Apple Releases Time Capsule and AirPort Base Station (802.11n) Firmware 7.3.2

Apple has released Firmware 7.3.2 update for the Time Capsule and AirPort Base Station (802.11n), which includes compatibility updates and general fixes. This is available as a software update at: http://www.apple.com/support/downloads/timecapsuleandairport

This update requires AirPort Utility 5.3.2, which can be obtained by an automatic software update or as a manual download, and is available as Airport Utility 5.3.2 for:

Leopard

Tiger

Windows

Apple’s Time Capsule Takes NetWork Hard Drives “Into a Higher Realm”

MacDaily News takes a look at the review of Apple’s Time Capsule done by David Pogue of The New York Times. He writes, “Imagine a Wi-Fi base station, of the sort that turns your home into a wireless hot spot, with a huge hard drive inside (and, mercifully, no power brick-just a slender power cable). The Time Machine automatic backup feature of the latest Mac OS X version backs up your Macs onto the Time Capsule, automatically, constantly, completely and wirelessly. And in my book, automatic, constant, complete backups are the only kind that really count.”

For Pogue, the best thing about Time Capsule is that it automatically and completely backs up your laptops without them needing to be hooked up to anything. “Any time the laptop is open and turned on, like when you’re using it, the Time Capsule backup is quietly doing its thing,” Pogue reports.”It also acts as a regular network-attached hard drive, serving as a central data bucket for both Macs and Windows PCs on your network. (The Time Machine auto-backup feature isn’t available for Windows, of course, although some regular Windows backup programs can use the Time Capsule as a regular external drive.) Oh, and you can attach a USB printer to it. Presto: all of your computers can share that one printer.”No other network-attached hard drives “seem to have the Time Capsule’s combo of capacity and wirelessness,” Pogue reports. “This is a classic case of Apple’s insistence on simplicity taking its own version of the network hard drive into a higher realm.”

Simplicity is, of course, a great feature. But the most important aspect of what Time Capsule offers is the security of knowing that your data won’t be lost. “If disaster strikes-sunspots, clueless spouse, overtired self-you enter Time Machine’s recovery mode. The sleek, modern-looking Leopard desktop falls away like a curtain, revealing, startlingly, a deep-space starfield. The window that once contained your files remains floating before you, with dozens of iterations of itself, like file cards, receding into the background. You can now scroll backward through time until the window looks as it did before the unfortunate event. (You can also use the Search box to find missing files.) When you find the files you want and click Restore, the regular desktop slides back up into view. The recovered icons are back in their original window.”

Pogue sees Apple’s Time Capsule as the best of the network-attached hard drives.

“There are, of course, other network-attached hard drives, many with more features (like a media server, print server, RAID options, if you even know what those are). But none seem to have the Time Capsule’s combo of capacity and wirelessness. ”

Peace of mind, convenience and simplicity are the qualities Pogue celebrates the most. “You can’t imagine how satisfying it is to know that if your hard drive dies, you will lose no more than one hour of work. Even if you’ve made a mess of some document, and want to rewind to an earlier, better draft, you can dip back into the past to retrieve it. Go on, gods of drive failure-do your worst. I’ll be ready.”

Apple Updates AirPort Express

Apple has updated its AirPort Express base station with 802.11n, making it the world’s smallest 802.11n-based mobile base station, now capable of delivering up to five times the performance and twice the range of the previous model. Conveniently, it can be plugged directly into the wall for both wireless connectivity and USB printing, either for use at home, or for use when traveling.

This update brings the product into line with Apple’s other wireless equipment, including its Macs, Airport Extreme and Time Capsule. As before, AirPort Express also offers AirTunes, which works to wirelessly stream music around the home through iTunes. With its built-in combination digital and analog audio connector, AirPort Express allows users to connect to a home stereo or powered speakers. iTunes automatically detects any available remote speakers, and displays them in a pop-up list for the user’s selection. Once the selection is made, AirTunes wirelessly streams iTunes music from the Mac or PC computer to the AirPort Express base station. Multiple AirPort Express base stations can be set throughout the home, each connected to a set of speakers for a whole-home music experience.

“Apple is leading the way with a broad range of innovative 802.11n base stations for almost any wireless networking need,” said Phil Schiller, Apple’s senior vice president of worldwide product marketing. “From the small and portable AirPort Express, to AirPort Extreme for workgroups of up to 50 users and the new Time Capsule for automated backups, Apple customers now have more great ways to extend their wireless networks with 802.11n.”

The updated AirPort Express features a single-piece, compact design and weighs only 6.7 ounces, which makes it wonderfully portable. It also offers both PC and Mac users the ability so share a single DSL or cable broadband connection simultaneously with up to ten users. Users can also share a printer wirelessly which is connected to the USB port. With advanced security features, AirPort Express safeguards data on networked computers through Wi-Fi Protected Access (WPA/WPA1), 128-bit WEP encryption and a built-in firewall.

802.11n is now included as standard in Apple’s entire line of AirPort base stations and Mac notebooks as well as iMac(r), Apple TV(r) and Time Capsule(tm).

Apple’s Time Capsule: Money Well Spent

MacDaily News discusses the review of Apple’s Time Capsule that was done by Walt Mossberg of Wall Street Journal. Mossberg concludes that purchase of Time Capsule is money well spent for users of Time Machine. But in reading his review, it would seem that his endorsement extends further than that. He also talks about how Time Capsule works well with Macs running Tiger, and with Windows PCs running Vista or XP.

Of course, Leopard’s Time Machine is the ideal way to run Time Capsule. Apple’s OSX Leopard’s popular feature called Time Machine automatically and continuously backs up a Mac’s hard disk without the user having to do setup. “Time Machine is a key selling point for Leopard and the Mac. It is more complete, and yet simpler, than the built-in backup feature in Vista Home Premium, the most popular home version of Windows,” Mossberg reports.

Time Capsule is a “…stand-alone networked gadget that packs both a giant hard disk and a speedy Wi-Fi wireless router into one slender case. It just plugs into your existing home network and any laptop within wireless range can connect to it. It can back up multiple computers.”_

Mossberg tested Time Capsule’s performance beyond its functionality with Time Machine. _”Time Capsule is designed to seamlessly work with Leopard’s Time Machine. But it can also be used as a wireless internet connection and/or a remote hard drive, for manually storing and retrieving files by Windows PCs running either Vista or Windows XP, or by Macs running Apple’s older Tiger operating system. And you can also use it with certain other backup programs, such as the ones built into Windows XP or Tiger,” Mossberg reports.__”In my tests, Time Capsule performed perfectly with Time Machine. It also was easily recognized by several of my Windows machines running Vista and Windows XP. On all of these machines, I was able to speedily access the Internet via Time Capsule. Time Capsule can be set up to either replace or supplement your existing Wi-Fi router,” Mossberg reports. “All the machines, even the Windows ones, also could recognize the Time Capsule as a remote hard disk, and save files to it and retrieve files from it.”_

Clearly, Mossberg is saying that the purchase price of Time Capsule is money well spent no matter what your equipment or operating system is.

Time Capsule Arrives

Announced during January’s MacWorld Expo, Apple’s Time Capsule is the new wireless hard-drive backup which you can use to backup data on multiple Macs, using Time Machine in Mac OS X Leopard. It is now shipping. “Notifications of the shipments began reaching customers that pre-ordered the device early this morning,” reports Jim Dalrymple for Macworld._

Combining a full-featured 802.11n Wi-Fi base station, offering a network access point and a hard disk drive, Time Capsule also features dual-band antennas for 2.4GHz or 5GHz frequencies. It offers a USB 2.0, one Gigabit Ethernet, and three Gigabit LAN ports. Connect your DSL or cable modem to Time Capsule, and a new wireless network is immediately created. Or, you can extend an existing AirPort-based network. Time Capsule also has a built-in power supply and can connect in order to wirelessly print from a USB printer.

Time Capsule provides either 500GB or 1TB of hard-drive space, and offers plenty of capacity for all your backup needs. You are also protected with a built-in firewall and industry-standard encryption technologies with include WPA/WPA2 and 128-bit WEP.

And, as with all Apple devices, Time Capsule works perfectly with Apple TV, iPhone, iPod Touch, and all other Wi-Fi devices which use the 802.11a/b/g and 802.11n draft 2.0 wireless standards.

Time Capsule’s 500GB Hard Drive sells for £199.00 . The 1TB Hard Drive sells for
£329.00