Their problem with AirPort Extreme and its AirPort Disk feature, which lets users attach an external Universal Serial Bus drive to the router and access that disk via the wireless network, goes back to late October 2007, when Apple launched Mac OS X 10.5 ("Leopard"), notes [url=http://www.digitalartsonline.co.uk/news/index.cfm?RSS&NewsID=9322]Digital Arts[/url]. Although Apple had said earlier in the year that Leopard's backup application, dubbed Time Machine, would work with AirPort drives, the feature was yanked before the operating system was finalized.

In a note posted to its site on Oct 26, the day Leopard launched, Apple acknowledged that Time Machine didn't support AirPort drives, but it did not give an explanation. As soon as the company unveiled Time Capsule, hardware that integrates a wireless base station with a 500GB or 1TB disk drive, people who had bought the AirPort Extreme began complaining, notes Digital Arts.

"I was one of the suckers to buy an [AirPort Extreme] and 500GB hard drive when Apple posted that Leopard would be the answer to the backup problem," said a user identified as John Wolcott. "All you needed was [AirPort Extreme] and USB drive, and Time Machine would do the rest. I believed them, and look where that got me."

Other messages came from users who said they hope Apple would update the AirPort Extreme to add Time Machine support, while still others criticized Apple for deleting posts from the support forums, says Digital Arts.

"They really should be keeping us informed of their plans. Some reassurance that it will be fixed, and some approximate time scale would make a huge difference. It's all very well [that] the moderators [are] deleting posts with rants and speculation, but if Apple did a better job of responding to issues like this, then there wouldn't be so many rants or speculation," said a user tagged as "bilbo_baggins."

Time Capsule combines an 802.11n base station with a server grade hard disk in one package. You plug it in, then set up automatic wireless backup for every Mac in your house to a single Time Capsule. Time Capsule comes in two models: a 500GB model for $299 and a 1TB model for $499. Due in February, it's built to work with the Time Machine feature of Leopard

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