If you don’t know what OS X Leopard is, then you’re probably not up on Time Machine, Apple’s eerily simple, highly technical automated backup system, coming soon to a Mac near you. By all accounts, Time Machine is the big cat’s meow.

Simply put, Time Machine backs up all the files on your Mac and makes it almost as easy to find a file you can’t find as it was to backup your Mac’s in the first place.

Time Machine is always on, saves everything approach makes backing up your files a complete no brainer. Now, add Time Machine to an external hard drive (required, by the way) connected to a new Apple Airport Extreme Base Station, and you get the ultimate backup system.

Effortless, wireless, everything stored away, but easy to retrieve. What could be cooler in the world of backups? That’s the Apple way, right? Almost. And not quite.

Developer builds of Mac OS X Leopard, and the Apple web site, until recently, touted the wireless feature using Time Machine and the ”Airport Disk” to backup files over wireless to the Airport Extreme Base Station. Suddenly, the Apple web site details about using Time Machine via wireless connection to an Airport Disk, well, uh, they just disappeared. Vanished. Gone.

Uh oh. One of the coolest features of Leopard just took a hit. No wireless backup via Time Machine. Or, so it seems.

Mac developers say that Time Machine’s wireless capability was pulled at the last minute from OS X Leopard. And many Mac fans are not happy about it, either. There’s noise from Mac users on Apple’s discussion boards, noise from Mac software developers, and soon, once Leopard ships and we confirm everything, noise and more noise.

Apple’s list of Time Machine features can be found here. Nothing about wireless backup capability using Time Machine. The original advertising copy has been removed from Apple’s web site, but this is what it said:

“Effortless meets wireless.With a hard disk connected to your AirPort Extreme Base Station, all the Macs in your house can use Time Machine to back up wirelessly. Simply select your AirPort Disk as the backup disk for each computer and the whole family can enjoy the benefits of Time Machine.”

What happened? Without direct information from Apple, which is highly unlikely, we can speculate. Hey, that’s what we do weeks prior to any new release of Mac OS X anyway, right?

Many Airport Extreme customers have complained about wireless file transfers not being very fast, so perhaps performance was an issue, especially when setting up Time Machine’s initial backup routine, which will take a considerable amount of time over a wireless connection.

Perhaps there are last minute bugs that proliferated and need to be quashed, and a future Leopard update or Airport Extreme firmware update will correct the problem. Whatever it is, removal of the feature puts a healthy dent in the plans of many Mac users who want to use Time Machine to backup files via wireless.

What’s your future backup plan with Time Machine? Do you plan to add an extra hard drive to your Mac when installing OS X Leopard? If you could, would a wireless backup plan be preferred? Talk Back to Mac360 and share your frustration in the Comments section below.

Check out the daily list of our 9 Word mini-Reviews at NoodleMac, and Kate's daily in-depth Mac software reviews at PixoBebo.

• Article by Jeffrey Mincey • Published on Thursday, October 25, 2007
• Category: Software • 12 Reader comment(s) • Email This • Digg This • Shop Now

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Readers Talk Back:

Hugh says:

I’m not sure which post El Honcho is replying to, but…

I don’t believe I am ‘playing crying wolf’ here. Personally, I’m not ‘demanding’ the feature now. I’m not ‘demanding’ the feature at all. My point is really that, as they led people to believe one thing, and some people made plans based on that, some even committing real $ to the plan (not in my case - I’ve bought neither Leopard, nor the NAS drive yet), it might be nice if they let people know, officially, whether the capability is coming or not… when would be a bonus. I don’t think that’s asking a lot given the circumstances.

I realize it may just be a bit buggy at the moment, and that it may come out in the .1 update. And, yes, absolutely I’d prefer that to getting buggy software now. But even that is not something that Apple has officially stated yet, to my knowledge. That explanation has been given only in discussion forums… and if I’m not supposed to trust the prominent marketing of the feature (alongside a buy-it-now button, no less), why should I trust that explanation from such a source?

— Posted on Mon Oct 29 at 12:13 pm by Hugh

El Honcho says:

Question really is: What would upset you more?
Having a buggy feature that is potentially not working in an hour of need?
Or having a part of it (wireless) removed until it is properly coded?

I think the minor inconvenience is not a big deal compared to using a feature that could put your data at risk for reals. Now that would be a valid big deal if yuor backup software is NOT working at all!

So stop play crying wolf and be happy if the feature will be implemented as initially advertised in a stable fashion.

— Posted on Fri Oct 26 at 6:11 pm by El Honcho

Hugh says:

Other articles I’ve read suggest it can work over a shared drive, but the server must be running Leopard. I’m curious as to whether that is what Bob is using.

I’m a bit ticked as well. I’ve got wired gigabit ethernet and was planning on placing a 1TB NAS drive in the basement (hey, if a burglar grabbed my computer, why wouldn’t they also grab the hard drive sitting next to it on the desk?).

It’d be nice if Apple would at least speak up so I’d know whether to give up on the plan or just be patient.

— Posted on Fri Oct 26 at 8:20 am by Hugh

dt says:

Browsing a Time Machine volume over a network is slow. The product managers likely pulled it based on the user experience, not any functional bug.

Don’t trust advertising or reviews of pre-release product, especially when making purchase decisions. “Specifications subject to change without notice” is there for a reason.

— Posted on Thu Oct 25 at 8:44 pm by dt

Wired says:

I don’t use wireless and I always have a bunch of firewire and usb external hd’s connected to my mac.
So I’m not crying if Leopard lacks wireless time machine.
I’m spent my tears for the lack of timeline editing in the latest iMovie...but that was a different topic.

One more day!!

— Posted on Thu Oct 25 at 7:52 pm by Wired

Rabone says:

Well, I was having a pretty good day till I read this article. Like iggy pence, I bought an Airport Extreme and an external 750GB drive JUST for Time Machine.
Grrrrrr.

— Posted on Thu Oct 25 at 6:43 pm by Rabone

BOB says:

It should work. There is nothing in the time machine setup that could restrict the use of a airport disk. The problem is I don’t think it is as reliable due to issues with the Airport disk system. I am currently using Time machine to a network share via wireless without any problems. It is NOT an airport disk. It is on a file server. I have had bad luck with the airport disk system.

— Posted on Thu Oct 25 at 5:40 pm by BOB

bugsnw says:

No one knows if this feature (and the supposed bugs) were holding up the release of Leopard.

Further, no one knows if the delay will be days, months or longer.

It’ll come. My guess is sooner rather than later. I, too, have all the required hardware and was looking forward to this feature.

— Posted on Thu Oct 25 at 3:07 pm by bugsnw

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