extreme allows theoretical peak data transfer rates of up to 54 Mbit/s, and is fully backward-compatible with existing 802.11b wireless network cards and base stations. Several of Apple's desktop computers and portable computers, including the MacBook Pro, MacBook, Mac Mini, and iMac shipped with an AirPort Extreme (802.11g) card as standard. All other Macs of the time had 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.
In 2004, Apple released the AirPort Express base station as a "Swiss Army knife" multifunction product. It can be used as a portable travel router, using the same AC connectors as on Apple's AC adapters; as an audio streaming device, with both line-level and optical audio outputs; and as a USB printer sharing device, through its USB host port.
In 2007, Apple unveiled a new AirPort Extreme (802.11 Draft-N) Base Station, which introduced 802.11 Draft-N to the Apple AirPort product line. This implementation of 802.11 Draft-N can operate in both the 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz ISM bands, and has modes that make it compatible with 802.11b/g and 802.11a. The number of Ethernet ports was increased to four—one nominally for WAN, three for LAN, but all can be used in bridged mode. A USB port was included for printers and other USB devices. The Ethernet ports were later updated to Gigabit Ethernet on all ports. The styling is similar to that of the Mac Mini and Apple TV.
In January 2008, Apple introduced Time Capsule, an AirPort Extreme (802.11 Draft-N) with an internal hard drive. The device includes software to allow any computer running a reasonably recent version of Mac OS or Windows to access the disk as a shared volume. Macs running Mac OS X 10.5 and later, which includes the Time Machine feature, can use the Time Capsule as a wireless backup device, allowing automatic, untethered backups of the client computer. As an access point, the unit is otherwise equivalent to an AirPort Extreme (802.11 Draft-N), with four Gigabit Ethernet ports and a USB port for printer and disk sharing.
In March 2008, Apple released an updated AirPort Express Base Station with 802.11 Draft-N 2x2 radio. All other features (analog and digital optical audio out, single Ethernet port, USB port for printer sharing) remained the same. At the time, it was the least expensive ($99) device to handle both frequency bands (2.4 GHz and 5 GHz) in 2x2 802.11 Draft-N.
In March 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.
In October 2009, Apple unveiled the updated AirPort Extreme and Time Capsule products with antenna improvements (the 5.8 GHz model).