Apple sure seems to be doing routers right. At least according to the more than 3,000 customers polled in J.D. Power’s 2016 Wireless Router Satisfaction Report.
Apple came out as the top-rated router manufacturer in Overall Satisfaction, which would be great news for the AirPort team — if Apple hadn’t just disbanded it.
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Earlier this month, the company disbanded the division that develops its Wi-Fi routers. Apple reportedly is scrapping the product line in order to focus on core (and more profitable) consumer products, but in doing so the company will be getting rid of a product that customers seem to really dig.
Routers are improving
It might seem surprising to those of us who still have headaches with Wi-Fi connections that, on the whole, people are a lot happier with their routers than before. The J.D. Power survey, released today, registered jumps in satisfaction in each of the 10 factors measured.
Photo: J.D. Power
People are more willing to stick with the company that made their router, and are paying more for new ones. After Apple, the most popular routers came from ASUS, D-Link and TP-Link.
Ease of use — which includes the setup process — is up by 30 points, while overall satisfaction gained 24. The features of the various routers on the market in 2016 also got higher favorables. Connection reliability is up by 24, transfer speeds by 25, and signal range by 28. Less than 20 percent of customers said they experienced any router problems, which seems remarkably low.
The top gripes were how often users had to reset their routers, general data speeds, and the difficulty of setup. With Apple supposedly bowing out of the router ring — and with its customers switching to different brands when upgrading in the future — the results of coming years’ reports will likely look quite different.
Doug is a freelance writer covering technology here, there, and elsewhere.
11 responses to “People love Apple’s doomed AirPort more than any other router”
So….no more “Back to My Mac” for drives connected to AirPort routers then…
Have to say, I’ve had an AirPort Extreme for about 2 years now, and couldn’t be happier. Before I bought it, I was just using the router my ISP provided, and it was rubbish!! The range was atrocious, and it had to be reset at least once a week. The Airport, has superb range, I’m getting the full speed I pay for, and it NEVER has to be reset. Very pleased indeed, and sorry to hear there won’t ever be any future models.
About the same experience as Thomas Milliagan, the Airport always worked superbly not to mention looks great. As an owner of many Apple products I was hoping there was a new one in the works.
I have the opposite experience, For 2 years I have had to unplug the apple router at least once a day, sometime more. Haven’t had a problem since I got an eero three months ago.
God damn … now what?
I’m very sad to hear that Apple is discontinuing its Airport Extreme routers. I’ve had 2 different models over the last many years and they’ve been trouble free, and a breeze to set up and maintain (i.e. no work at all). I’ve always found Apple products “just work” in an intuitive manner. Now I’m definitely not looking forward to having to buy both a new non-Apple monitor and a non-Apple router in the next couple of years, and that makes me upset. I’ve been using Macs since 1989 and I’m now despairing that the Apple universe of products seems to be dwindling. I’m a professional designer, so my Macs and Apple products are central to everything I do. With Apple first discontinuing its monitors, and now its routers, it means I have to put up with equipment from companies who still see Mac/Apple users as a tiny niche market, which usually means poor workability and poor support. I’m wondering what the heck Apple is thinking to do this.
I always buy topmodel routers and Apple router is the best ive had ever!
actually the only one i had that works flawlessly.
I don’t understand a lot of apples decisions these days. I have my timecapsule downstairs and my airport extreme upstairs. Both work great. even after 3 years. Recently changed ISP and used their “Latest” wifi router for a week, then switched back as it was genuinely terrible.
Apple is discontinuing their AirPort network line right when Google introduces their new intelligent mesh WiFi devices. Google approach the problem by looking at available spectrum in your house and then used AI to maximize utilization with what you have. Google also incorporated intelligent beam technology which sends multiple sets or radio signals where some our taken out of phase so they they come to an intersection right at the device.
The early testing was funded by Google but shows these are incredibly fast network devices and on paper have the potential to solve WiFi issues in the house. Suspect Google will also then market to smaller business. Even regular mesh network devices cost a fortune and these are, on paper, a level beyond those mesh devices as Google is using AI/ML and using the models built to infer an optimal setup but it is dynamic. Also probably why these new WiFi devices have such beefy processors that usually you do not see in WiFi devices.
Long story short. Apple ran. Google announced releasing the WiFi products December 6th and then right afterwards Apple discontinued the line. They did NOT want to see comparisons and hurt the brand.
One of the delights about being a Mac user over the years has been the complete “system” of devices offered by Apple, and the knowledge that they will work extremely well together for an excellent user experience. I bought my computer, monitor, router, and easily grew our home/office network to 5 computers without a hitch, first via Appletalk, then via Ethernet, then via the Airport system. I knew I could buy an Apple-branded device with complete confidence that it would give me a very well thought out and intuitive user experience. Now I’ll be faced with research and a crap shoot by having to buy some third party router with quite possibly arcane setup proceedures that will almost certainly NOT be optimized for a Macintosh network.
Out of every wifi router I’ve used, Apple’s are the only ones that have taken me more time to unbox than to set up, and I find them far easier to maintain than any of those my friends get who ask me for help when they have issues. I’ve even gone so far as to buy a couple friends an AirPort Extreme so they’d quit “bothering” me. Before my first AirPort Extreme, I had tried a cheap-o one (LinkSys or D.Link or other), and I couldn’t get it working reliably after two days of off and on tinkering, and I’m very technically adept.