The AirPort Product Line

The first Apple AirPort products, released in July 1999, implemented IEEE wireless standard 802.11b. The original AirPort products were the AirPort Card, AirPort Base Station (Graphite), and AirPort software.

Based on the 802.11g standard, AirPort Extreme, the second-generation line from Apple, was released in January 2003. It consists of the AirPort Extreme Card, two models of the AirPort Extreme Base Station, and updated AirPort software. In April 2004, Apple introduced a third member of the AirPort Extreme Base Station family, known as the AirPort Extreme Base Station (PoE/UL2043), that supports the new IEEE 802.3af Power over Ethernet specification.

In June 2004, Apple introduced the AirPort Express, a portable 802.11g device capable of acting as a base station and wirelessly streaming music from iTunes to standard stereo equipment.

AirPort devices communicate with other 802.11b and 802.11g devices with a range of up to 150 feet at 11 Mbit/s.

AirPort Express and AirPort Extreme products introduce these key features:

• Maximum 54 Mbit/s transfer rate

• Compatibility with 802.11b networks and 802.11g networks

• Tight security

• Wireless printer sharing

• Specific tailoring for Mac OS X for optimal speed and performance