“Apple Inc. customers, unhappy that the company dropped FireWire from its newest notebooks, are venting their frustrations on the company’s support forum in several hundred messages,” Gregg Keizer reports for Computerworld. “Within minutes of Apple CEO Steve Jobs wrapping up a launch event in Cupertino, Calif., users started several threads on the company’s support forum blasting the omission of a FireWire port on the new MacBook laptop.”
“‘Apple really screwed up with no FireWire port,’ said Russ Tolman, who inaugurated a thread that by Thursday had collected more than 200 messages and been viewed over 5,000 times,” Keizer reports. “Ironically, Apple has been one of the biggest boosters of the spec and was one of the primary drivers of the technology when it began development in the late 1980s.”
“Although the upper-end MacBook Pro — which Apple also revamped and relaunched Tuesday — includes a FireWire 800 port, users,” Keizer reports. “Others pointed out that the previous-generation MacBook, which Apple is still selling at a reduced price of $999, includes a FireWire port.”
“Apple has ditched technologies before, most notably when it was one of the first computer makers to abandon the 3.5-in. floppy drive in favor of an internal CD-ROM drive,” Keizer reports.
Full article here.
As we wrote yesterday, in a paragraph some seem to have missed (we suspect temporary rage-induced blindness):
“We’re still trying to figure out how Apple, among other concerns, plans to resolve the dichotomy between MacBooks that ship with iMovie and the lack of a FireWire port for DV cameras; the few relatively expensive solutions we’ve found so far (USB to FireWire DV Adapter) are all Windows-only. Surely Apple doesn’t expect hundreds of thousands of potential MacBook buyers who also own cameras equipped with FireWire to go buy new USB 2 cameras, right? Some other solution must exist or be in the works, right, Apple?”
To say nothing of existing FireWire drives and other peripherals.
Hello, Apple?
OK, let me ask the question one more time. to the tech minded out there:
Is there any reason (hardware wise) that a Mac cannot use a USB to Firewire cable?
How do the download specs compare?
en
A better question would be why we have two different, incompatible peripheral attachment standards when we could get by with just one.
It is unfortunate that the one standard had to end up USB, but that is the reality of the market now. I would suggest that people with FireWire peripherals buy laptops with FireWire. I would also suggest that people buying new peripherals look for USB compatibility, as there are now zero major companies advocating FireWire.
Can you boot from a USB external hard drive?
@ ElderNorm
Firewire allows iMovie to take control over a camera while editing, making it easy for shuttling and importing.
As far as specs go, USB2 IS FASTER than Firewire 400. BUT, tests have shown Firewire 400 will steadily perform at its peak of 400mbps while USB2 will not. For example, a Firewire iPod would load faster than a USB2 iPod if they both had 10GBs worth of data transferred.
By the way, ElderNorm, I wasn’t referring to YOUR question with the “a better question” line…
As for YOUR question, USB and FireWire are completely different, and they can’t be translated by just stringing a bunch of wires together in a cable. These USB to FireWire cables need a chip in them to translate on the fly, so the OS needs a driver to talk to that chip, basically.
So I went over to NewEgg and searched for HD camcorders. There are NONE, Zero, zip, nada, zilch with FireWire only. They are USB, or USB and FireWire combos. Lemme repeat: All currently sold HD camcorder models feature USB, and no FireWire only.
FireWire seems to go the way of the dodo.
As a photographer who uses many external firewire drives… looks like I won’t be getting the new Macbook after all.
🙁 Hm… Maybe a hackintosh is my best choice.
Chas
http://www.chaselliott.com
@IDon’t,
Yes, all Intel Macs can boot from USB hard drives.
@IDon’t
Yes, if you have an Intel Mac
@wannabe
I assume you mean computer makers as there are many external HD/CD/DVD enclosure manufacturers that provide Firewire.
Maxtor and LaCie for example
this is funny stuff. it’s not apple is forcing you to upgrade. they’ve always done this to people, in saying this what we have, like it buy it, dont like it suffer with windows, whats new? nada, anyway. I was smart overtime though bought everything with usb2. sorry firewire really didn’t catch on with the average consumers
I also checked Sony’s current lineup.
Their only camera that does have FireWire is their top of the line professional camcorder. That’s a >$3,000 camera, base price. I guess who can afford those can also afford a MacBook Pro.
All their other current HD camcorders are USB, and USB only, it seems.
@elgarak
I agree that new models support USB 2.0. My problem is that I’ve got a DV camcorder that’s about six years old that is in perfect shape. I’d rather not chuck it. If I used it more often, I might replace with a new HD one. But I don’t.
However, I do like to edit the content that I do shoot with it and my current Macbook does the job. The new one would not. And I’ve got to be far from the only one in this boat.
its peak transfer speed vs sustained transfer speed, especially when dealing with large amounts of data. FW 400 is faster than USB 2.0 for sustained transfer, USB 2.0 is faster for a short quick burst (sometimes) where it can in theory go to 480. In reality, USB 2.0 is not nearly as fast.
Never mind FW 800, or the new USB 3.0 or the new FW that is coming down the pike.
I will continue to use FW on my Macs… Too many peripherals I have depend on it (camera, scanner, external drives, etc…). That being said, if I was in the market for a new laptop, I would not be opposed to one without.
Now, how about eSATA or something?
i dont see many mini dv cameras out there anymore, they’re moving toward flashdrives, removable media. no need for imovie to shuttle/jog from the camera, just move the file over for editing and view it either via your choice of media hub(ATV,mobileme,iphone….).
I think the FW400 omission is a mistake on the MacBook and one which will be rectified before too long.
Clearly it was in the hands of a junior person in Apple and not fully rationalised.
It is sad that FireWire did not catch on as well as it should, but the fault is not with Apple who have promoted it strongly for years and years. Blame WinTel not Apple.
The biggest loss is FireWire target mode which is very very useful indeed. You can boot from a USB drive but you can’t do anything like Target mode.
If you have a FireWire only camera, you either have a pretty old camera or such a high end one that you shouldn’t really be squawking about having to buy the Pro laptop.
Finally, if Apple had only put one USB port on the MacBook so as to leave in FireWire, the forums would be filled with people complaining about the single USB port and why not drop the “useless” FireWire port and put in a second USB.
@limey,
That’s not so true. Last time I wanted to buy a stand-alone FireWire enclosure for a SATA notebook (2.5″) drive I found — ONE. One model from one manufacturer (MacAlly). And that was FireWire 400 and USB.
All the other FW enclosures were for PATA drives, or 3.5″ drives.
FireWire, especially FW400, is a dying connector. It survives for (semi-)professional applications as FW800 thanks to the really high transfer speeds.
The more I think about it, I think skipping the FW400 ports on the new MacBooks (and MacBook Pro) was a good decision on Apple’s part.
Why do you need Target Disk Mode on the new MacBooks with no FireWire Ports?
You can boot those from external drives, and you can take out the HD within a minute if you have a Torx driver.
What advantage doe Target Disk Mode have?
Indeed : Hello Apple ?!
The firewire port absence is just another symptom of Steve Jobs inability to think on more than one track. His track record is to offer as few options as possible to Mac users. Something new comes out, do away with the old. Not because there is anything wrong with the old, just because it’s old. Or in the case of the firewire port, just because it doesn’t suite his fancy to offer it.
Now he has completely done away with matte screens. I own two iMacs and one MacBook. I really hate to say it, but these may be my last. Although I suppose I could upgrade to the Mac Pro, and get someone else’s monitor to avoid having a glossy screen shoved down my throat.
Steve Jobs is just a control freak.
I would like to hear from Steve Jobs why Firewire was omitted. I guess he doesn’t mind that we won’t be able to use our existing Firewire-only video cameras anymore?
Steve, time to hear from you on this.
“So I went over to NewEgg and searched for HD camcorders. There are NONE, Zero, zip, nada, zilch with FireWire only. They are USB, or USB and FireWire combos. Lemme repeat: All currently sold HD camcorder models feature USB, and no FireWire only.
FireWire seems to go the way of the dodo.”
I’m glad somebody else noticed. Even the cheapo $500 JVC HDD camcorder I bought last year is USB only. FireWire is dead folks, it’s time to move on…
USB FireWire is available, but it’s Windows only. Get a life Mac users why buy a PATHETHIC Apple product while you can get everything you’ve wanted on a MS Window. Whenever you think of purchasing a computer THINK Windows. MS Windows For Life.
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I love people defending Apple…. they can do no wrong. Apple is growing, this decision won’t necessarily make the growth go away. But it will keep the growth from reaching it’s potential. Many cameras that say USB/FIrewire have the USB for pictures, Firewire is still a requirement for many many cameras. A converter with USB won’t work as video needs a constant stream, only Firewire can do that.
So the lesser, lower quality formatted cameras are all that will work (many mentioned above with high compression, yuck). Sounds like Apple is going to “good enough” is an OK business practice… ummm… sounds like another Company I know.
Plus, these aren’t $899 computers are they?
The absence of firewire, plus the absence of a matte screen, has pushed my wife and I out of the option to buy another Mac laptop to replace our aging PPC PowerBook. We simply can’t afford to move to a MBP to gain one feature without the other. Looks like Apple is going to have a short life span in this consumer’s home.