AirPort Express

The Airport Express was a series of portable Wi-Fi routers that was introduced by Apple Computer on June 7, 2004.

1st generation
The original Airport Express used the 802.11g specification. Much smaller than the full-sized AirPort Base Station, it held the title for the smallest AirPort router in existence, and included audio-out, USB for wireless printing, and an ethernet port. Airport Express supports AirTunes, which allows audio to be streamed over wireless network to the Airport Express, which then outputs the audio through its audio-out to stereos, for example. Now called AirPlay, the functionality requires iTunes 4.6, or newer. Audio-out supports digital optical and analog output. Airport Express can also be used to easily expand wireless coverage via WDS-bridging. Support was later added for the draft specification of the 802.11n protocol.



2nd generation
On June 11 at the 2012 Worldwide Developers Conference, the 2nd generation AirPort Express was introduced with a new design and dual-band support of 802.11n over 2.4 and 5 GHz networks.