The Long AirPort Sunset ➹

Apple is finally dropping AirPort Utility with iOS 27 and macOS Golden Gate and pulling it from the App Store. AFP was pretty much dead already, so I really don’t think there are that many AirPort Time Capsule users, but it’s impressive that they kept supporting their Wi-Fi gear this long: the AirPort line was discontinued back in 2018, and they’ve quietly maintained the management app for eight years, including embedding it in iOS (which is where I used it the most).

By the standards of an industry that abandons hardware the moment the next SKU ships (and considering ongoing FCC madness), this is nothing short of amazing.

It also means my recent move to a set of Cudy access points running OpenWRT turned out to be well timed. I didn’t migrate because I saw this coming–I migrated because I wanted better performance (and control) the AirPorts were never going to give me, but they lasted ridiculously long, far longer than any other networking gear I ever owned.

Which leaves one loose end. I still have all my AirPort Extremes in storage, and they are genuinely fine–silent, reliable, and seemingly built to outlast me. I have a vague idea that the configuration protocol (ACP) was reverse-engineered years ago, so I am wondering if there’s a decent open-source way to keep configuring them once the official utility stops working, because turning perfectly good, near-indestructible hardware into landfill isn’t my thing…

Update, August 2026: And there it is: airport-utility is an open-source reimplementation for macOS 27 and later, with support for both generations of ACP and a useful spread of tested AirPort models.