Really apple, what's so difficult about this feature?

it should work EXACTLY the same as Time Capsule -the cost

Has anyone been able to get it to work properly???? my base station crashes everytime it starts to back up & disappears from view on all my machines, forcing me to reset it over & over

Since Apple now charges you for software updates like this, will they pay you when they disable this feature?

"before Apple updates again and takes out the feature"? Slightly hyperbolic, no? My guess is the only reason this feature goes away is if too many people complain about data loss. Even if it is an unsupported feature, the lawyers will probably tell them it is worth avoiding a class action lawsuit.

Still, it should be said that leaving it out was kind of a dick move on Apple's part, since they at one time promised this feature. Then again, it doesn't really bother me all that much because if you have another computer with OS X and time machine, you can mount any time machine volume using filesharing and back up to that device remotely, even if you don't have an Airport Extreme router in between. I've been doing this between my powerbook and iMac, and it has worked out quite well.

Why would Apple disable this feature? Maybe it is currently 'unsupported', but I can not imagine Apple backing off from this since so many people are using it.

Apple just wants people to spend the money on a Time Capsule, otherwise they would leave the firmware how it is.

How can Apple say it's "unsupported"? This doesn't sound right to me, see here: [www.apple.com] Apple is selling it that you can connect a printer AND a hard drive via USB hub through the Airport Extreme's USB port. I think this is wrong.

By the way I am so happy with the last Airport Extreme update. I used to have major issues with my AE stop broadcasting for no reason! I would have to do a restart about every hour or 2. Thank you Apple for fixing this (and now my VPN maintains with no cut outs!)

@Late_Night: Using a hard drive in the port isn't unsupported. Using a hard drive in the port and using Time Machine onto it is.

@Monty: Most likely to force people to buy the more expensive Time Capsule.

@Late_Night: How is that wrong? You can have a USB drive and a printer shared out via USB hub. Hell, I have two USB drives shared out using a hub.

It doesn't, however, mention Time Machine at all on that page - that might be where the "unsupported" claim comes from.

i dont think it will go away. before it was officially supported i had it running. it had some bugs and stopped working well as my drive filled up and this firmware fixed it. but i dont think it will go away.

@Jason Chen: I would like to apologize for my error on that part, I was wrong and took this the wrong way.

@Dunny0: I think you misunderstood what I was saying there. I was saying taking away support for hard drives (which is not what this article is saying, it's how I misunderstood it) is wrong. I was basing that on the fact on Apple's website they advocate using the a USB hub, I have no theoretical debate against USB Hubs.

My apologizes to all, I am part-German part-Ass.

It's okay, if it goes away I can just use my Time Machine to bring it back.

Though it didn't seem to work for my computer I defenestrated, it still won't work.

It's EXTREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEME

(Yeah, I didnt even read the article. I just wanted to do that.)

I love the way I use my computer, wireless internet form the router downstairs, and a portable mini external harddrive to tag along anywhere. Don't see why people would wanna make it so much more complicated. Seriously.

but why not the airport express? this seems like apple is just being stupid.

I thought macs JUST WORKED, right?? And I would associate that slogan with Apple products, correct?? I guess they're slogan is wrong then.

(Yes, I did copy my own comment from Engadget)

Are you fucking kidding me with this shit?!

They could have mentioned this 2 weeks ago when it was RELEASED! I wouldn't have even bothered.

Apple has really fucked up on this. If they would just tell us once and for all whether or not they can fix the AE to work with TM or not would be nice. They have been wishy washy since before Leopard came out. I'm sick of getting jerked around, they already got me to buy a router I didn't need.

Every time I see that picture, I immediately think of a SNES.

What the hell Apple -- you definitely screwed this one up.

If I connect a hard drive to an Airport Extreme, it appears on my desktop. Why in the world can't Time Machine use it correctly? It can't be a matter of disconnections -- because I can do that with a local hard drive as well.

Apple needs to fix this. They need to stop this totally lame excuse to push Time Capsule product unless they're planning to offer trade-ins to us folks that bought an Airport Extreme because we told it would work with Time Machine.

For the record, I've generally been disappointed in Time Machine. It has managed to already suck up 750GB of space (out of 1TB) in just a few months. It doesn't offer any way to prune the older backup data and I can't tell what the hell is using up all that space (because of the way the Finder looks at the drive. So I'm using a program that is extremely limited, I still can't back up my other Mac with it via my Airport Extreme -- I'm finding my backup option isn't quite so easy Apple.

Yeah, I'm now pissed.

Now that the feature is on, and seems to work for a good number of us, I guess removing it would be a great mistake in regards to their public image, and for the trust we could have in Apple making functional products that actually are useful.

I have to say it would be extremely (no pun) disappointing if they decided to "correct" this feature. We are a multi-wireless mac house with more than a few extra USB external drives (I do video), so I ran out and bought the less expensive Airport Extreme and a USB hub the day I found out about the Firmware update, because the Time Capsule was totally redundant with all those drives laying around. I thought "Finally.."
So now, after a few bumps in the road figuring out configuration settings, etc (I'm new to Airports, Airdisks anyway), I now have TWO External USB drives and a printer connected to a USB hub which is connected to the Airport, and it works pretty damn great. I run time machine to one drive, my girlfriend runs time machine to the other. We both print wirelessly and share files via Airdisk and it's awesome.
Also, it generates rainbows when it runs. Ok, the rainbows part is fake, but it really works great. Shame if they cut it off. LAME, if they cut it off.

Yeah, uh, I actually set my parents up with this because they already had a significant external disk for backups. Gar!

Worst case I'll just hook the drive up to one of their macs and leave it at that.