Apple reportedly abandons the router business

Though Apple is still selling its AirPort routers, it has reportedly disbanded the hardware division responsible for its AirPort Extreme, AirPort Express, and Time Capsule products, according to a report from Bloomberg.

Citing people familiar with the matter, the report says that the reassigning of the engineers to other projects like the Apple TV began last year after the Cupertino giant started shutting down the wireless router team.

Apple’s router products were last updated in 2013 with support for 802.11ac Wi-Fi. But that was long before companies like Eero, Netgear, Google and others began manufacturing router systems that use a mesh network approach for better whole-home coverage.

Apparently, Apple’s routers were never very popular. Compared to routers from other companies, they were not just high on price but lacked advanced configuration options too. The reason here could be that like many of Apple's peripherals, they were designed to work better with Macs and iDevices than third-party products.

Anyways, news about Apple’s exit from router business is coming amidst reports of company’s widening foray into IoT business. It’s been reported that Apple is developing a speaker with built-in Siri capabilities, which would compete with Amazon’s Echo and the more recent Google Home speaker.