(All current models for sale of Macs, iPhones, and iPads have 802.11ac.) The first standards in the family, 802.11a and b, appeared in 1999 the latest, 802.11ac, starting appearing in Apple’s base stations and Macs in 2013, and later in iOS devices. You may know that Wi-Fi is a trademark used by a trade group to cover a variety of wireless LAN (WLAN) standards that start with 802.11. Rather, it’s the very hippest and latest thing: it uses 802.11ac Wave 2 with MU-MIMO, terms which require some unpacking. EdimaxĮven better, the Edimax adapter isn’t an old flavor of Wi-Fi. The same driver also support OS X 10.7 to 10.11, making it a great solution for owners of Macs that can’t be updated or they prefer to keep on an older release, and have had a Wi-Fi failure.
#Best usb wifi adapter for mac mini drivers
The drivers for macOS 10.12 Sierra only appeared in January, if you had previously discounted this as an option. Once, a variety of alternatives existed for the Mac, but there’s no simply not enough of a market for them, and Edimax continues to update driver and utility software, keeping it viable. If you’ve gone through all those stages or you want a second Wi-Fi connection on your Mac-useful for firewalls, relaying a Wi-Fi network, and other purposes-the Edimax AC1200 Dual Band Wi-Fi USB Adapter (model EW-7822ULC $24.99 MSRP available on Amazon) seems to be not only a good solution, but the only solution. In August 2016, I wrote a column that provided all the advice we had to troubleshoot the problem, which is sometimes caused by system software, sometimes by failed hardware, and sometimes by a bad connection. As the Mac 911 columnist at Macworld, I’ve received hundreds of emails from people who have had Wi-Fi fail on their computers.