Zac Hall, writing for 9 to 5 Mac:

Apple’s AirPort line may be discontinued, but AirPort Express got one heck of an update today. Firmware update 7.8 for the latest AirPort Express hardware (2012 2nd-gen model, no longer sold) adds support for AirPlay 2 and Apple’s Home app. The teaser for support has been present since iOS 11.4 beta, but support hasn’t been live before today’s version 7.8 firmware update.

I just updated my AirPort Express a few minutes ago and, as I said on Twitter: “Holy cow, they actually did it”. Although, I had to do a bit of fiddling to get it to show up in the Home app. After the firmware upgrade, the Home app wouldn’t see my AirPort Express until after I sent audio to it. Not entirely sure why, but its working now — I’m not going to complain too much.

Aside from iOS devices and Macs, I believe this is the first time Apple has released a software update for a discontinued product that introduced new features. Maybe they’ve done so for security reasons, but this is uncharted territory for them. And its pretty darn rad.