MC207LL/A - K84 BEST BTR- USA
MC238LL/A - MAC MINI 2.26/2x1GB/160/SD/AP/BT-USA
MC239LL/A- MAC MINI 2.53/2x2GB/320GB/SD/AP/BT-USA
MC340LL/A - AIRPORT EXTREME (SIM DUALBAND) - USA
MC343LL/A - TIME CAPSULE 1TB (SIM DUALBAND) -USA
MC344LL/A - TIME CAPSULE 2TB (SIM DUALBAND) - USA
MC408LL/A - MAC MINI 2.53/2x2GB/1TB/NO ODD/AP-BT-USA
MC413LL/A - IMAC 21.5"/3.06/2x2GB/1TB/4670-256MB-USA
MC434LL/A - APPLE VESA MOUNT ADAPTER
MC461LL/A - MACBOOK 60W MAGSAFE POWER ADAPTER - USA

K84 Best BTR? Sounds like a new Bluetooth Keyboard. SIM dualband? Are the AirPort and Time Capsules tying in with cellphones? Apple VESA mount adapter? Since when Apple does that kind of accessory?

The new products will not be earth-shattering material—Apple won't announce anything wowiezowie without an event—but I'm curious about the whole SIM dualband thing.

Update: MacRumors claims that the ""MC207LL/A" product is a MacBook running at 2.26 GHz with a 250 GB hard drive and 2 GB of 1066 MHz DDR3 RAM." They say this is unconfirmed, though. [AppleInsider and MacRumors]

For the end user, this means a few things. As expected, the dual-band feature broadcasts on both 2.4GHz (802.11b/g/n) and 5GHz (802.11a/n) frequencies, allowing client devices to connect to whichever standard suits them without forcing the whole access point one way or the other. In other words, different devices could be connected to both g and n network simultaneously.

Guest Networking is a clever feature that essentially sets up a walled, parallel hotspot that provides only internet access, keeping the rest of your network private from connected usersperfect if you share your wi-fi with neighbors, or just run a particularly promiscuous access point.

Otherwise, the AirPort Extreme and Time Capsule are almost exactly the sameTime Capsule storage options remain at 500GB and 1TB, for which the prices stay at $300 and $500, respectively. The AirPort Extreme still hovers at a lofty $180, a blow only slightly mitigated by the new features. Both are shipping right now, to the rich. [Apple]

Rumors of new, extra-wireless Time Capsule and Airport units popped onto our radar earlier this morning, following a serious markdown of the existing Time Capsule model. This came just after a picture of the purported new Mac Mini's packaginga product update that is not only long-overdue, but that has been the subject of a veritable slew of leaks in the last few weeks. All this comes on the heals of a weakly-sourced (but tantalizingly plausible) rumor of a March product update.

Moving on the the heftier products, MacRumors posted a "last minute" spec leak a few hours ago, which details incremental upgrades and price adjustments for the Mac Mini, iMac and Mac Pro. None of purported upgrades are going to blow your socks off, but a Nehalem-based Mac Pro and $100-cheaper, better-equipped Mac Mini would be more than welcome. At posting time the store is still down, but we'll let you know if any of this materializes. Thanks, Chang (and the other 235 of you, too)!

Currently, existing models can only run in b/g support mode at 2.4GHz or n wide signal mode (5GHz) at one time, providing either a large range of compatibility or high network performance. But FCC filings seem to suggest that the new Apple products will have a "combined mode" for running both. This probably means they'll do what makers like Linksys have been doing for a long time, that is use two antennas. [Apple Insider]

Network-attached storage options are more abundant than ever, but jumping into the copious bush of NAS can be quite a task, especially if you want a system that plays nice with both PC and Mac. Macs have historically been an unreasonably complex challenge for many networking products, and NAS was no exception. Here I've assessed the usefulness of three different cash-conscious strategies for setting up a Mac-and-PC-friendly NAS: Building a NAS out of an old PC, using a router with an external USB drive and buying a dedicated product.

Maybe you're wondering why you need a NAS at all. The answer is that you have too much stuff to not have one. How do I know? Because even my parents have a billion photos on their hard drive, and they know nothing of BitTorrent and Handbrake. An NAS sits there in a corner, a blinking, quietly purring guardian of all those song, video and photo files. It holds it all, streams it to just about anything else on the network, and even keeps a redundant copy safe on a separate mirrored RAID drive in case the shit really hits the fan. So yeah, you need one.

Here are the three systems I pieced together:
" My DIY system was concocted using FreeNAS software and an older ThinkPad I had lying around. This was technically the cheapest of the bunch.
" My router-based system was an AirPort Extreme with attached WD and LaCie USB drives, which was also "recycling" but cost a bit more.
" The dedicated NAS appliance I tested was a two-drive Synology DS207+, $330 for the box but the drives themselves are sold separately.

To evaluate the usefulness of each financial step up, I used three main criteria: Overall performance, availability of redundant data via RAID 1, and whether it's possible to add in features like media streaming, remote access or integrated BitTorrent.

In a mixed Mac/Windows environment, the main performance factor for Macs is support for Apple File Protocol for connecting network shares. AFP support is becoming more and more common in nicer NAS rigs, but it is still not a given in the cheaper range—every NAS alive supports SMB/CIFS, the more Windows-friendly protocol, so PCs generally don't have a problem. While Macs can connect to NAS using SMBand also NFS Unix, which you may also run acrossperformance wise, OS X's SMB implementation is still shoddy compared to the apparently seamless AFP. (SMB also includes foibles such as filename length restrictions that can throw a Mac into fits.) If you're using an NAS to its highest potential, moving a lot of data around, SMB will cause more spinning death wheels and system hangs in OS X than AFP will.

It's up to you whether you want to go RAID 1 or not—you can also merge or stripe the drives for more storage but less protection. For me, redundancy is a must. I want to be able to give a NAS's drives a workout and still breathe easy in the not entirely unlikely event of a drive blow-out. NAS add-ons like BitTorrent, remote access and integrated UPnP are nice higher-end features, but they may not be as important to you.

DIY NAS With FreeNAS
I took an old IBM ThinkPad X31 I had lying around and installed FreeNAS—an open-source operating system based on FreeBSD that is similar to the OS you'll find in most NAS boxes. It offers similar features like RAID if the machine it's installed on has multiple drives, and can do UPnP, FTP access and the like via a web-based admin panel just like most dedicated rigs.

Initial installation is actually not too tough—just burn the FreeNAS live CD and boot it, then follow the install instructions. FreeNAS will re-format your drives to the somewhat obscure UFS file system it prefers (don’t try to run it on already-formatted drives, it’s not worth the immense hassle). I was up and running with AFP and SMB sharing without too much sweat. Like Linux, FreeNAS runs on a ton of hardware, so unless you’ve got something obscure you’ll likely be in business.Verdict: If you're heavy on outdated PCs and you derive pleasure from thrift and tinkering, you should give FreeNAS a try. That said, don't expect your pig in lipstick to be a screamer. Most aging desktops would be an improvement over my 5-year-old laptop with its slow 2.5” disk, obviously, but even considering that, my real-world tests were pretty rough. Browsing large folders of files hung the system on numerous occasions, and streaming of video files (especially seeking) was choppy. As far as extras go, my PS3 recognized FreeNAS's UPnP server but could not read any media, which would probably take some serious hackery to diagnose. Extras like an integrated BitTorrent client are available as well as open-source add-ons, but again, expect some heavy tinkering. Still, if you have unused hardware, try this option first.

Total Cost: Free, ideally; factor in $150 bucks for a few new drives.

Router with Shared External USB Drive
I've had bad luck in my previous, brief attempts at attaching USB storage to routers—rough performance and dropped connections abounded. This was with a few older non-Apple 802.11g routers, but naturally, I assumed the AirPort Extreme base station's AirPort Disk feature for connecting external drives was going to suck as bad. I was wrong.

Verdict: In day-to-day use for media storing, sharing and streaming, the AirPort Disk works pretty much without a hitch. I connected both a WD MyBook Mirror with RAID 1 and an older LaCie 300GB single-disk drive. In both cases, setup took literally 15 seconds after plugging in the drivethere are only a few config options to deal with in the AirPort Utility app to set access controlsand after that, it appeared as a shared volume source on Windows machines and Macs automatically. Browsing files and loading music in iTunes loaded without any noticeable difference from when my library was connected via USB, and streaming large video files to a PS3 with UPnP was skip-free.

Total Cost: $200 WD MyBook Mirror 1TB + $165 for AirPort Extreme on Amazon, so you're looking at $365. Chances are, you already have a USB drive and maybe even the AirPort, so the cost goes down considerably. (I do recommend acquiring a RAID 1 dual-drive, though.) Keep in mind, part of this sunk cost includes a solid 802.11n router, which you need anyway. There are, of course, several other 802.11n routers from the networking biggies that offer a USB connection for sharing. If you've had a good experience with any of these when connecting via both PCs and Macs, let us know in the comments.

Dedicated NAS
A ready-to-go NAS is the most obvious choice for adding network storage, but it can also be the most perilous. Go too cheap, and your box probably won’t support the Mac-tastic AFP. And even if it does, its performance may still be under par and its add-on features may not be good enough to warrant the added expense.

One of the most affordable AFP-equipped, well-reviewed NAS devices is the Synology DS207+ which, at $330 before you even buy the drives, isn't cheap at all. (If you don't have some drives lying around, the total cost will approach $500.) I picked it because, according to NAS aficionados like the folks at Small Network Builder with their handy NAS Charts, it yielded the best value in what I was looking for. Above the improved compatibility, it throws in tasty perks like a BitTorrent manager for downloading directly to the NAS, UPnP for streaming to a compatible TV or PS3, and a nice web-based control interface you can access from anywhere.
Verdict: Performance was the sour note here, surprisingly. While a large file transfer took roughly same amount of time as it did on the other configurations, doing things that required many quick reads, like opening my iTunes music folder with thousands of artist subfolders in Finder, took days on either a MacBook Pro via AFP, or a PS3 via UPnP. Using iTunes to locate the source MP3 file of a song playing hung up the Finder for so long it crashed. Loading a photo library in Aperture or Lightroom was equally painful, with frequent stalls.

I shouldn’t fully write-off an unseen quirk with my particular network setup. The folks at Synology thought everything sounded kosher, but did point out that the AirPort Extreme router I used for testing does not support jumbo frames (a way of optimizing gigabit ethernet traffic) so some gains could be reaped there with a different router. Also, much of my testing was done over 802.11g—browsing on a wireless N connection may fare better, although slowness was apparent on both the PS3 and my laptop when both were connected via gigabit ethernet, which should be blazing.

Dedicated NAS systems do provide extras such as UPnP, remote access via FTP or SSH, a built-in web server, and more. Still, your computer can already handle those just as well. With the drive attached as a network volume, your computer can act as the conduit even if it’s got nothing stored locally, serving media via a local UPnP server (like Tversity for Windows or MediaLink for OS X) and giving remote access to a local drive. A built-in Torrent client is the one I could see being useful, so if you’re a heavy Torrenter, consider that.

Total Cost: $330 for the NAS + approximately $160 (2 x 500GB drive) = $490. Yes, you can go cheaper (especially if you only need a single drive), but you will likely lose the Mac's AFP speed advantage.

Final Verdict
The quickest and simplest route out of the three is definitely an AirPort Disk, and it’s also, somewhat surprisingly, a performance winner in my real-world testing. Still, on a different network setupif your primary machines are wired, for instancethe results could swing heavily back toward a dedicated box like the DS207+, so this isn't to say dedicated rigs should be written off completely. It’s important to pick the best performing NAS for your setup, but do it while sticking to our strategy: Start by spending as little as possible; if you’re unsatisfied, move up in baby steps.

And yes, Windows-only networks don’t have to jump through quite so many hoops when it comes to network storage, since SMB/CIFS support is the default in low-cost boxes, which works just fine in a Windows-only environment. If you don’t have a network with both Macs and PCs, there are a number of different routes you can take here that may be cheaper or more suited to what you need. Our three options offer a good balance of performance while keeping both platforms (and Linux, too) relatively happy.

NAS-land can get pretty crazy, and subject to the particular interactions of each person's own gear, so by all means throw in your own experiences and recommendations in the comments, and further help folks who are jumping into the NAS game for the first time.

The Bare Facts:
" After setup, all Macs on network are automatically backed up wirelessly and constantly.
" USB port is so it can act as print server; no word on whether you can attach addional USB disks.
" No hidden bricks: The sleek design includes a built-in power supply.
" Full three-port Gigabit Ethernet router (fourth port is for WAN); 802.11n network supports up to 50 users.

Official Press Release:

Apple Announces Time Capsule

Wireless Backup for all Your Macs

MACWORLD SAN FRANCISCOJanuary 15, 2008Apple® today introduced Time Capsule, a backup appliance that automatically and wirelessly backs up everything on one or more Macs running Leopard™, the latest release of Apple's Mac OS® X operating system including the amazing Time Machine™ automatic backup software. Time Capsule combines an 802.11n base station with a server grade hard disk in one small package. Simply plug it in, then easily set up automatic wireless backup for every Mac® in your house to a single Time Capsule with just a few clicks. Time Capsule offers the benefits of a full-featured 802.11n Wi-Fi base station, and comes in two models: a 500 gigabyte model for just $299 and a 1 terabyte model for just $499.

"Bring Time Capsule home, plug it in, click a few buttons on your Macs and voilaall the Macs in your house are being backed up automatically, every hour of every day," said Steve Jobs, Apple's CEO. "With Time Capsule and Time Machine, all your irreplaceable photos, movies and documents are automatically protected and incredibly easy to retrieve if they are ever lost."

Built to work seamlessly with Time Machine, Time Capsule lets users wirelessly back up all of the data on their Macs, find lost files and even restore all of their software. In the event a file is lost, users can wirelessly search back through time to find deleted files, applications, photos and other digital media and then instantly restore the file. If it's ever necessary, Leopard can also easily restore an entire system from the Time Machine backup on Time Capsule.

In addition to being the best way to back up a Mac, Time Capsule is also a full-featured Wi-Fi base station with the latest 802.11n technology. Delivering up to five times the performance and twice the range of 802.11g, 802.11n* is built in to Apple's iMac® desktop and the entire Mac notebook line up, including MacBook®, MacBook Pro and the new MacBook Air. Time Capsule features a sleek design with a built-in power supply and connections to print wirelessly to a USB printer. With Time Capsule, it's very easy for users to create a secure, wireless network for up to 50 users and set security restrictions such as Internet access limits for children's computers.

At $299 for a 500GB model and $499 for a 1TB model and a fully integrated 802.11n AirPort Extreme® Base Station, Time Capsule can serve as a backup solution for multiple computers as well as the backbone for a high-speed, 802.11n wireless network, making it effortless and affordable for everyone at home, school or work to protect their digital files.

Additional Time Capsule features include:

dual-band antennas for 2.4 GHz or 5 GHz frequencies;
three Gigabit LAN ports;
one Gigabit Ethernet WAN port;
one USB 2.0 port;
Wi-Fi Protected Access (WPA/WPA-2), 128-bit WEP encryption; and
a built-in NAT firewall supporting NAT-PMP for features like Back to My Mac.
Pricing & Availability
Time Capsule will be available in February through the Apple Store® (www.apple.com), at Apple's retail stores and Apple Authorized Resellers for a suggested retail price of $299 (US) for a 500GB hard drive and $499 (US) for a 1TB hard drive.

*Time Capsule is based on an IEEE 802.11n draft specification. Actual performance will vary based on range, connection rate, site conditions, size of network and other factors.

Apple ignited the personal computer revolution in the 1970s with the Apple II and reinvented the personal computer in the 1980s with the Macintosh. Today, Apple continues to lead the industry in innovation with its award-winning computers, OS X operating system and iLife and professional applications. Apple is also spearheading the digital media revolution with its iPod portable music and video players and iTunes online store, and has entered the mobile phone market with its revolutionary iPhone.

which could be configured by "bringing it into proximity with the computer or network base station." In the long run, this will make networking devices easy enough for my Luddite relatives to do, which is good news for people who get weak in the knees at the thought of networking.  Louis Ramirez

RFID Tags for Apple Devices [Unwired View]

On the performance side, 802.11n really does work a lot faster than our old 802.11g D-Link DGL-4300 Gaming Router. When transferring a 700MB Batman Begins file over 802.11n, 5GHz, WPA2 encryption, we got sustained speeds of 7.3 MB/s to a 100Mbps ethernet-connected machine and 6.0 MB/s to another MacBook connected on N. As a benchmark, we got 9.3 MB/s when we ran it ethernet to ethernet (both 100Mbps).

Compared to our 802.11g router, which got 2.77 MB/s from to an ethernet-connected machine and 1.34 MB/s going g to g (on the same MacBook), it's quite an improvement. So yes, our speed gains aren't quite as much as the 5x Apple's touting (we got between 2.6x and 4.4x), but it's well within the margin of error, also accounting for file transfer overhead.

And we got reception in our office whereas our old G signal died somewhere on the road to the bathroom, about 20 feet away, through two walls. (I am writing this review from the toilet.) Each apartment is different, but my 1000-square foot, 2-bedroom abode was easily blanketed, despite 10 other APs in the area causing interference. YMMV, but the Airport's range lives up to the hype. Through outer walls, pacing out onto my lawn, I hit 100 feet of range, but others have reported 350 feet, line of sight.

Then the issues.

Our old Lexmark printer didn't work with the AirPort Extreme because the USB drivers for it didn't work over the network, and we couldn't find any network-capable drivers for it. This is something you should research in advance if you're looking forward to networking your printer through this thing. Lots of people online had no problems with their printers, presumably ones that they didn't buy for $10. It's Lexmark's fault for not having the drivers, and our fault for having a lousy $10 printer.

And there's no Gigabit Ethernet, which we found a little disappointing since even the Macbook Pros and Mac Pro towers have 1000 base T connections. We talked to one of Apple's engineers on the project as well, and he explained to us the lack of Gigabit Ethernet was because most home users aren't going to be using more than 90Mbps on their N connections to reach the net, and that was good enough for surfing. True, but we're not concerned with surfing limitations as much as we are with files transfers between various machines on our home network. So we don't see ourselves giving up our current Gigabit Ethernet setup any time soon. You may be in this camp as well.

Performance degradation from using G and N machines simultaneously were negligible when just browsing the internet, and our Apple guy said it only affects N machines only for the duration that the G machines are sending data. Not a huge deal unless you're using both to stream files simultaneously, in which case we'd recommend you plug in to Ethernet anyway.

Another possible problem with the AE was the inability to change its MAC address, which means people with ISPs that lock on to a particular MAC address will have to call up their provider. But if they already have a wireless router, AirPort Extreme has the ability to be set on "bridge" mode by just clicking a dropdown, and it totally just got out of the way of all DHCP, DNS, and routing. Everything was passed up to the D-Link. Usually doing this on other manufacturer's routers takes tens of minutes of configuration and rebooting, something we're glad to have skipped this time.

Although seemingly pricey at first glance, the AirPort Extreme 802.11n base station falls within the range of similar draft-N routers on the market now. Routers from D-Link, Linksys and Netgear all fall within the $100 to $200 range, and with the exception of Netgear's offeringswhich are actually quite stylishall look like equipment Drew Barrymore's childhood buddy uses to phone home. Not a huge deal since routers are meant to be admired once, placed in a corner, and forgotten about like your college diploma or your surround sound system, but going the extra mile for design like Apple and Netgear counts for something.

So would we recommend this as an N-router? Yes, but with caveats. Its N performance was greatbut the lack of Gigabit Ethernet, Xbox 360/VPN issues, and inability to change the MAC address of their router to get online rules this out for certain people. Yet another caveat when buying any draft-N networking equipment, not just Apple's Airport Extreme: When we asked whether this draft-N firmware was going to be upgradeable to the final N spec, Apple said they tried to make it as upgradeable as possible but it was impossible to say until the final draft is released.

Should you buy it? Look at our lousy Venn Diagram below (fixed to make it more clear). If you fall in the middle, then you should be satisfied with Apple's latest release.  Jason Chen

Product Page [Apple]

Definitely not shaped like a boob anymore. – Matt Buchanan

High-quality Apple AirPort Extreme 802.11n unboxing photos [AppleInsider]

Beyond that, there's actually a bit more going on with the Airport Extreme that I just learned today in terms of its USB drive capabilities.

It'll have that USB port for turning storage into networked drive, but did you know that drive can be set to automount upon connection to the network? It can also be locked down with specific user accounts. These features are part of the brave new world of Mac gadgets. One that supports PCs as well as Macs. Does this mean this works with Vista? The USB ports also work with Printers.

The rest of the Airport Extreme's features, like encryption, and security, are standard fare.

The Airport Extreme's unlocking software will work on Mac Pros from august 06. Here's the total list of machines that already have the DNA for going Extreme.

MacBook Pro with Intel Core 2 Duo
MacBook with Intel Core 2 Duo
Mac Pro with Intel Xeon and AirPort Extreme
iMac with Intel Core 2 Duo (except iMac 17-inch, 1.83GHz)

One wish: Since my cable modem is near my livingroom setup, wouldn't it be nice if there was a super AppleTV box that had both Airport Extreme and AppleTV in one? And if it came in the same colors as the Shuffle? No? Never mind.Brian Lam

[Gizmodo]

UK Bandwidth Restrictions to Affect AirPort Extreme Use [TUAW]

Apple said it is required under generally accepted accounting principles to charge customers for the software upgrade. "The nominal distribution fee for the 802.11n software is required in order for Apple to comply with generally accepted accounting principles for revenue recognition, which generally require that we charge for significant feature enhancements, such as 802.11n, when added to previously purchased products," Fox said in a statement.

If it really were just a nominal fee, why not charge $0.99? Or $0.01? – Jason Chen

Apple wants two bucks for faster Wi-Fi [News.com]

Apple to impose 802.11n unlocking fee on Intel Mac owners [AppleInsider]

Airport Extreme X2 and X4? [MacRumors]