Last night Apple released a firmware update for Time Capsule, AirPort Extreme, and AirPort Express Base Station with 802.11n. Here are the fixes:

• Fixes some problems with extending and maintaining connectivity with extended networks
• Fixes an issue with clients that enable 802.11 "Power Save"
• Fixes connectivity issues with some third-party devices
• Fixes an issue when the base station is configured for PPPoE
• Fixes some Back To My Mac issues with connectivity and support for third-party routers

All of those sound like issues that could affect quite a few people -- especially those with (gasp!) "third-party" devices. I've certainly had issues with Back To My Mac using a Netgear router, so we'll see if this helps. In any event, firmware updates are recommended especially if you've had any of the above symptoms.

If you've been having issues with corrupted Time Machine images either inside the Time Capsule or connected externally to your base station, the 7.4.1 firmware update (for all base stations from 2007 to today) plus the 10.5.6 update might help, according to TidBITS.

Apple says this update will fix problems that lead up to corruption issues, but TidBITS recommends you essentially start fresh just to make sure -- after using the Archive feature in Disk Utility to copy your previous Time Machine disk to an external drive. Don't have enough drives to do the data shuffle? You can always take your chances that you either don't have a corrupt Time Machine backup (which is pretty likely, honestly) or do a little soul/data-searching for anything you might want to preserve for posterity.

I don't use Time Machine as a sort of universal undo, but I understand some might. In either case: update your system and firmware as recommended by the manufacturer.

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 customers
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.

This 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

Thanks to everyone who sent this in.

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!

Quickertek has produced an antenna for the Time Capsule which, according to them, increases the device's range by 50%.

It's compatible with 802.11 A, B, and G, and comes either as a self install kit or an installation service. Or, if you don't have a Time Capsule just yet, you can order one from Quickertek with the antenna pre-installed. It comes with a good amount of cable so you can spend your weekend obsessively placing and replacing it in your home until it's just right. So that will be fun.

The 500GB self-install kit is $129.95US, and the service is $200US. Prices are the same for the 1TB version kit and service. If you want to do it all in one fell swoop, you can order a 500GB Time Capsule + pre-installed kit for $500US, or $700US for the 1TB version.

[Via Engadget]

French Mac site HardMac has posted the step-by-step process of changing a Time Capsule's hard drive. Specifically, they swapped the original 500 GB Seagate SATA drive for a Western Digital 1 TB Green Power drive.

The actual removal of the existing drive won't be too tricky for people used to tinkering with hardware. In fact, the whole thing was simple. The Time Capsule immediately recognized the unformatted drive, formatted it and made it available to Time Machine.

They chose the Green Power drive because they're designed to use a varied rotation speed, based on demand so, it's much quieter than the original Seagate (according to HardMac).

Over at Macworld, Glenn Fleishman has an initial hands-on report about Apple's new Time Capsule combination Airport Base Station and NAS, and he's confirmed something folks were wondering about: "you can also perform Time Machine backups to drives attached to the Time Capsule via USB." This is interesting, because Apple originally said that Time Machine backups would be possible to an AirDisk (that is, an USB external drive on the regular AirPort Extreme Base Station).

Just before Leopard shipped, that feature quietly disappeared, leaving some early-adopters who had counted on that capability in the lurch. The obvious questions now are whether there's any technical reason why Time Machine to AirDisk wouldn't work on the AEBS, and whether Apple is holding the feature back just to promote the Time Capsule. In any case, it's good to know that if you get a Time Capsule you're not limited to the internal storage, perhaps making the smaller 500GB model that much more attractive.

Apple's Time Capsule hasn't even been shipping for a week yet, and Flickr user "nakedmac" has already dissected his Time Capsule. What may be surprising is that the Time Capsule is no more than an Airport Extreme with a hard drive. But remember when Steve said that the Time Capsule would feature a "server-grade hard drive?" Well, it features a Hitachi Deskstar hard drive. According to the Typical Mac User Podcast blog, the Hitachi hard drive isn't necessarily rated for "server-grade."


[via Engadget]

Several readers have written to let us know that Apple's Time Capsule is listed in the current Best Buy flyer. It is scheduled for a February release, so this could mean that we'll see it in stores this week.

If any TUAW readers visit a Best Buy this week, let us know if you find a Time Capsule on the shelves, and if you buy one!

Thanks, to everyone who sent this in!

The new Time Capsule peripheral is an interesting beast: an Airport Extreme with a Frankenstein complex, with an onboard drive for backup storage. What else can you do with that space? According to Apple reps at the booth, the drive appears just as a wireless disk would appear with the original AE base, so you can in fact put other data on there besides the Time Machine backups. Since TM backups tend to grow to consume all available space, partitioning the Time Capsule drive might be a good idea if you can do it in advance. We'll try to get hands-on with the Time Capsule utility later today to verify that you can split it up.

As the Time Capsule is otherwise identical to an Airport base, you can hang printers or USB drives off the unit and share those as you would with the older gear.

Update: A further conversation at the Apple booth leads me to believe that you will not be able to partition the drive on the Time Capsule. If your purchase decisions are contingent on this capability, please wait until I can get a solid answer from the product manager at Apple on this. You could conceivably 'reserve' space on the TC by creating a disk image to hold your files, but I wouldn't recommend that unless you absolutely have to do it. A couple of contrary reports are saying that you cannot store other files on the TC drive, but everyone I've talked to says that it does mount as a regular wireless disk and you can write to it if needed.

Some other concerns:

"Can I connect the Time Capsule as an external USB drive, directly to my Mac?" No, that functionality isn't in the Airport Extreme and I wouldn't expect it to be in the TC -- however, with gigabit Ethernet you can transfer data faster than USB anyway. Note that I said AS a USB drive, not TO a USB drive -- the Airport feature of external drives connected to the TC is still there, but the external drives aren't valid backup targets.

"Can I stream directly from a Time Capsule to my Apple TV?" Probably not; while you can store an iTunes library on a wireless disk, you still need iTunes to mediate between the storage and the Apple TV.

"If the Time Capsule is the same as an Airport, when will Apple enable Time Machine backups to external USB disks via the Airport?" Could be never. It's been suggested by some (including some of our own) that the combination of the wireless bridge and the USB storage bridge is simply too latency-prone and laggy to provide the needed performance for Time Machine, and that the SATA internal on the Time Capsule is integrated and speedier to allow TM to behave as expected. With no SATA bridge on the Airport Extreme, and no forecast on a fix for the write caching issues, don't count on official support for wireless backups via that hardware.

"Can I use USB wireless networking devices (Sprint or Verizon EVDO) as broadband connections for Time Capsule?" Nope, not directly connected to the TC -- not a feature of the Airport.