MacLife UK – August 2019

works as technically well as Apple

would like its own routers to work

— people didn’t buy AirPort route

for speed or value, they bought

them because they trusted that if

anything went wrong, Apple wou

have their back. That’s not really

the case with a third–party router

that Apple just happens to sell.

This support element is really

important, and not just because of

my belief that nobody truly

understands networking tech.

When I used to work at an Apple

Reseller, the famous ease–of–use

of Apple computers would bring

non–tech–savvy people in all the

time. People would say that they

felt they had no chance of learning

how things worked, so they’d come

to get the systems that are easier

to use. And if they liked the

computer, they’d want more stuļ

from the same company, because

having one point of contact with an

empirically excellent support

service gave them conĽdence to

buy more and more things — to

not let opportunities presented by

the latest tech pass them by

because they were nervous of not

being able to Ľx it if it went wrong.

Having all of your products made

by Apple breeds conĽdence. Trust.

Perhaps the biggest crime of

all is the death of Time Capsule

alongside the AirPort cancellation.

Apple would be the Ľrst to tell you

that you must back up everything.

It made Time Machine for this

purpose, so it would be something

you barely had to think about.

Then it made Time Capsule, so that

it was something you literally

didn’t have to think about!

And then it stopped making

Time Capsule and didn’t oļer any

replacement (Apple is emphatic

that Mac–based iCloud services,

including music and photos, aren’t

suitable backups.) Granted, there

are network drives available that

support wireless Time Machine,

but a) my local Apple Store doesn’t

sell any of them, and b) if you’re

conĽguring your own QAS, we’re

now a very long way from making

backing up both thoughtless

and seamless.

The wireless future is exciting,

but it has to be built on very boring

foundations, and we need Apple to

make boring easy again.

W

HEN APPLE KILLED its

AirPort routers line–up,

I wasn’t massively

surprised. Mesh routers

were arriving on the scene, leaving

the latest AirPort models as last–

gen tech at new–gen prices, and

most companies are now Ľnally

putting the same eļort into

making routers as eļortless to set

up and use that Apple had. So,

Apple then played kingmaker and

chose a particular mesh system to

sell in Apple Stores, and gave up

the router game. It’s a perfectly

logical decision, logistically.

But people don’t really care

about Apple’s logistics. This is an

issue of giving people the right

products without fuss, and the

right support. Especially that last

bit — it doesn’t really matter that

Apple recommends a product that

MATT BOLTONwants to know why Apple is

pushing for an all–wireless future if it’s not

prepared to make it easy

THE SHIFT

>>> Matt is the editor of Future’s flagship technology magazine T3 and has been charting changes at Apple since his student days.

He’s skeptical of tech industry hyperbole, but still gets warm and fuzzy on hearing “one more thing”.

Image rights clockwise from top: Apple, Western Digital.

NAS drives support wireless Time Machine

backups, but they add more points of failure

and a new company you may have to contact.

Time Capsule was costly, but what price for

peace of mind? Well, it was $299 for 2TB,

but you know what we mean.

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r Time Caps le as costl b t hat price for

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