Published in News

Apple closes wireless router division

by on22 November 2016

Now more past its sell by date than Steve Jobs 

The fruity tax-dodging cargo-cult Apple appears to be seeking to be the world leader in vapourware by promising shedloads of products which never turn up.

Recently it closed the division which was making self-driving cars, despite getting shedloads of publicity for the project which never happened. Now Jobs’ Mob has disbanded its division that develops wireless routers.

The Tame Apple Press tells us that it is a super cool and wonderful move to try to sharpen the company’s focus on consumer products that generate the bulk of its revenue. However what it really is withdrawing from yet another market when it is desperate to find something new to replace its iPhone cash-cow.

Apple began shutting down the wireless router team over the past year, dispersing engineers to other product development groups, including the one handling the Apple TV.

The routers have not been updated since 2013 and are now so out-of-date they make messenger pigeons look like superior networking technology. Apple apparently has no interest in pushing forward with new versions of its routers, but then its networking technology has been pretty pants right from the beginning.

Apple sells three wireless routers, the AirPort Express, AirPort Extreme, and AirPort Time capsule. The Time capsule doubles as a backup storage hard drive for Mac computers. It is missing a trick really because this sort of thing is rather useful for the internet of things and Intelligent home systems. But we guess Apple’s marketing teams could not make a router sexy so it was time to be killed off.

Jobs’ Mob has consistently failed to understand networking and its AirPorts have lagged behind those of companies such as D-Link Corp., Netgear and Belkin International. Apple made up for its lack of expertise by charging more, which was great for customers.

Apple has been culling off other areas which could have been innovation areas. This included making its own external monitors. All this places Apple more dependent on a single product – the iPhone, which is currently losing market share and falling behind on the technology stakes against its rivals.

Last modified on 22 November 2016
Rate this item
(2 votes)

Read more about: