The Remarkably Bad Design of the AirPort Time Capsule

The Remarkably Bad Design of the AirPort Time Capsule

I bought a 3TB Time Capsule to back up my family's collection of Apple computers. The box is beautiful. The case is beautiful. Removing the white adhesive material wrapping the TC, and the black material protecting the bottom is a sensual experience.  And then it all went to shit.

For the most part, this is not chronological. You know how it is, when you have trouble configuring something. You try things, back up, try other things, reset, start over, and basically explore the search space. It is a bit chaotic and the chronology doesn't actually matter much.

My ageing eyes had some trouble reading the very tiny manual included with the TC, but I managed. My first choice was to Create or Extend a network. I already have a network, which I wanted to continue using, so Create definitely seemed wrong. I chose Extend. Skipping ahead a few factory resets and a long support phone call, I'll note that when Apple says Create a network, (at least in the context of this product), the absolutely do not mean that a network will be created. No, this is the way to have the TC join the existing network. I confess that I am still unsure what Extend does.

The next puzzlement regarded connecting the TC to my network by an ethernet cable. First, it isn't clear to me whether this is required, nor is the choice of port clear. From TFM:

- Connect the Ethernet cable that's connected to your DSL or cable model (if you'll connect to the Internet) to the Ethernet WAN port.

- Connect a USB cable ... [not relevant]

- Connect an Ethernet cable from any Ethernet device to any of the Ethernet LAN ports.

How to choose? Well, just above this in the manual: The WAN port is "For connecting a DSL or cable modem, or for connecting to an existing Ethernet network." And the LAN port is "For connecting Ethernet devices such as printers or computers, or for connecting to an existing Ethernet network."

Let's review. Both the LAN and WAN ports can be used to "[connect] to an existing network". Which I wanted to do. So either port should be OK. Except that, as the helpful support guy told me, Create really means Extend. So clear as mud.

When you do Create (i.e. join) a network, there is no dropdown of SSIDs, as on every other Mac product. That's OK, I happen to know my SSID. Also, you are asked to provide a password. The first time through, I didn't realize that they were asking for the wifi password, I thought it was a password for the TC itself. There is an option for having a distinct TC password, but it was not at all clear that the default was to enter the wifi password. Wasted more time there.

Moving on.

I think I got things set up right, and the backup seemed to start. (The estimated time remaining on the control panel never did fill in, it remained a 1990s Microsoft style aspirational thing, in which the promised estimate never actually shows up.) However, something was happening, as TC disk space was being consumed, but then 1) the backup stopped, and 2) the disk was apparently empty, showing 3TB of 3TB available. I went to sleep.

This morning, I decided to wipe the thing and start over. So I wanted to do a hard reset. Which is not easy on this machine. You need to unplug the device, poke a paper clip into the reset hole, and hold that there while you plug in the device again, and hold the paper clip down until the LED on the front starts flashing ten seconds. Sounds simple, but: the bottom of the box isn't very grippy, so it's sliding all over while you are poking the reset switch, and plugging in the plug -- both in the same direction. So I came up with the idea of placing the other side of TC against a wall, but then I couldn't see the LED. Oh, and plugging in the power cord requires more force than you'd think, so things went south later when the power cord just fell out. That's not a risk normally, but plugging in the cord while doing the reset dance proved to require more dexterity than I could muster.

Now while doing all this, I was interacting with the Airport Utility, which runs on my MacBook Pro. There are some extremely confusing UI oddities. First, you occasionally get messages, indicated in the usual way, by a number in a red circle. Great. Except that when you actually go to look at the messages, there are none. No, the messages refer to the number of buttons enabled on the dialog box that comes up when you click the red circle. I saw 2 "messages". In my case, this turned out to correspond to 1) a button for obtaining a firmware update, and 2) a button permitting the editing of the TC to resolve problems. No messages at all.

The other UI invention is a text field that is clickable! I forget what the text field was communicating, but there was black text on a grey background. Purely informative, if it had been on any other dialog box in any other application. But no! This text field is clickable! And led to another dialog box that I could use to solve my problem. (Sorry, I don't remember exactly which problem this was). Thanks, friendly support person! (Really, he was patient and extremely helpful.)

I'm getting a bit ahead of myself. Yes, I finally gave up and called support. Now to call support, you have to get the serial number. The serial number is on the bottom of the TC, in an extremely tiny font, in black, on a black background. The Airport Utility would provide the serial number, but only once setup was further along. Which it wasn't. Which is why I needed to call support. Perhaps you see the problem here.

Anyway, I finally got the serial number by pointing a very bright light at the number, angling it just so to avoid reflection, taking a picture, and then blowing up the picture. And I finally reached a very helpful support guy, who passed me on to a more senior very helpful support guy, who finally got me past all of my problems.

I should say: I am not a newbie. I have a PhD in computer science. I have worked as a software engineer and architect for almost 30 years. I have owned many Apple laptops, phones, iPods, iPads and peripherals. The AirPort Time Capsule defeated me, in spite of all of this. Well played, Apple, well played.