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), they 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 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.

The next 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 case 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.