AirPort

AirPort is a discontinued line of wireless routers and network cards developed by Apple Inc. using Wi-Fi protocols. In Japan, the line of products was marketed under the brand AirMac due to previous registration by I-O Data. Apple introduced the AirPort line in 1999. Wireless cards were discontinued in 2009 following the Mac transition to Intel processors, after all of Apple's Mac products had adopted built-in Wi-Fi. Apple's line of wireless routers consisted of the AirPort Base Station (later AirPort Extreme); the AirPort Time Capsule, a variant with a built-in hard disk for automated backups; and the AirPort Express, a compact router. In 2018, Apple discontinued the AirPort line. The remaining inventory was sold off, and Apple later retailed routers from Linksys, Netgear, and Eero in Apple retail stores. Overview AirPort debuted in 1999, as "one more thing" at Macworld New York, with Steve Jobs surfing the web on an iBook using wireless internet technology for the very first time in a public demo of an Apple laptop. The initial offering consisted of an optional expansion card for Apple's new line of iBook notebooks and an AirPort Base Station. The AirPort card (a repackaged Lucent ORiNOCO Gold Card PC Card adapter) was later added as an option for almost all of Apple's product line, including PowerBooks, eMacs, iMacs, and Power Macs. Only Xserves did not have it as a standard or optional feature. The original AirPort system allowed transfer rates up to 11 Mbit/s and was commonly used to share Internet access and files between multiple computers.