Apple software update brings wireless Time Machine backups
The wireless backup feature that disappeared from Apple's promotional copy for its Leopard operating system has snuck in through the back door.
Macworld did a little poking around with the recently released Mac OS X software update for "Time Machine and Airport" and realized that Time Machine now recognizes a generic USB hard drive plugged into an Airport Extreme base station, allowing Airport Extreme users to wirelessly back up their notebooks with Leopard's Time Machine. You need to mount the external hard drive using Finder to make sure Time Machine can see it, according to Macworld.
Time Machine will now work wirelessly with MacBooks after a software update.
(Credit: Apple)Apple had promoted this aspect of Time Machine--wireless backups via Airport Extreme and a USB hard drive--in its advertising for Leopard, the latest and greatest version of Mac OS X released in October. But at the last minute, that capability was pulled from Apple's ads, and Leopard early adopters found they were unable to use Time Machine with a notebook unless they plugged a USB hard drive directly into the notebook, or if they set up a complicated storage-area network. It was never clear what led to the disappearance of that feature, but perhaps the code just simply wasn't ready for prime time.
In January, Apple announced Time Capsule, a combination USB hard drive/wireless base station that allowed for wireless backups. But at $299 or $499, depending on the storage capacity, it's a pricey option for people who already own Airport Extreme and USB hard drives.
Time Capsule is a pretty easy way of getting the wireless backups up and running if you don't already have a wireless access point or USB hard drive. But if you bought Time Capsule to replace your Airport Extreme access points and USB hard drives, well, um, turns out you didn't need to do that.
Tom Krazit writes about the ever-expanding world of Internet search, including Google, Yahoo, online advertising, and portals, as well as the evolution of mobile computing. He has written about traditional PC companies, chip manufacturers, and mobile computers, spending the last three years covering Apple. E-mail Tom. 
months to deliver this fix for something that should have
worked on Day 1 of Leopard's release (let's face it, this is what
being in control of the hardware and software is supposed to
provide) and that the first backup is not yet complete, let alone
tested in a restore, it is working. The process is still dog-slow
so that first backup is going to have to run overnight but
following the patching and updating of both my wife's old
PowerBook and AirPort Extreme Base Station, Time Machine does
indeed recognise the Iomega MiniMax attached to the AEBS and
is currently transferring data. It will be interesting to see if the
firmware update finally means that extended data transfers can
be performed without either the WAN crapping-out or the
connection to the attached disk being dropped.
Should this work, the question is whether I put it to the test and
attempt a restore? More importantly, do I risk the wrath of my
wife if the restore doesn't work for an experiment in the name of
science? Hmmm...