Clarification for my Leopard book readers.

Early in Leopard development, Apple clearly indicated on its Web site that Time Machine would work with the AirPort Extreme’s AirPort Disk feature. To test this out, I obtained an AirPort Extreme and used it to set up an AirPort disk. And yes, with one of the pre-release versions of Leopard, this feature did work.

But somewhere along the line, the feature broke. Apple removed reference to the compatibility from its Web site. Leopard was released and Time Machine would not work with an AirPort Disk.

You can read confirmation of this in “Apple doubles back on Time Machine and AirPort Disk” and “Time Machine and AirPort Disk: Together again. Sort of” on Ars Technica. You can also find a workaround in “10.5: Make Time Machine work with AirPort and AFP disks.”

I tend to agree with the folks at AppleInsider, who claim in “Briefly: Apple still working on Time Machine’s AirPort Disk support” that:

The findings suggest that the AirPort Disk support under Time Machine could resurface in an upcoming maintenance update to Leopard, the first of which is well underway. However, it should also be noted that Apple has pulled features from its major operating system in the past and never looked back.

So, to that end, I’d advise readers not to depend on using Time Machine with an AirPort Disk, at least not on the near future.

This is unfortunate, because Time Machine compatibility was one of the main reasons the owner of an older AirPort Extreme base station (like me) would consider purchasing a new AirPort Extreme that supported the AirPort Disk feature. I said as much in an article I wrote for Peachpit’s Web site before Leopard was released. Without this compatibility, I’m just not motivated to upgrade my base station. And I suspect there are others in the same situation.

We’ll just have to wait and see.