Howard Oakley notes the deprecation of the Apple Filing Protocol, which used to be the foundation of peer-to-peer file sharing on the Mac. (These days most Macs share files using the SMB protocol.) The end of AFP has some serious ramifications for some older Apple hardware:
In case you missed it, Apple has just announced that a “future version of macOS” will no longer support AFP, Apple Filing Protocol. This is included in the Enterprise release notes for macOS 15.5 Sequoia….
Greatest problems come with Apple’s old Time Capsules, most of which are still used with AFP, as they can only support SMB version 1, not versions 2 or 3. If you’re still using a Time Capsule, or an old NAS that doesn’t support SMB version 3, then access to your network storage may well still be reliant on AFP.
Oakley’s recommendation is also mine: If you’re using a Time Capsule or another old NAS that doesn’t use SMB 3, it’s finally time to say goodbye. If you recently put in a new drive, move it to a new NAS. And buy a new wi-fi access point. So it goes.
