The new Time Capsule and Airport Extreme: first look

Yesterday, Apple somewhat quietly updated both the Time Capsule and Airport Extreme. Most everything stayed the same as previous version with the exception of a few fun details like guest networking and simultaneous dual-band Wi-Fi.

So what’s the difference between the Time Capsule and the Airport Extreme any way? Well, the Time Capsule is basically the same device as the Airport Extreme, except that it has a hard drive built in that (wirelessly) works with Time Machine to automaticly backup of your machines over the network. You also could just use it as a NAS. Either way, it’s a more elegant solution than a USB hard drive attached to an Airport Extreme.

Do you have both a recent Mac and an iPhone, iPod Touch or older Mac machine? Then you’ll be excited to hear about simultaneous dual-band Wi-Fi. Basically, it solves the problem of having both N and G capable devices on your 802.11 network. Previously, if a G device connects to an N network, it will slow down the whole network to G speeds. Not so with the dual-band technology. You can have the speed of N and the accessibility of G on the same network! You could also do this with a few ethernet cable and an extra Airport Express, but it’s not as awesome as one device. Trust me, that’s how I do it in my apartment. Though, I get the added bonus of the wireless audio provided by the Airport Express.

The other exciting update is guest networking. This allows you to open up your network to specific visitors without compromising security in any way. You can give them their own special password, or just open it up for them. This is an awesome feature, and I wouldn’t be surprised to see it make it’s way to older Apple routers.

Product [Time Capsule]
Product [Airport Extreme]