Four scores seven years ago, Apple had a line of Wi-Fi routers they called the AirPort. This line included the AirPort Express, Extreme, and Time Capsule. Then, in 2018, Apple decided it would discontinue its Wi-Fi routers and dissolve its AirPort division. Since then, Apple's AirPort routers have started falling behind when compared to the modern competition. Today, I'm sure many users have a plan to replace them. But, could they still be useful? Let's find out and take a brief look at its history.

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Before looking at the state of AirPorts today, let's first go back to where it all began. 

As the story always goes, we return to 1997, Steve Jobs' has returned to Apple and is trying to turn around the failing company. One of his groundbreaking announcements, and what leaped Apple back into the mainstream, was the release of the original iMac and Apple's new focus on highlighting the power of the internet. Jobs' also introduced a four-box grid with consumer and Pro on one axis and desktop and portable on the other. Altogether, there were a lot of devices of different form factors Apple was trying to take online. It was only fitting that Wi-Fi came along as a convenient way to bring the internet to all these devices. Then, to help push the technology along Apple felt the need to enter the Wi-Fi router market themselves. Hence we had Apple's line of Wi-Fi routers they called AirPort.

The AirPort line first launched in 1999, with two products, the AirPort Base Station and the AirPort Card. The unique dome-shaped Base Station was Apple's first attempt at making a Wi-Fi router. And, after five iterations, the AirPort Extreme would replace the Base Station in 2007. Along with a new name came a slim, square design that later transitioned into a tower with a smaller footprint. But, since the beginning, the Base Station and Extreme were Apple's high-end routers in the lineup, featuring multiple ethernet ports, better WiFi antennas, and later a USB port that could be used to network in a printer or for AirPort Disk, a feature that allowed you to create a network file server, also known as a NAS, by connecting an external drive.

The AirPort Card, on the other hand, was an optional add-on for Macs that gave them Wi-Fi connectivity. You could crack open your compatible Mac, slide the card into the designated slot, and that's how you would get Wi-Fi. (This was back in the day when users could open their computers and make modifications when needed. That's not to say it was always an easy process, just that it was possible.) The add-on card, sold separately, would become obsolete by 2009 due to Wi-Fi becoming a standard feature built into Macs. 

Then along came the AirPort Express in 2004, a super slimmed-down low-end version of the AirPort Extreme that only received two updates after its initial launch, first in 2008 and again in 2012. The first two generations looked like a MacBook power adapter with a single ethernet port for connecting the adapter to the internet, a USB port to network connect a printer, and an aux port for AirTunes, the precursor of AirPlay. By the second generation, the design of the Express transitioned into a scaled-down AirPort Extreme, with all the same ports as the previous Express, other than an additional ethernet port to connect one device. 

The last router introduced was the AirPort Time Capsule. The Time Capsule was an AirPort Extreme featuring an internal drive with a capacity of 500GB, 1TB, or 2TB, depending on the model. You could then access that storage from any computer over your local network. Its primary purpose was to serve as a backup drive for your Mac using the Time Machine app bundled with macOS Leopard.