802.11n

I saw an interesting tidbit of information when I found the announcement of a new Airport Extreme base station this morning... on the http://www.apple.com/airportextreme/performance.html page there's a footnote saying all Macs with Core 2 Duo or Xeon cpus except the education-iMac support 802.11n (though it looks like some extra software is needed to activate it).

Correct me if I'm wrong but this wasn't announced before was it? I see nothing in the MBP C2D specs about it for example.

Anyway, very interesting...

 

probly a missprint by them you would have to get the wireless n chipset what if you cheaped out and just got a g you wouldnt be able to get speeds of a n.

 

Rumour had it that the Core2Duo and Xeon macs came with a draft-n airport card that could be enabled with a firmware update. It seems that rumour was true. Now we just need to wait for the firmware update.

 

No, it's far more likely there are draft-n cards in all Core 2 Duo Macs but that the n-capability has not been announced.

 

Its not a misprint. The CD that comes with the new Airport Extreme has software that will enable the wireless card to support 802.11n speeds. I believe its some type of firmware update.

 

I don't want draft-n. I'll pass until it gets to real n. I'm just too weary of the problems with having a draft-n card being used with non draft-n cards.
But can it be upgraded to the final version of N?

 

No one will know until the spec becomes final.

 

According to the different wireless manufacturers, all Draft-N equipment should be upgradeable to the ratified N. I too want to wait, but it is very tempting. Look at it this way you know it will work with your Apple. Oh and yes all Core2Duo Macs have N cards in them.

 

That the new C2D machines had draft-n capable wireless was uncovered by curious members of the user community right after the machines came out. So we knew that the machines were capable of it, but didn't know when it would be activated. I think if you boot the machines into WinXP you can actually use draft-n, but I'm not sure.

 

Hmm. But Apple never let on that this was the case, at least not officially - until now.

Anyway, the new Airport Extreme is looking pretty nice. I like the Mac Mini form factor. No gigabit ethernet is weird though, but I have no particular need for that anyway. Might just get one of these... after the Macbook Pro

 

Nope. Doesn't work like that.

 

I too am a little confused by the lack of gigabit in the new extreme. I would probably have bought one if it had gigabit, but without it, the extreme is overpriced as usual.