Adventures with Apple's Time Capsule and Airport Extreme - less fun than it should be
Apple prides itself on ease of use – and I suppose, if one always uses the defaults they pick, Apple has achieved that goal. The Mac has proved remarkably reliable around here, especially after all those years with almost every release of Windows and the zillions of problems and hundreds of hours wasted due to complexity, unreliability, bad design, and just plain bugs. But Apple caters to the relatively-computer-unsophisticated residential and small-business user, and those of us used to low-level configuration of such items as APs and routers can get pretty frustrated with Apple’s own unique approach to configuration – as was the case when I recently configured a Time Capsule for the office, part of our traditional end-of-the-year upgrade, which, granted, started a little early this year, but there’s an awful lot to do.Time Capsule is essentially an AirPort Extreme router with a built-in hard drive, and is designed to be used as the primary router on a home or small-office network. It’s a good fit with Time Machine, Apple’s automatic backup service, which is why I bought it – that, plus I needed a 5 GHz. 802.11n AP for the Macs, as I wanted to keep the Apple and PC networks somewhat separate for a little while longer.Time Capsule is pretty easy to get running right out of the box – remove it from its typically-Apple novel packaging, plug in an Ethernet cable to one of the LAN ports (not the WAN port; I’m not using it as a router), download the latest AirPort Utility, and fire both up. The Utility found the Time Capsule right away, and even downloaded and installed the latest firmware with no actions on my part. Then the fun (or lack thereof) began.I found the setup process to be really confusing. I wanted just an AP – turn off the router, turn off DHCP, assign a static address, set SSID and wireless security, and that’s about it. It took several trys and resets to get even partway there; I still don’t have a static IP, but I suppose I don’t need one as configuration doesn’t involve the typical HTTP to the device – rather, Apple uses its own unique client (the above-mentioned Uitlity), on both Windows and the Mac. Good luck with Linux. I suppose I could read the manual, but that’s not going to happen. I don’t read manuals; if a product isn’t easy to use (albeit after some futzing) it goes back. Period. Anyway, the Time Capsule is now mostly working the way I want it to. I even figured out how to change radio channels (again, not obvious), and was further disappointed to see that the mid-band 5 GHz. channels aren’t supported. But, hey, it’s usable.I had a similar problem with the dual-radio Airport Extreme, which I’m using as a reference (with an Airport Express in bridge mode) in a testing project at present. There’s no way to shut off the 2.4 GHz. radio as near as I can tell. That’s not good, but, again, Apple assumes if you’re buying a dual-radio product, then you want to use both radios all the time. Wrong. And, worse, not to be able to configure the product in a manner similar to what’s possible on other similar devices is frustrating. Linksys does a particularly good job here, and it’s usually a breeze to get their wireless products working if one avoids the easy-setup app and proceeds directly to HTTP.In short, configuring Apple’s routers was probably the worst experience I’ve had bringing up an AP in recent years, and I’ve used literally dozens over the past almost two decades that I’ve been working in wireless. This does point out that a core, fundamental problem with the design of technology products continues – products can be designed for novices, or experienced users – but not both. I’ve argued for some time that the UI should not be part of a product, but rather should be an option, like a skin. That way it would be possible to make one product look like another, normalize a UI to what a given user wants or expects, and otherwise customize one’s use of a given product without having to experiment, fool around, try stuff, and otherwise waste a lot of time trying to understand what a given option really means (Apple is as bad as Microsoft when it comes to help files and such), or, the good lord forbid, actually have to read the manual.I hate to end the year on a sour note, so in the spirit of the season let’s assume Apple is trying and will eventually get it right. As for me, barring any exciting end-of-the-year announcements, I think this about wraps it up for Nearpoints for 2009. I’m about to settle into (as was mentioned above) our annual end-of-the-year-upgrade-the-network exercise, which this year, thankfully, won’t involve the core. Instead it’s three new servers, three new APs, cutover to the 27-inch iMac as my primary desktop, implement a new online backup and remote-access strategy, complete an upgrade to Salmon Run Studios, our media production facility (a corresponding upgrade to 1080p for our Wireless Media Facility is scheduled for 2010), and once again attempt to lessen the mess factor by tossing out precious print artifacts. If I get half of all that done I’ll be happy. Regardless, 2010 is almost here, and I must admit that I’m in a far better mood than I was this time last year. I’m looking forward to CES right off the bat, and then another exciting year in the best corner of all of high tech. So that’s it – I wish you and yours all the best for the holidays and the new year – see you in a couple of weeks.
