Filed under: Hardware, Airport
Apple updates Time Capsule and Airport Extreme with internet sharing
A closer look at the gaggle of Apple hardware updates today shows a rather useful change to both Time Capsule and the Airport Extreme base station.MobileMe members can access any file on a hard drive connected to either product via the internet. The older versions allowed hard drive sharing to people on the same network. Now the feature has been extended to allow you to get these files from anywhere.
You initiate the sharing by registering your Airport Extreme or Time Capsule with your MobileMe account. When you are away from your Mac, that hard drive will show up in the Finder sidebar. The drive must be a USB drive -- there is no support for either flavor of Firewire on the AE or TC.
It does not appear that this remote sharing feature has been added to the last generation of these products, although a firmware update might be able to accomplish it. No word from Apple on whether or not this will happen. Update: the Apple Sales internal site (thanks Mr. X) is listing the following... looks like that feature is going to work on the older gear!
Note for existing AirPort Extreme and Time Capsule customersThis update is obviously designed to boost the attractiveness of the MobileMe service, to which Apple has been showing increased attention of late. Apple specifies that Leopard is needed for this feature, so Windows subscribers to MobileMe appear to be out of luck
Existing AirPort Extreme (MA073 and MB053) and Time Capsule (MB276 and MB277) customers can access their AirPort Disk / Time Capsule disk through Mobile Me over the Internet by upgrading to AirPort Utility 5.4.1 and AirPort firmware 7.4.1. Subscription to Mobile Me online services is required for this feature. Simultaneous dual-band Wi-Fi and Guest Networking features are only available to new AirPort Extreme (MB763) and Time Capsule (MB764 and MB765) customers.
Thanks to everyone who sent this in.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 3)
LD said 1:12PM on 3-03-2009
Crap. Not available to existing and only to people who pay Apple more money. BS.
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brianrharris said 1:21PM on 3-03-2009
agreed
alfriede said 1:21PM on 3-03-2009
i JUST bought a new 500gb TC, so they damn sure better bring this to older AE/TC, as both of mine are less than 6mos/1mo respectively. I'll be LIVID if not, but i'm pretty sure it'll be in the the update, as there's no reason why it shouldn't be. lets hope this is correct!
bob said 2:28PM on 3-03-2009
you want them to come to your house and install another radio into your box?
RUSirius said 1:19PM on 3-03-2009
This update includes general fixes and compatibility updates for the following applications: AirPort Utility and AirPort Base Station Agent, including AirPort Disk Utility for Tiger.
Just updated it now!
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alfriede said 1:26PM on 3-03-2009
so, are you saying that the update DID allow the firmware to bring your AE & TC into the new realm of features? be specific and update us all!
Adam said 1:57PM on 3-03-2009
Appears to just be updating the Airport management software to support these new features for the new routers. No new firmware (yet) to add these features to the previous models.
The Extreme has had this ability (via wide-area Bonjour) for years, so it would be a nice feature to expose in the GUI, and could possibly upsell some existing owners to Mobile Me. Um, please?
jmetts said 1:19PM on 3-03-2009
I have 20 more days until my MobileMe trial is up. If they roll out a firmware update to the last Airport Extreme model to support this, I'll sign up; if not, then I'll just let the trial end.
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TexRob said 1:20PM on 3-03-2009
Not sure what I am going to do. I ordered a 500gb Time Capsule on Amazon last Friday for $252 shipped. I only use my wifi for b and g right now. I ordered a new mini today, that will be hooked up via gigabit. Dual band is cool, but I doubt I'd really ever utilize it. I'm just going to use my old AE as a WDS. I don't think any of these features justify over $70 more with tax if I buy local, or $48 more if I wait for it to show up on Amazon.
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Randall Hand said 1:24PM on 3-03-2009
This is really kewl, but seems pretty limited...
If I buy a new Airport Extreme,
AND If I hook a USB external drive up to it
AND If I'm on a Mac
AND If I have MobileMe...
I can't see very many people who meet all 4 criteria.. A rather small percentage in the market.
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KarlW said 5:26PM on 3-03-2009
Not really. Most AEBS/TC buyers will be running OSX and will have a USB drive attached to it. Maybe they don't have mobileme, but this is there to persuade them to get it.
high fivers said 1:35PM on 3-03-2009
With the older version of Airport Extreme you can access files over the internet. I have the previous model with a 2 TB external drive connected via USB. It's set up as a shared disk and I can access it easily on my network, but I can also mount it over the internet using AFP and the router's IP address. When connecting, I'm prompted for authentication then it mounts on my desktop like any other server drive.
On my network, this drive also acts as my Time Capsule. I created a Backup partition on that 2 TB drive and in the Time Capsule system preferences, I simply selected that as my disk. In the Backup partition, it creates a disk image that it mounts to my computer, backs up my machine, then automatically unmounts the disk image when finished. I essentially created my own time capsule with my own external drive.
I've had this setup working since this past summer when I bought all the gear.
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Chris Liphart said 1:42PM on 3-03-2009
I bought an Airport Extreme from Apple.com two weeks ago. They should upgrade me. :P
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Nixta said 2:59PM on 3-03-2009
They might, in my experience, if you're nice about it and have all the packaging...
SD said 1:50PM on 3-03-2009
This would be another situation where Apple should do right by its existing AEBS customers and add the MobileMe functionality via Firmware update. Last year, they added the ability to use an attached USB drive as a Time Machine volume on the AEBS so it would have similar functionality to TC. I have been fussing with the "Share disks over WAN" checkbox on my AEBS for over a year now and can't get it to work.
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Fozz said 1:55PM on 3-03-2009
UK pricing appears to have *increased*!
500GB is now £229, up from £199.
1TB is £379, up from £329.
Now I know the exchange rate isn't what it was but this is absurd. Asking an extra £150 for a 1TB drive takes the biscuit, as the standalone 3.5" drive would cost about £30 more at retail.
I'll be getting a much more capable Synology 108j with a 1TB drive for about £180.
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Craig said 1:56PM on 3-03-2009
I just logged into home and had 3 airport updates waiting for me.
Hmmm
I wonder
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Robert Newton said 2:00PM on 3-03-2009
So where do we get the 7.4.1 firmware?
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mark said 2:02PM on 3-03-2009
TUAW wrote:
"It does not appear that this remote sharing feature has been added to the last generation of these products...."
I believe you meant, "to the *previous* generation of these products."
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roycifer said 2:02PM on 3-03-2009
interesting... wonder if this will work with my itunes library thats on an external drive via my airport extreme.
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