Mysterious Apple device appears in FCC filings — but what is it?

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A return of AirPort or something more mundane?

Apple AirPort Express 2012 model
(Image credit: Fletcher6/Wikimedia)

In 2018, Apple officially discontinued its long neglected line of AirPort products, two years after the router division was reportedly disbanded. 

But is there potentially room for a comeback? An intriguing FCC filing, spotted by 9to5Mac, has got people’s hopes up. 

The listing for a product codenamed A2657 simply describes a “network adapter” and is subject to a non-disclosure agreement until November.  

Don’t get your hopes up

It’s tempting to look at the words “Apple network adapter” and get excited about the return of AirPort for MacBooks. Networking tech has come a long way since Apple was last active in that space, and Apple’s recent embrace of privacy gives all kinds of exciting avenues for such a device. 

But a return to networking just doesn’t seem too likely in the greater scheme of things. 

It was, after all, just six years ago that the company was shifting its wireless engineers to other, more profitable, parts of the business, and with the company’s revenue continuing to grow in the intervening time, a return to networking feels like a stretch.

With that in mind, the most likely explanation is also the most dull: this probably isn’t a product that’s set to be commercially available at all. Instead, it’s probably a diagnostic tool intended for Apple technicians repairing iPhones, iPads and Macs, and therefore not intended for public consumption.

If I’m wrong and this is something more exciting, then hopefully we’ll hear more once that NDA expires in November, if not sooner.

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Alan Martin
Alan Martin

Freelance contributor Alan has been writing about tech for over a decade, covering phones, drones and everything in between. Previously Deputy Editor of tech site Alphr, his words are found all over the web and in the occasional magazine too. When not weighing up the pros and cons of the latest smartwatch, you'll probably find him tackling his ever-growing games backlog. He also handles all the Wordle coverage on Tom's Guide and has been playing the addictive NYT game for the last several years in an effort to keep his streak forever intact.