My Favorite Apple Accessory

For anyone old-enough to have used a Radio Shack cassette recorder to store and load programs, the (perhaps oddball today) entry would be the Apple Floppy disk drive.

I loved the AirPort Express, not so much as a travel router, but as the cheapest way to make a HiFi setup AirPlay compatible thanks to its 3.5mm combo optical and electrical audio out jack.

@Fazal Yep, I used an AirPort Express to play music in my kitchen, and they were also good as print servers.

I loved AirPort base stations generally, before they broke AirPort Utility, but yes, +1 for the Express. It was unique in its "Proxy STA" mode, which proxied the physical Ethernet interface(s) as associated client stations on an existing Wi-Fi network, without being an AP itself and extending it using WDS. So in addition to being an AirPlay target (they added firmware for HomeKit support, too) it would also allow you to connect devices that didn't have Wi-Fi (or whose Wi-Fi support was defunct/obsolete) to your network. Really great stuff.

I've always had a thing for the AudioVision 14" Display: https://everymac.com/monitors/apple/classic_monitors/specs/apple_audiovision_14.html

And the Apple Adjustable Keyboard:
https://www.macworld.com/article/224615/think-retro-apples-adjustable-keyboard-harkens-back-to-the-days-of-touch-typing.html

Does the Newton count?

Finding a good condition, secondhand, final revision of the Airport Express was a real mission. Apple TVs just aren't as good for the task of being an always-on, always-working airplay audio destination for an existing audio setup.

Yeah @CowMonkey I liked that monitor too

My first new Mac was a Performer 6200 which came with a similar monitor with built in speakers - when I upgraded to a Performer 6500 (with integrated Zip drive) the 6500 detected that it was outputting audio via the monitor and so the internal speaker adapted to become a Sub-woofer! A nice surprise.

Also liked the StyleWriter II (or 1200) printer - such a small footprint that you could place it on a window ledge.

Correction it was a Power Mac 6500

@Niall the 6500 is the very incarnation of the dream of the "xMac" - a consumer-grade tech level (PowerPC 603, Vs the Pro 604) processor, on a slotted card, pci card graphics, standard slotted RAM, and all other i/o on expansion cards.

In the Intel era this machine would have been Core series processors like the iMac / Mac Mini, while the Mac Pros were Xeons.

It's the Platonic ideal of what people were asking for in a consumer-level upgradable Mac.

Original aluminum keyboard for the win! ;~) Still using them on all 3 Macs "under my care". Never owned the Airport Express but did deploy one as part of an built-in audio system Iinstalled for a home owner, indeed it was *the* product for a niche.

And don't forget Rogue Amoeba's "Airfoil" for the best results with Airport Express for audio!
https://rogueamoeba.com/airfoil/mac/

@someone yeah was great that towers weren’t completely out of reach back then. Had a Power Mac G4 (Mirrored Drive Door) later which was also relatively affordable (single CPU) and had such a great tower case design. Loved when Apple designed things that weren’t just blocks of aluminium.

Apple Portrait Display

Still using a 2nd generation Airport Express to stream to a DAC and amplifier. Belkin came out with a replacement of sorts for the Airplay functionality, which I also bought (also discontinued now, it appears), but the Belkin is temperamental when streaming from the Music app on the Mac in certain scenarios (and it seems to phone home, which I blocked at my router). I don't think Belkin ever updated the firmware. They tend to be a hit-and-run company.

There were reports that the jitter on the digital out of the 2nd gen Airport Express was high enough to cause issues with some DACs. Mine doesn't seem to mind it.

Although it was painfully slow, the built-in modem of the early Airport Base Station allowed me to share the dial-up connection with others in the house easily. My recollection is that the Base Station was in service so long I eventually had to search around for a Java utility that would let me administer it in later versions of Mac OS when the official app no longer worked. That's a good argument for allowing a web interface.

“Was”? I still use a latest model AirPort Extreme as well as AirPort Express at home. And another AirPort Express at the workspace. Bought all of them used. Not sure if there are really alternatives out there?

Certainly there are alternatives, although for the Express the most affordable equivalent might be running software on a Raspberry Pi. The Extreme can of course be replaced by any number of readily available modern routers and access points (or combinations thereof) at many different price points, and probably should be since the Extreme is now 2 Wi-Fi generations behind.