Apple users know what it’s like to buy a product for its potential rather than its current value. New Mac owners waited nearly a year to see a significant number of products make use of the speedy Thunderbolt ports built into their hardware. Now the waiting game has begun with next-generation wireless networking.
Buffalo’s 802.11ac AirStation WZR-D1800H router, which shipped this week to retailers across the country, is so bleeding edge that no products can yet take advantage of its theoretical max transfer speed of 1.3 Gbps. Most of your Wi-Fi-enabled gadgets–including your MacBook and iPad–top out at 802.11n, which is currently the fastest Wi-Fi bandwidth available. The IEEE is still ratifying the 11ac standard, and we won’t start to see compatible devices until it’s legitimized. We expect the rollout of 11ac to gain momentum after Cisco and Netgear release competing routers later this year, but until then you might be wondering if it’s worthwhile to invest in the technology early.
To answer that question, let’s look at what the AirStation offers. It’s a gigabit dual band wireless router that supports up to four ethernet-connected devices, as well as one USB device for network sharing. It’s also backwards compatible with previous Wi-Fi standards, though you won’t see high speeds if you’re on a device that tops out at the low end of the spectrum (an older laptop, for instance, may only be 802.11g-capable).
Although 802.11ac boasts a maximum speed of 1,750 Mbps, the current standard supports just half that. However, Buffalo has future-proofed the AirStation by packing in both 802.11ac and 802.11n technologies. So for now you can enjoy the benefits of the current Wi-Fi standard while preparing for the 11ac-compatible devices that will emerge in several months.
So, should you consider buying Buffalo’s 802.11ac router now, even though nothing currently takes advantage of its higher speeds? Yes. You’ll be ready for what’s to come, and it couldn’t hurt for AirPlay streaming either. We can’t fully endorse this particular 11ac router until we get the chance to test it here at Mac|Life HQ, but you can bet that we’ll have a thorough review for you soon.
Who knew “jailbreak” could be considered a dirty word? Apparently someone at Apple thought so, which is why the word was censored from the iTunes Store for the better part of Wednesday night and Thursday. Everything is back to normal now, but the hacker community sure got a kick out of it while the fun lasted. So what else is making news today? Glad you asked. Read on for everything else this Thursday, May 17, 2012 has to offer.
One can only imagine that the word “jailbreak” is spoken in hushed tones up in Cupertino, given that Apple has made it clear it doesn’t appreciate users hacking their iOS devices. But would they go so far as to censor the word from iTunes? According to MacRumors, that’s exactly what happened earlier today, at least in the U.S. iTunes Store. Everywhere the word “jailbreak” appeared — whether it was in songs or TV shows or apps — Apple replaced with “j*******k” instead. While the censoring appears to have kicked in late Wednesday and persisted throughout much of the day, Apple appears to have finally caught on and has since corrected the gaffe, much to the glee of Thin Lizzy fans everywhere, we’re sure.
There’s little doubt that the iPad is a formidable opponent, but most of its competitors on the Android have pockets deep enough to keep fighting the uphill battle. The same cannot be said for Plastic Logic, the U.K. company infamous for ditching its QUE proReader tablet before it even shipped to stores. According to Engadget, the whole dream has now died, with the company closing its U.S. office in Mountain View, California and axing around 40 jobs there, while also pruning staff at offices in merry old England, Germany and Russia. While Plastic Logic has killed its hopes of launching tablets and e-readers of its own, the company appears to be ready to continue supplying screens to other companies, including their new flexible color e-reader display that sounds awfully cool.
It’s kind of sad that in 2012, contract-free mobile broadband still seems so hard to come by. The big U.S. carriers would rather bait you with cheap hardware and a two-year commitment, but leave it to T-Mobile to mix things up a bit. The fourth-placed U.S. carrier announced today four new “No Annual Contract” mobile broadband passes which offer “a pay-in-advance, overage-free solution” with an allotment of data to fit most every user. For the occasional user, will buy you a one-week pass with up to 300MB, while one-month passes are available in , and amounts which nets you 1.5GB, 3.5GB and 5GB, respectively. The new plans roll out Sunday, May 20 at T-Mobile retail stores, select dealers, national retailers and online, but you’ll need to grab your own device to take advantage of it — which includes a variety of 4G Mobile Hotspots, laptop sticks and connected tablets such as the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1.
According to Business Insider, Hewlett-Packard appears ready to jettison up to 32,000 employees from its workforce next week in what one source calls a “massive” layoff. The news isn’t exactly a secret, with CEO Meg Whitman having already gone on record that such layoffs were under consideration. A source claims the HP cuts could trim between 10 to 15 percent of its workforce, which currently stands at 320,000 strong worldwide. At the lower end of that spectrum, 10 percent would amount to 32,000 jobs lost, although it’s unlikely that HP would make such a huge cut in one fell swoop, but rather make smaller cuts to bleed out over time. Employees in manufacturing appear to have less to worry about than their co-workers, but any way you slice, this could be quite ugly for the tech world.
Speaking of getting the axe, Verizon Wireless issued a statement to The New York Times on yesterday’s story about grandfathered unlimited data plans going away this sunny summer. Seems as if there’s a bit more to it than that: “Customers will not be automatically moved to new shared data plans,” the carrier notes. “If a 3G or 4G smartphone customer is on an unlimited plan now and they do not want to change their plan, they will not have to do so.” That said, when the new shared data plans arrive, “Unlimited Data will no longer be available to customers when purchasing handsets at discounted pricing” — although customers who purchase phones at full retail price and “are on an unlimited smartphone data plan will be able to keep that plan.” Translation: Unlimited data is still going to die, but it’s going to take some time for Verizon to cleanse its junkies of that bad habit.
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There are plenty of iOS apps for forecasting the weather, but few of them carry the weight of The Weather Channel itself — and now the cable channel’s own App Store entry has received a slick update, at least for the free version.
The Weather Channel has announced the availability of a major redesign of its iOS app for the iPhone and iPod touch. Available today in the App Store, The Weather Channel version 5.0 offers a simpler user interface and a visually stunning design for a more personal weather experience.
“Our new app is more relevant — whether it’s showing a beautiful image that displays your local weather or allowing you to save your own personalized home screen image, it’s more about the weather and content that matters to each consumer,” said Cameron Clayton, executive vice president of digital product at The Weather Channel companies. “We’ve made changes based on consumer feedback to engage users through a deeper and more emotional weather experience.”
The update, which borrows a lot of style from the iPad-specific version, marks the first major redesign of the app since 2009, featuring an immediate view of weather conditions that conveys the feel of the weather and offers increased personalization and social integration with iWitness, Twitter, Facebook and email.
The only problem with the new version is that The Weather Channel isn’t saying anything about its paid, ad-free version, The Weather Channel Max, which has yet to receive the new coat of paint. That means weather junkies will have to choose between a slick new design populated by ads, or the tired old UI without them. Here’s hoping TWC will rectify the situation soon for its paid app users!
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