First a couple of facts:
- I have an ADSL router at home that contains a hard disk, TV tuner, and that can act as a UNIX server; we use none of these services. It’s been in “bridge mode” for at least the last six years.
Wifi in our house has always been the job of a specialist router, first from Apple, then Netgear and now Eero. It’s quick but unreliable and needs an upgrade.
- The Eero app currently says that there are 32 devices alive on our local network. And currently at least iPhones are not at home! I can only see this number increasing over time and yet…
Apple has officially announced that it’s withdrawing from making Airports. Why do I care? Simply, because I want to spend less of my time making things work and more time using them.
M.G. Siegler has written a brilliant article on the subject, ErrorPort, and he makes a great case for the home hub, which I’d buy in a second. However, I think that there is a bigger point here.
Xerox died when they gave up the small stuff, airlines stop being a service when they give up the short haul, supermarkets lose when you can’t get all your shopping in the one location.
Apple has slowly given up around the edges and the results are clear, in the last couple of years, Amazon Alexas, Sonos, Eeros and Chromebooks have arrived in our house. Slowly the house has moved from end to end Apple to a far more cosmopolitan place.
In this environment, the walled garden from Apple has no value (no HomeKit for example) because the walled garden is incomplete. The added value appears when something is open and adaptable, everything that Apple is not. Brick by brick we slowly forced to find a new brick road!
