New Time Capsule with software update storage confirmed

A few weeks ago we reported on rumours that a new Time Capsule was coming that had the ability to examine the devices commonly used on your network and cache relevant software updates.

The updates could then be pushed out to Macs and iOS devices over the air, and at WWDC shortly after the previously mentioned post was published, it was confirmed that iOS 5 would be able to update in such a manner.

9to5Mac reports that strings referencing new AirPort Extreme and Time Capsule models were found in the most recent AirPort Utility update, and feature specific strings regarding update storage.

“Store Apple software updates on this %@” is one such string, where %@ represents the device name. “Apple software updates that are copied to this %@ are available to anyone using this network,” says another.

Though the Time Capsule product name isn’t hardcoded into the strings, I wouldn’t get my hopes up about this feature appearing on AirPort Extremes — they don’t have the hard drive for it. That said, we can hope that existing Time Capsules get this functionality through a software updating — I only updated mine recently!

For homes with multiple iPhones, iPads and Macs, this feature will save time, network congestion and quota usage.