News

Every day from December 13th through the 24th we will have different daily deals as part of our "Twelve Days of Christmas" promotion. To see what items are on sale on a given day, just click here.

Note the coupon code at the top of that page- to save on the items displayed you will need to enter that coupon code during checkout.

Yes, our 802.11n Wi-Fi USB adapter for Apple Mac is now 10.7 Lion compatible! Effective immediately, all units shipping will have Lion install software on the enclosed CD-ROM. Customers who do not have a CD drive or who already own this adapter can download the Lion software in DMG format here.

As Apple Inc. makes Macs, iPhones, and iPads, it is normal to wonder whether a wireless USB product that we advertise as Mac compatible will also work on an iPhone or iPad. The answer is no- for two reasons:

1. Operating system- modern Macintosh computers run Mac OS X, and our Mac compatible wireless products generally require at least version 10.3 or 10.4 (also known as Panther and Tiger respectively). The iPhone and iPad run a completely different operating system called “iPhone OS” and software for Mac OS X cannot be used on iPhone OS devices.
   
   
2. USB port power- even if our manufacturers wrote iPhone OS compatible software for their products, it is unlikely any of our current products would ever work with iPhones or iPads because of the power limitations of the USB port option for iPhone/iPad. These devices do not have a USB port themselves, but they do have camera connection kits that have a USB port. However the ports on these emit a very low amount of power- 20 mA to be precise. Long range wireless receivers typically require 350-450 mA to function. A USB port on a standard desktop computer emits 500 mA. Apple has designed the USB port on the camera connection kit to work specifically for file transfer only- 20 mA is not even enough to power a digital camera, but of course digital cameras have their own power supplys to compensate.

Technology changes all the time, and it probably won't be long before these obstacles are overcome. But for now, unfortunately it is not possible to use a long range USB Wi-Fi adapter on an iPad or iPhone.

We now have a Mac OS Lion beta package available for users of the Rokland n3 long range 802.11n wireless USB adapter. This beta may also work with Alfa's AWUS036NH model. This beta package has been tested at our location on multiple Mac OS 10.7 Lion systems as well as a beta test group. Most users in the test group had no issues, but some did. Therefore we are not ready to call this a stable release. We are continuing to develop a stable Lion driver, and appreciate feedback from anyone who tries this beta package. At this time we are not able to provide technical support for use of the beta software though, but we will publish any known issues/fixes.