

Is the new Airport Express an iOS device? - mrsteveman1
http://infincia.com/blog/airport-express-ios-device

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spitfire
Whatever it is, it's worse.

The new one requires a power cable. The point of the express was that it's
entirely self contained. You could throw it in your bag and take it with you
on trips. Now you can't.

So it's just a crippled airport extreme.

~~~
whichdan
Well, it does have AirPlay.

~~~
sirn
Original AirPort Express also does.

Although I wish they could retain the old design, the extra LAN port and no
more artificial 5 clients limit is more than welcome.

~~~
gurkendoktor
10 clients limit, apparently. Thanks for mentioning this - I have had my AE
for a long time and never knew.

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wmf
This is pure uninformed speculation. Does the A5 even have PCIe or Ethernet?

~~~
mrsteveman1
All of the things the Airport Express needs to do are already being done by
the Apple TV, so the capability is there.

The only sticking point is perhaps that 2nd ethernet port, the Apple TV with
the A4/A5 seem to use a separate ethernet chip made by SMSC connected to the
processor via USB. As far as I know they don't support ethernet internally but
they may not need to either.

~~~
pieter
That would explain why the Ethernet ports are still 100mbit.

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runjake
Just nmap it? The OS fingerprinting will tell you.

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mrsteveman1
I got the device this morning, this is what Nmap says:

    
    
        Device type: general purpose
        Running: Apple NetBSD 4.X
        OS details: Apple AirPort Extreme WAP or Time Capsule NAS device (NetBSD 4.99)
    

I was not aware the Extreme and Time Capsule actually run NetBSD (interesting
as well), I assumed they were running the same basic platform the older
Express does:

    
    
        Running: Wind River VxWorks
        OS details: VxWorks
    

So there's a change here for sure, it's obvious this new device is more
capable but may still be running NetBSD. The Verge ran a story[1] a while back
suggesting they were porting Darwin to run on these things for the purpose of
replacing NetBsd, which is interesting.

[1] [http://www.theverge.com/2012/2/7/2782694/theres-no-secret-
pr...](http://www.theverge.com/2012/2/7/2782694/theres-no-secret-project-to-
port-os-x-to-arm-because-it-already-exists)

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iuguy
This post is simple blind conjecture based on the shape of the case. Apple
might have moved to iOS or might not. The Darwin core does support network
routing, but they wouldn't be able to market it as an iOS device without
paying a hefty chunk of cash to Cisco (who own the IOS trademark, licenced by
Apple).

I really dislike reading articles like this on HN. It's upvoted because it
looks like something new at first glance but has absolutely no data points and
is idle speculation. When someone confirms whether or not it _is_ an iOS
device I'm interested, but until then, forget it.

~~~
mrsteveman1
It's a curious observation, the shape of the case is the tipoff but it makes
sense if for no other reason than for the one listed in the article, Apple
wants to be using ARM+iOS wherever possible.

Apple TV isn't marketed as an iOS device either, they go out of their way to
call the firmware "Apple TV Software Updates". At one point the version
numbers on the firmware were even different than the iOS version they were
built on, it only matters internally.

An Apple TV with one more ethernet port would not only look almost identical,
but it would be almost functionally identical as well to the point that an
Apple TV could do the Aiport's job with the right software loaded.

They're also the same price already, we know they can sell this sort of
hardware for $99 if they want to, and it would probably be even cheaper as it
wouldn't need as much RAM, as much flash, a GPU or an HDMI port at all, nor
would it need the infrared remote receiver.

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joshu
He guesses it is iOS because the case is the same shape?

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Synaesthesia
Well it's a pretty good guess IMO. It's so small that it makes sense.

~~~
joshu
That is inane. How does the size matter to the OS?

I have a portable router that is radically smaller and lighter than an
appletv. It doesn't run iOS...

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Dobbs
> Why would Apple build an iOS router?

Sounds like a walking trademark lawsuit. IOS being a networking operating
system and all.

~~~
Synaesthesia
Sorry, I don't understand. Apple own the iOS trademark

~~~
jdsnape
I'm not sure how they've worked it out, but Cisco has a registered trademark
for IOS, which is their operating system for network equipment:
[http://www.cisco.com/en/US/products/ps6537/products_ios_sub_...](http://www.cisco.com/en/US/products/ps6537/products_ios_sub_category_home.html)

