Apple officially kills its AirPort router

The Apple AirPort router is no more.

The company officially discontinued the AirPort products on Thursday, when it confirmed the news in a statement to 9to5Mac.

All three AirPort products that Apple is currently selling -- AirPort Express, AirPort Extreme, and AirPort Time Capsule -- will remain available in Apple's online store, in retail stores and with authorized resellers while supplies last, the company has confirmed.

This is hardly a surprise: Apple reportedly shut down its AirPort team in November 2016, and none of these products have been updated for years.

Apple didn't share any reason for the decision, but it did tell Engadget it might re-enter the router market if it decides it can make a meaningful contribution to the space -- which sort of tells why Apple left the market in the first place.

The AirPort was first introduced in 1999 as a simple, hassle-free way to get you online. The lineup of AirPort products was updated with new standards and expanded over the years to include the router/NAS combo Time Capsule, but Apple hasn't introduced new AirPort products since 2011.

If you're still looking to buy a router from Apple, the company has a remedy of sorts: It currently sells the Linksys Velop home mesh Wi-Fi system. But these days, you should have no trouble finding a good router in any decent electronics store, and most of them will be better than Apple's now outdated AirPort products.