It has been a busy few days for Apple in the software update domain. iWork '09, iTunes, and Quicktime have all been updated, along with GarageBand.

Today, Apple is pushing out an Airport Utility software update. With the usual great and patented Apple detail, the update:

"..includes general fixes and compatibility updates for the following applications: AirPort Utility and AirPort Base Station Agent. The update also installs AirPort Disk Utility on Macs running Tiger." There is also an update of the Airport Utility for Windows.

The new software is 18.9 MB, and does not require a restart. Hooray.

Thanks to Mikey for the tip.

Along with the Mac OS X 10.5.4 update tonight, Apple also released firmware 7.3.2 for Time Capsules and AirPort Base Stations. Apple states that it "includes general fixes and compatibility updates" for both Time Capsule and AirPorts with 802.11n.

Most likely your AirPort (or Time Capsule) will find and download the update automatically; however, you can also visit the Apple Support Downloads page to download the installer package for Leopard, Tiger, or Windows.

Thanks to everyone who sent this in!

Everybody likes lists and rankings; there's just something that fascinates people about them, and they're always good for an argument or, as the case may be, selling magazines. Squarely in this latter camp is PC World's list of the Best 50 Tech Products of All Time, which editor Harry McCracken writes in to tell us features seven Apple products, more than any other singe company. These are:

• #2 - Apple II (1977)
  
• #6 - iPod (2001)
  
• #14 - Mac Plus (1986)
• #21 - iTunes 4 (2003)
• #30 - OS X (2001)
• #34 - Original Airport Base Station (1999)
• #41 - Hypercard (1987)

One thing that jumps out of this list to me is that only one of them, Hypercard, came out of Cupertino during the period that Jobs was gone from Apple (well maybe the Mac Plus, too). In any case, it clearly shows how much Apple has been on a roll since Jobs' return. I also think that at least one more product should be there: the original Powerbook 100, which more or less established the notebook computer form factor we have to this day. So let the debates begin, dear TUAW readers, what did the PC World editors screw up?

If you're using an Intel Mac with any of Apple's AirPort base stations, you might have noticed some 'less than stellar' performance after updating to 10.4.8, as well as wonky connection problems that Apple tried issuing a support doc for. As an owner of both a MacBook and an Intel Core 2 Duo iMac, I can personally vouch that Apple's doc has a ways to go before it solves this most frustrating of wireless problems.

While troubleshooting this issue over the weekend, I came across a few new threads at Apple's discussion forums for AirPort and, more specific to my setup, the AirPort Express. In particular, this AirPort Express-related thread contains some theories and potential solutions from other users in a similar boat. Being that it is now Wednesday, I'm happy to say one of them seems to be working well for me so far, though your mileage may obviously vary. Here's a rundown of my personal setup and the remedy that's bringing some sanity back to my wireless world: typically, I roll with WPA2 Personal security, and since these sketchy connection issues began I've been playing with settings like Interference Robustness and adjusting my APE's (AirPort Express) channel, etc., but to no avail.

As it turns out, users in these forums are beginning to suspect wireless security (at least WPA, not sure about WEP, which seems to be making the ill-advised list these days anyway) as part of the problem, so I simply reset my station with no security. For the past three days, this setup has been working like a charm, though it's understandable if no security simply isn't an option for some users. To help keep our network to ourselves, I turned on 'Create a closed network' in the AirPort tab of the AirPort Admin Utility (that's Apple-speak for "hide SSID"), which simply meant I had to type in my network's name manually from the AirPort menubar item - but you should only have to do this once.

Again, YMMV, but there are a few potential solutions in Apple's discussion forums for these increasingly frustrating AirPort connectivity issues. Let's hope we don't have to keep jury-rigging our base stations for long, and Apple can issue a fix so the "it just works" reputation can actually apply to these things again.