The Apple Ecosystem: A New Era of Smart Home Management

As I sit here thinking about my home network, I couldn't help but wonder what it would be like if Apple were to return to the smart home market. Specifically, I'm talking about their iconic Airport Extreme router, which was discontinued years ago. The idea of using the current Apple ecosystem to create a mesh network of devices that seamlessly integrate with each other is too appealing to ignore.

Imagine having an AirPort Extreme as your main hub, not just for Wi-Fi connectivity, but also as a smart device or a smart speaker powered by Siri. This device would be easy to use, with all the information you need right in front of you. You could pay off your entire balance, pay ahead, or simply enjoy your daily cashback rewards. The Apple approach is always more streamlined and user-friendly than their competitors.

But that's not all - I think what really gets me excited about this idea is the potential for a management app to manage your smart home. Just imagine being able to kick people off and on the router, share it with multiple devices, or add new iclouds as needed. It would be like having a mini-enterprise inside your house, all controlled from one easy-to-use interface.

The U1 and U2 chips in the HomePod Mini and HomePod could also play a crucial role in this system. With mesh networking becoming increasingly popular, especially for larger homes or apartments with concrete construction, these devices would make perfect mesh points. Just imagine being able to buy an Airport Extreme and instantly having it work as part of your home's network, without any hassle.

One feature that I think would be particularly useful is the ability to add a wired connection to certain parts of the house. This could be achieved by adding an Ethernet port to the HomePod Mini, allowing users to plug in their devices and get a stable, high-speed connection. This would make sense, especially for those who value reliability over wireless connectivity.

Of course, this is just speculation at this point - there's no concrete evidence that Apple plans to return to the smart home market anytime soon. But I firmly believe that if they do, it could be something revolutionary. The idea of using the current Apple ecosystem to create a seamless, integrated network of devices is too compelling to ignore.

As someone who still uses Apple's legacy equipment, such as the discontinued three-terabyte Time Capsule, I think it would be foolish not to bring back these products. They're reliable, secure, and work seamlessly - what more could you ask for? And for a new generation of users who may not have had much interest in routers before, this could be an exciting opportunity.

In conclusion, while there's no concrete evidence that Apple plans to return to the smart home market, I believe that this concept is worth exploring. The idea of using the current Apple ecosystem to create a mesh network of devices that seamlessly integrate with each other is too appealing to ignore. Who knows - maybe one day we'll see an Airport Extreme or similar device become part of our daily lives.

For now, let's just imagine what could be possible. If you're as excited about this idea as I am, leave a comment below and share your thoughts. And if you want to check out the original tweet and blog post that inspired this article, click on the links provided at the end.

If you enjoyed this video, don't forget to like, subscribe, and hit that notification bell. New content is coming soon, so be sure to stay tuned. In the meantime, I'm Fernando, and that's all for today - see you in the next video!

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enso comment below if you're old enough to remember in 2007 when Apple released the Airport Extreme which was Apple's wireless router to enable wireless connectivity inside the home or the office and then also had some print and storage server capabilities in there but then in 2016 Apple discontinued it in 2018 took it off the shelves completely and didn't really tell us why they got out of the wireless router game but Parker ortolani wanted to Envision what it would look like for Apple to create another airport in 2023 or 2024 and see how it fits in today's home kit and smart home landscape and I think it makes perfect sense let's talk about this render and exactly why it makes sense to bring the airport back in the Apple ecosystem let's get into it of the four big players when it comes to Smart Home connectivity the four being Samsung with their smart things then you have Amazon with Alexa then you have obviously Google home and Google assistant and then finally apple with Siri and apple homekit and I'll say that Apple was probably in last place for a good while in terms of how robust their connectivity was What accessories they supported what their protocol was and and I was one of those people that even though I was in the Apple ecosystem about four or five years ago I was in the smart home ecosystem of Google and Google home and Google Assistant because it just made the most sense it had the most accessories it was the most palatable at the time in terms of how easy it was to use but slowly but surely just how Apple always continues to do it they let other people figure it out first and then they bring it in and implement it the apple way and make it work perfectly inside of the Apple ecosystem and one great example is this is when Apple released iOS 16.3 just last week and they brought new features into their homepod mini accessory without even having to buy any new hardware they just flipped a switch on a two-year-old device and all of a sudden you had a humidity sensor and a temperature sensor without needing to have a smart thermostat in the actual room or in the home or in the office and you're seeing this more and more apple is creating this interconnectivity in this web and this mesh Network without us even noticing right you have your Apple TV 4K which talks to everything all the home pods including the new homepod which is about to release and drop this week you also have all of your Apple devices like your iOS iPad OS and Mac OS devices all talking to each other inside of its own little Network inside of its iCloud account and even that when it comes to Services standpoint everything just continues to stack up on each other to make the experience that much more seamless so when Parker put out these renders of a new AirPort Extreme in what it would look like in 2023 it just makes absolute perfect sense so he envisioned a new router that kind of looks and maybe has some features of a homepod so it looks like it has a speaker on the bottom it has the plus minus volume controls on the volume rocker on top with a ton sensitive control that has some sort of LED LCD or OLED panel to let you know what's going on so maybe there's different colors for different situations and different ambiances maybe when Siri is talking you have the multi-color look very similar to the homepod but again it is a wireless router as well the idea here is kind of simple it's to now that we have this home kit and a home app and everything talking to each other to use this AirPort Extreme or this new version of it to kind of bring everything together in your home or at the office so in this what he envisions is having the ability to have Wi-Fi 6E which makes total sense not the Mac Mini and the MacBook Pros have Wi-Fi 6E and there is rumors that the iPhone 15 is gonna have Wi-Fi 6E so that's just a new protocol that needs to be adopted and supported obviously it's going to work directly with Siri and all of your home pods as well it's going to have iCloud private relay built in right there and then also with Apple's new end-to-end encryption of all of iCloud and not just iMessage it makes even more sense from a security standpoint because I'm sure Apple got out of the Wi-Fi game because there's a lot of security protocols a lot of liability when it comes to using a router and making sure that the internet connectivity at your home or the office is as safe and secure as possible so now adding all these security measures as Apple has been doing over the past few years it just kind of makes more sense that apple is now ready to get back into the router and the Wi-Fi game essentially but of course this would continue to have support for matter accessories which is another new protocol which is supposedly going to open up the door to a lot of new accessories you know I haven't really played with much of the matter stuff yet but I'm sure it's going to help a lot and then just how Apple does it I'm sure the setup is going to be Flawless and simple you know the same way that you set up your airpods the same way that you set up your new computer when you transfer everything over very simply when you set up your new iPhone or your new Apple watch it's done very intuitively and very easily so I'm sure Apple's going to bring that over and then also Imagine an application that Apple creates natively to manage your Wi-Fi right imagine how nice it's going to be I mean if you're an Apple car user you saw how easy and how nicely Apple brought over how it is to manage an actual credit card versus when you compare it to all the other bigger and more Legacy actual providers of credit cards they make everything so complicated versus on the Apple side like this is the minimum you can pay this is to pay off your entire balance and this is to pay ahead this is your daily cashback everything's right in front of your face and very easy to use so imagine a management app to use on a new AirPort Extreme it's going to be easy imagine seeing your upload and download speeds in real time which I know is already done but imagine it the apple way inside of homekit or inside of the home application be able to kick people off and on the router be able to share it with as many people as you want with as many different iclouds as you want so I can just imagine Apple kind of going full tilt on a management application to manage your smart home almost like it's a you know almost like it's a mini Enterprise inside of your house and then the biggest feature which I think makes the most sense is using the U1 and the U2 chips inside of the homepod minis and the home pods and a lot of these home pods will be mesh points throughout an entire house now I personally live in an apartment so mesh network isn't really as appealing to me because my router reaches every corner of the apartment but if you live in a larger house that has a basement and a second floor or if you live in an apartment complex that's built out of complete Concrete where it's a lot harder for the Wi-Fi signal to get through then a mesh networks makes complete sense and would be even easier if all you have to do was buy the Airport Extreme and then all of a sudden every home product that you own inside the house becomes its own mesh Point inside of the house so you don't have to do anything at all one thing that I would be curious about is how big those ranges would be how far I would reach and then also if Apple would maybe sell a modified homepod mini where it has an Ethernet port on the back of it so let's say somebody wants a hard wire into the actual mesh Network point which is on pod mini which I know is something that Google used to do with their mesh Network which actually isn't really that good and that's coming from experience but adding an Ethernet that ports of the homepod mini would make some sense in order to make sure that you get a wired connection to certain points of the house so in conclusion yes this is only a concept yes there is no real rumor or leak or anything like that that indicates that Apple's going to be getting back into this product category when it comes to ethernet and Wi-Fi and routers and all that good stuff but this concept just got me thinking that it makes a lot of sense like use the current Apple ecosystem around you to create these mesh Network points to make it easy for people to connect to a high speed Wi-Fi be able to have an AirPort Extreme as your main Hub that also acts as a smart device or a smart speaker that's all powered by Siri it's all managed from an application inside of the home app and can just be updated alongside of your iOS updates and your iPad OS updates in my opinion it just makes sense maybe they'll create something like this where there's also maybe a dock for let's say an iPhone or a dock for an iPad to wirelessly charge and then that becomes kind of like your nest Hub equivalent or something like that all things that are possible with if Apple does decide to go into the airport extreme if Apple does decide to go back into this product category but for now there is no real leak or rumor or inkling that that's going to happen but we can all dream and discuss in the comments down below if this is something that you would get do you miss the Airport Extreme I know that I wrote an article which I'll link down below a lot of people still use Apple's Legacy equipment that has a three terabytes built in to be able to use as a time machine backup and these were discontinued back in 2018 and now they aren't even supported at this point five years later so if people are still using them because they are very reliable and secure and they work and they make sense I don't see why Apple wouldn't bring this back especially for a new generation of people that before it didn't care about routers and now somebody like myself actually does but that's gonna do it for this video if you did enjoy it leave it a dolphin in the comments down below so I know you made it to the end I'm gonna link Parker's information down below if you guys want to check out the original tweet and his blog post but that's gonna do it everybody if you guys want to watch more iPad OS Mac OS or iOS content click on one of these right here but until next time I'm Fernando and I'm out of here everybody peaceso comment below if you're old enough to remember in 2007 when Apple released the Airport Extreme which was Apple's wireless router to enable wireless connectivity inside the home or the office and then also had some print and storage server capabilities in there but then in 2016 Apple discontinued it in 2018 took it off the shelves completely and didn't really tell us why they got out of the wireless router game but Parker ortolani wanted to Envision what it would look like for Apple to create another airport in 2023 or 2024 and see how it fits in today's home kit and smart home landscape and I think it makes perfect sense let's talk about this render and exactly why it makes sense to bring the airport back in the Apple ecosystem let's get into it of the four big players when it comes to Smart Home connectivity the four being Samsung with their smart things then you have Amazon with Alexa then you have obviously Google home and Google assistant and then finally apple with Siri and apple homekit and I'll say that Apple was probably in last place for a good while in terms of how robust their connectivity was What accessories they supported what their protocol was and and I was one of those people that even though I was in the Apple ecosystem about four or five years ago I was in the smart home ecosystem of Google and Google home and Google Assistant because it just made the most sense it had the most accessories it was the most palatable at the time in terms of how easy it was to use but slowly but surely just how Apple always continues to do it they let other people figure it out first and then they bring it in and implement it the apple way and make it work perfectly inside of the Apple ecosystem and one great example is this is when Apple released iOS 16.3 just last week and they brought new features into their homepod mini accessory without even having to buy any new hardware they just flipped a switch on a two-year-old device and all of a sudden you had a humidity sensor and a temperature sensor without needing to have a smart thermostat in the actual room or in the home or in the office and you're seeing this more and more apple is creating this interconnectivity in this web and this mesh Network without us even noticing right you have your Apple TV 4K which talks to everything all the home pods including the new homepod which is about to release and drop this week you also have all of your Apple devices like your iOS iPad OS and Mac OS devices all talking to each other inside of its own little Network inside of its iCloud account and even that when it comes to Services standpoint everything just continues to stack up on each other to make the experience that much more seamless so when Parker put out these renders of a new AirPort Extreme in what it would look like in 2023 it just makes absolute perfect sense so he envisioned a new router that kind of looks and maybe has some features of a homepod so it looks like it has a speaker on the bottom it has the plus minus volume controls on the volume rocker on top with a ton sensitive control that has some sort of LED LCD or OLED panel to let you know what's going on so maybe there's different colors for different situations and different ambiances maybe when Siri is talking you have the multi-color look very similar to the homepod but again it is a wireless router as well the idea here is kind of simple it's to now that we have this home kit and a home app and everything talking to each other to use this AirPort Extreme or this new version of it to kind of bring everything together in your home or at the office so in this what he envisions is having the ability to have Wi-Fi 6E which makes total sense not the Mac Mini and the MacBook Pros have Wi-Fi 6E and there is rumors that the iPhone 15 is gonna have Wi-Fi 6E so that's just a new protocol that needs to be adopted and supported obviously it's going to work directly with Siri and all of your home pods as well it's going to have iCloud private relay built in right there and then also with Apple's new end-to-end encryption of all of iCloud and not just iMessage it makes even more sense from a security standpoint because I'm sure Apple got out of the Wi-Fi game because there's a lot of security protocols a lot of liability when it comes to using a router and making sure that the internet connectivity at your home or the office is as safe and secure as possible so now adding all these security measures as Apple has been doing over the past few years it just kind of makes more sense that apple is now ready to get back into the router and the Wi-Fi game essentially but of course this would continue to have support for matter accessories which is another new protocol which is supposedly going to open up the door to a lot of new accessories you know I haven't really played with much of the matter stuff yet but I'm sure it's going to help a lot and then just how Apple does it I'm sure the setup is going to be Flawless and simple you know the same way that you set up your airpods the same way that you set up your new computer when you transfer everything over very simply when you set up your new iPhone or your new Apple watch it's done very intuitively and very easily so I'm sure Apple's going to bring that over and then also Imagine an application that Apple creates natively to manage your Wi-Fi right imagine how nice it's going to be I mean if you're an Apple car user you saw how easy and how nicely Apple brought over how it is to manage an actual credit card versus when you compare it to all the other bigger and more Legacy actual providers of credit cards they make everything so complicated versus on the Apple side like this is the minimum you can pay this is to pay off your entire balance and this is to pay ahead this is your daily cashback everything's right in front of your face and very easy to use so imagine a management app to use on a new AirPort Extreme it's going to be easy imagine seeing your upload and download speeds in real time which I know is already done but imagine it the apple way inside of homekit or inside of the home application be able to kick people off and on the router be able to share it with as many people as you want with as many different iclouds as you want so I can just imagine Apple kind of going full tilt on a management application to manage your smart home almost like it's a you know almost like it's a mini Enterprise inside of your house and then the biggest feature which I think makes the most sense is using the U1 and the U2 chips inside of the homepod minis and the home pods and a lot of these home pods will be mesh points throughout an entire house now I personally live in an apartment so mesh network isn't really as appealing to me because my router reaches every corner of the apartment but if you live in a larger house that has a basement and a second floor or if you live in an apartment complex that's built out of complete Concrete where it's a lot harder for the Wi-Fi signal to get through then a mesh networks makes complete sense and would be even easier if all you have to do was buy the Airport Extreme and then all of a sudden every home product that you own inside the house becomes its own mesh Point inside of the house so you don't have to do anything at all one thing that I would be curious about is how big those ranges would be how far I would reach and then also if Apple would maybe sell a modified homepod mini where it has an Ethernet port on the back of it so let's say somebody wants a hard wire into the actual mesh Network point which is on pod mini which I know is something that Google used to do with their mesh Network which actually isn't really that good and that's coming from experience but adding an Ethernet that ports of the homepod mini would make some sense in order to make sure that you get a wired connection to certain points of the house so in conclusion yes this is only a concept yes there is no real rumor or leak or anything like that that indicates that Apple's going to be getting back into this product category when it comes to ethernet and Wi-Fi and routers and all that good stuff but this concept just got me thinking that it makes a lot of sense like use the current Apple ecosystem around you to create these mesh Network points to make it easy for people to connect to a high speed Wi-Fi be able to have an AirPort Extreme as your main Hub that also acts as a smart device or a smart speaker that's all powered by Siri it's all managed from an application inside of the home app and can just be updated alongside of your iOS updates and your iPad OS updates in my opinion it just makes sense maybe they'll create something like this where there's also maybe a dock for let's say an iPhone or a dock for an iPad to wirelessly charge and then that becomes kind of like your nest Hub equivalent or something like that all things that are possible with if Apple does decide to go into the airport extreme if Apple does decide to go back into this product category but for now there is no real leak or rumor or inkling that that's going to happen but we can all dream and discuss in the comments down below if this is something that you would get do you miss the Airport Extreme I know that I wrote an article which I'll link down below a lot of people still use Apple's Legacy equipment that has a three terabytes built in to be able to use as a time machine backup and these were discontinued back in 2018 and now they aren't even supported at this point five years later so if people are still using them because they are very reliable and secure and they work and they make sense I don't see why Apple wouldn't bring this back especially for a new generation of people that before it didn't care about routers and now somebody like myself actually does but that's gonna do it for this video if you did enjoy it leave it a dolphin in the comments down below so I know you made it to the end I'm gonna link Parker's information down below if you guys want to check out the original tweet and his blog post but that's gonna do it everybody if you guys want to watch more iPad OS Mac OS or iOS content click on one of these right here but until next time I'm Fernando and I'm out of here everybody peace\n"