“Support for FireWire in the iPod, already waning, takes a further blow with Apple’s newest music player,” Ina Fried writes for CNET. “Apple’s tiny new iPod Nano uses the same dock connector as its larger iPod and iPod Mini brethren. However, try plugging in a FireWire cable and an error message appears: ‘FireWire connections are not supported. To transfer songs, connect the USB cable provided.'”
“In a pinch, a FireWire cable can be used to charge the nano, but you won’t be able to update your tunes or podcast list. The move is the latest in a series of slights to FireWire, a connection method that Apple helped pioneer and later made standard across its Mac line.” Fried reports. “The move is the latest in a series of slights to FireWire, a connection method that Apple helped pioneer and later made standard across its Mac line…. It’s a bummer for folks like me that have an older Mac that has a FireWire port, but only a slower USB 1.1 port. To Apple’s credit, the Nano’s incredibly small size and good looks might just make it worth suffering through slower downloads.
Full article here.
We know it’s a done deal, but we still say, “Bad form, Apple. Bad form.”
Related MacDailyNews articles:
Intel adds FireWire 400 and 800 to latest motherboard – May 18, 2005
Apple should include a combo FireWire and USB 2.0 cable in every iPod box – February 24, 2005
Apple disrespects its own Mac users with iPod’s FireWire fiasco – February 24, 2005
Griffin debuts Dock400 FireWire cable for Apple iPods – February 24, 2005
Petition to Apple for iPod FireWire support posted online – February 23, 2005
Apple knifing its own FireWire baby by pushing USB 2.0 as iPod’s primary connectivity option – February 23, 2005
…and THIS is the reason i’m not rushing out to buy a nano. i have only FireWire and USB 1.1.
is this the shape of things to come? is Apple withdrawing its support of FireWire?
MW: question
Yea, it’s an interesting question – the iPod connector is already “standard” between firewire and usb – why drop Firewire now? Perhaps it saved some $$?
It’s probably not too bad – most PC’s and Macs have more USB ports than Firewire anyway.
(I would have preferred the option tho.)
i’ve been considering a large capacity external FireWire harddrive for a backup solution. looks like i’d better go ahead and get one before they become as rare as hen’s teeth.
Sure, firewire would be nice but $13 and a trip to CompUSA will get you a USB 2.0 PCI card. If you already own an iPod, then you already know that the purchase price is just the first in a long line of expenses to follow … a USB 2.0 card is the cheapest accessory you’ll ever buy for it.
Oh, stop the whining. Firewire is great, but it’s going the way of Betamax and Apple is correct to focus on the standard that is most widely used, rather than driving costs up with an extra firewire chip. Everyone with a Mac older than 3 years is in this same boat. If you have a tower, just get a pci card with usb 2.0 for $25 bucks. Your printer, dig camera and external hard drive will thank you for it.
If the iPod nano connection is the same, is there any reason given why Firewire is not supported?
I think that Apple wants to use firewire for professional fields like Digital Video, and USB 2 for consumer devices.
No.. Given that Intel has adopted firewire as a part of its overall design, I think you will still see firewire on Intel Macs.
major m…. SHADDAP! some people have iMacs and eMacs, cant add a card and aren’t ready or have no need to buy a whole new computer…
JUST TO HAVE USB 2.0.
would we like to have USB 2.0, sure. but we cant. and now the most popular music player on the planet (which is produced by our very own computer maker, no less) is becoming less and less accessable to us. so i think we have a right to be a little worried.
finelinebob read the summary, some old macs only have FW and USB 1.1 and if like me, onan eMac or iMac you can’t stick a new card in, not without some serious modding, which most people using eMacs and iMacs are not prepared to do.
Isn’t USB 2.0 just as fast as Firewire 800? or is the USB 2.0 just as fast as Firewire 400?
I think that the Nano’s lack of FireWire has nothing to do with technology and everything to do with politics. No, this is not a rant about Bush, etc. I am referring to the politics between Apple and Intel, the creators of FireWire and USB respectively. The deal to use x86 components in next year’s Macs may have come with the condition that Apple will phase out FireWire so that Intel can have the whole market for external device connections to itself. In return Intel may debut some processors and motherboards on Apple products or give Apple a bigger discount than the rest of the PC industry currently gets from them. I am all against it because FireWire outperforms any USB in real-world performance. Besides, I too have an older PowerMac without USB 2 and it is serving me (and my 4G iPod) well. Nice design on the Nano but it comes with compromises to functionality. I hope a revision will feature FireWire connectivity but I am not holding my breath for it.
I, too, think it’s too bad that Apple is switching the iPods. That said, on the nano, I don’t think it’s that big of a deal. The nano, with only 4GB, isn’t much of an external hard drive.
Personally, though, I think the iPod (not shuffles, not nanos) should have FireWire 800. There’s a much better chance that they will be used for external storage. For an old comparison, check this out. Filling up my 60GB iPod with stuff will take two-and-a-half times longer using USB.
That said, anybody want to jump on an Intel conspiracy bandwagon? After all, USB is an Intel standard. Apple pays Intel a certain amount for every USB chip they include, so I don’t see the whole “USB is cheaper” argument.
USB 2 can’t even match FireWire 400 speeds in real life application, FireWire 800 blows USB 2.0 completely away:
http://www.usb-ware.com/firewire-vs-usb.htm
C’mon guys – AppleInsider says someone has already disassembled a nano – could be as simple as Apple saved a few pennies and some real estate by not putting a FireWire chip in it. The nano works with USB 1.1 – it’s just slow – but how fast does it have to be to copy a couple dozen songs at a time. Yes I think Apple is shorting FireWire – but it’s a real minor deal here folks.
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(as he types this on his dual 2.5 G5 with USB 2)
MDN Magic Word “record” – love that the nano is driving my Apple stock to a new record value!
Let’s be fair. Sometimes USB is a better choice than FireWire.
FireWire is faster and doesn’t tax the CPU like USB, but USB is cheaper.
At the dawn of the iPod era, FireWire was much faster than USB and CPUs were slower, so it made sense to add the extra expense of FireWire to the iPod.
Years later, USB is fast enough for the iPod and CPUs are much faster, so it makes sense to use only USB on the smaller iPods — Apple’s competitors are in full panic about the form, function AND PRICE of this iPod.
By the same measure, if a 1TB iPod was released tomorrow, I’d expect it to support FireWire 800 as well as FireWire 400 and USB 2.
What I would like to see is Apple push the advancement of FireWire into places it makes sense. Like FireWire for networking. FireWire for all types of video, even monitors. FireWire for hot-swap internal drives. And my favorite, FireWire for extending my system bus at full (or fast enough) speed to external modules that hold hard drives, RAM, co-processors (like Cells) and/or PCI/AGP slots for video, sound and what ever else the market creates and Apple collects license for. Then Johnny Clueless could customize and upgrade his system as well as Johnny Gearhead — And Johnny Clueless is a much larger demographic.
Geo B has it. Apple gets to save millimeters on the size of the nano by not including Firewire support. They’d need a whole extra chipset to do that. The shuffle doesn’t support Firewire either. Just because it’s shaped like your average USB drive, nobody complained. The nano is the exact same thing as the shuffle…only much much much much much cooler.
For the most part, everyone has USB, only us Mac users have Firewire (again, “for the most part”…please don’t flame me).
For every extra dollar Apple makes by marketing iPods to Windows users, that’s that much more potential R&D money for the future of the Macintosh platform. Me likey.
They just don’t ship a firewire cable, but if you look on the spec page, they mention that it supports Firewire. Don’t give up on the firewire as of yet. Why would Apple make it non-Firewire compatible if all their Macs ship with Firewire 400 and some with 800?
“Charging via USB or FireWire to computer system or power adapter”
I don’t mind USB 2.0, but I unfortunatly have several USB 1.1 devices and really don’t like the fact that all other devices (i.e. my Shuffle and Nano) get draged down to 1.1 speed when ever an older device is present. Am I supposed to unplug my tablet that I use as my mouse (USB 1.1) to get the speeds that my ports are capable of?
P.S. Regardless of published specs, Firewire 400 is still faster than USB 2.0 in the real world.
“If the iPod nano connection is the same, is there any reason given why Firewire is not supported?”
I don’t think the Flash memory can handle the speed of the data stream.
Despite what a lot of self professed computer experts will tell you, firewire is faster than USB 2.0 where it counts.
I already knew that many other flash based devices can’t handle it either.
Why else would Apple slight their own invention?
Dudes…
Get a grip…
The nano is SMALL… DAMN small! It’s THINNER than the Shuffle, and only about twice as wide, but comes with a 1.5″ color LCD… and there are there are two large memory chips inside, so jsu twhere are they to put the Firewire chip? (take a look for yourself at the nano’s guts)
Seriously… Take a look at the photos… There simply is no room for a firewire chip… Even if there was room for the chip, you have to consider the traces between the chip and the rest of the device… Where would those go?
And then there is the cost… those 1GB and 2GB memory chips (there are two in there, so 2GB and 4GB total respectively)) cost more than the 4GB and 6GB harddrives that are in the mini, so addng a $5 Firewire chip may not sound like much, but over the course of millions of them, it’s a huge expense and anyone who knows anything about CE design, knows that for a $5 chip (and I am speculating on the price), there is a lot of additional cost to support it…
Anyhow, if you have an older mac with USB1.1, you could get a Firewire to USB adapter… I honestly don’t know if such a device exists, but it seems like a good idea, if the market is large enough..
Oh, and to the guy who said that PCs don’t have Firewire… that’s true of the low end ones, but all the high ends ones come with it these days. technology-wise, there is little different between a Mac and PC anymore, except the CPU, and we all know where APple’s going with that, which I personally think is a non-issue. I always preferred AMD for my PCs, but I have nothing against Intel per se, and in the long run, it’s probably a much safer move to get those volume discounts… that’s how the nano is so cheap… Samsung took it on the chin for Apple, and make up the difference in volume… Who knows… if the nano is as good a seller as is being predicted, nest year there may be 8GB or larger nanos using Samsung chips… One thing is for certain, the market for memory chips has gone up, and will go up even further when the competition inevitably follows Apple’s lead, like they all have for many years now.
MDN Magic word: Water as in “water under the bridge.”
I cannot for the life of me figure out why Apple has not built and sold a Firewire to USB 2.0 converter for those of us with archaic 3 year old flat panel iMacs. God knows we’d buy them.
They could save on the production costs of the iPod by excluding Firewire and then tax their installed user base who want the latest insanely great product, without shutting them out completely. This seems like a very Apple thing to do to me.
Quicktime 7 “Pro” comes to mind here …
Is it possible that the flash drive (or supporting circuitry) in the nano is simply too slow for FireWire? If that’s the case, there’d be a point in saving a little money & having the nano be USB only.
Although Apple could have at least let the nano be compatible (if slow) with FireWire using the different docks.
It just might be possible that FireWire electronics simply wouldn’t fit into the desired form factor for the nano.
FireWire isn’t going anywhere — you can’t boot off of USB 2.0 like you can boot off of FireWire. That means no migration assistant, no target FireWire mode, and more. Also, almost all videocameras still rely on FireWire. FireWire isn’t going anywhere, it just didn’t make it into the iPod nano.
It’s for cost. Get over it and use USB 1.1 if you are the 1 in 100 who has no other choice. Apple’s not “out to get you” and they ain’t taking Firewire away where it counts–on COMPUTERS.
If you want iPods to be just for Macs, you are more short sighted than Apple. PC iPods make for switchers.
And seriously… sync speed? Of all the things to worry about in a music player, you’ll stress over whether that new song copies over in 3 seconds vs. half a second? Cause you do that only once and then it’s gonna play just the same either way.
Firewire rules.
iPod rules.
That doesn’t mean Apple owes you both.
Oh, stop the whining. Firewire is great, but it’s going the way of Betamax and Apple is correct to focus on the standard that is most widely used, rather than driving costs up with an extra firewire chip.
—
Exactly, accommodating luddites/PC users means dropping cutting edge stuff like Firewire..
Firewire 800 is THE method of data transfer, other than GBit Ethernet, of course, but it’s expensive, and the only things that can absorb the margin are high end external hard drives and videocameras.
I have seen the future, though, and it is 10 GBit/s Ethernet. Ethernet WILL become the standard for ALL data transfer. Sorry, Firewire, you have just become obsolete.
This all fits in to the eventual low powered nano type notebooks.
Firewire is just too much of a power draw and the iPod nano isn’t all that big in storage that the time will make any difference.
Think
1: low powered intel chips
2: always “on” RAM replaces power eating hard drive
3: iPod nano replaces power eating dvd/cd drives
The nano notebook of the future will be light, cool and last for days on a charge instead of hours.
All the heavy lifting will be done with powered external devices.
I don’t think Apple will phase out firewire. It is too good for some applications. I think I agree after looking at the guts of the nano that they had to make a hard choice, drop firewire or make it a little bigger. The form factor is what eveyone sees and USB is usable – especially since the storage volume is not as large.
I also think that Apple realizes that this will give a not so gentle nudge to owners of older model macs to buy a new system.
Soooo, I can see why they did it. I don’t have to like it and wish it were otherwise but I can see the reasoning behind it.
“Only so much room” that link didn’t have any pics that I could see. Here is the link I found that showed the interior of the Nano:
http://pc.watch.impress.co.jp/docs/2005/0908/nano.htm
Please.
FW 800 is faster than FW 400 which is faster (YES REALLY) than USB 2.0.
And guess what firewire camecorders use
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FW is getting BIGGER not smaller.
But you don’t need it in EVERY little consumer gizmo. The ipod does not need it! Good for Apple in figuring that out.
Apple can’t make everybody happy so they chose to make MOST people happy.
Apple isn’t abandoning Firewire and this move isn’t over cost.
It is quite WELL KNOWN that flash memory/solid state memory media has a much lower data transfer rate than HDD media.
It is highly probable (in fact almost certain) this lack of firwire is due to the fact that you are correct, Firewire is significantly faster than USB2.0 and the iPod nano flash memory cannot handle the data transfer speeds.
Also I would imagine that there would be addded hardware required within the iPod nano to accomodate both Firewire AND USB2.0 and an obvious design goal is “impossibly thin”. as a result why sacrifice your design goal to include Firewire when the data transfer rates it would offer are unable to be used anyway.
See – VERY LOGICAL reason for this move
No conspiracy
No lack of respect for customers
Just a smart design/business decision.
my 2 cents
Luke
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Apple has phased Fire Wire out of the iPod line. That started long before the nano.
What’s the rest of the “series of slights” exactly?
That’s what I thought.
They make a FW webcam when most companies make USE. They even changed their displays to have FW hubs instead of only USB.
So breathe deep and calm down about firewire. There is no big crisis here.
After looking at the autopsy photos of the iPod Nano, I’m surprised that Apple didn’t use chip-on-board (COB) technology. That would have saved them lots of real estate. I can only guess that Apple hasn’t quite worked out enough details in that process to be comfortable with it. If Apple engineers want to pack any more memory into the iPod Nano, they’ll have to go to COB.
I forgot to mention that I didn’t see in the photos where they could pack Firewire hardware in such a confined space. There just ain’t enough real estate inside that iPod.
The main problem that I have with USB 2.0 on the Apple PB is that it only puts out 500mA and the TravelStar and other 2.5inch HD’s want 1amp to power up and read. There are some 2.5 HD’s that will work on 500mA but I don’t have any of them and as I travel a lot I really don’t want to have to carry a powered USB hub. Firewire is my preference as it powers from the FW port and will power up any of the 2.5 HD’s. MHO.
Mike – Your concern with the current draw of hard drives shouldn’t be a problem with the iPod Nano as its memory is all solid state. There is no hard drive in the iPod Nano.
Uhh, the vast majority of digital video cameras on the market today use Firewire (also called IEEE 1394 or iLink), most external HD’s have either Firewire 400 or 800 (or both), and many other pro and semi pro devices have Firewire (audio interfaces , webcams, etc.). Plus, Intel recently showed new motherboard designs that have FW 400 and 800 integrated.
Take your meds, kids. Firewire’s not going anywhere, and USB 2 is plenty fast for iPod transfers.
I believe Apple don’t use COB for two reasons :
1) Time to market – COB takes longer than using off-the-shelf components.
2) Playing multiple vendors off each other for price on standard components.
No Nano for me then. I have a 1Ghz TiBook with Firewire and USB1. Apple shooting its loyal customers in the back again ….
calm down then read above. you are wrong. Apple made a very SMART call and you can still use a nano on your powerbook.
Here’s a solution for those people who can’t upgrade to USB2 on their machines
http://www.cdw.com/shop/products/specs.aspx?EDC=513590
It’s a USB2 / firewire combo unit that can connect via either USB or firewire.
It’s half the price here
http://www.techdepot.com/product.asp?productID=1708635&info=More&tn=i#tabs
Neil, you do realise that a USB 2 hub is not going to upgrade your USB 1 computer to USB 2, don’t you?
Sol: Are you saying that if I connect the hub to my firewire port (on a USB 1.1 iMac) that the USB ports on the hub will still be USB 1.1?
Sol,
As I understand it, the device can connect to a computer via firewire or usb and provide the ability to connect both Firewire and USB2 devices. It does the translation rather than the computer.
Therefore, if you connect the hub to a mac via firewire, the hub will allow you to do data transfer from both USB2 and FW devices. Since FW can transfer at a faster rate than USB2 then the hub will allow you to transfer USB data at USB 2 rates. Get it?
Now what is unclear is whether iTunes will properly recognize iPod connected through the hub.
There is no device that can act as FireWire to USB converter. The technologies are too different to make this possible. The following link clarifies the confusion over what the D-Link hub actually does.
http://www.dlink.com/products/resource.asp?pid=225&rid=1002&sec=0
Only So Much Room is totally right. Apple need to make concessions because of the limited space inside the nano. If you had to choose FireWire or USB, then OF COURSE it makes sense to go with USB.
FireWire in a device that has only 2 or 4 GB of storage gives no practical performance advantage over USB 2.0. So what that FireWire is catching on? FireWire is a great technology but it’s not going to allow the nano to sync 2x faster than USB 2.
I’m getting sick of all the bashing Apple because it made the most practical and only sensible choice. Unfortunately, those stuck with older Macs will have to deal with the suckiness of USB 1.x, but it would be ridiculous to suggest that Apple choose FireWire over USB in this either/or scenario.
“Yeah, let’s make our product unsuable to 90% of the iPod market, because FireWire 400 is, like, 30% faster than USB 2!” How many of the 6.2 million iPods Apple sold last quarter were bought by FireWire-wielding Mac users, you think? It’s a good thing none of you armchair whiners will never work for Apple, cause it would have imploded a decade ago.
BTW, I have a PowerBook G4 400 Mhz, but that’s not going to stop me from enjoying the new nano just because my USB ports are slow. And if you own a newer Mac, you won’t even notice the damn difference with a measly 4 GB of content, max, to sync. Hell, most of the time, people will be syncing 100 MB of data or less. BIG DEAL. It’s not like Apple is making people wait for Godot because there’s no FireWire.
Sorry for the rant, but some people need a nice date with perspective, before they get bitch-slapped by reality.
Another Apple bait and switch. And this time for no apparent reason…
GET A GRIP GUYS. FIREWIRE IS NOT DEAD ON THE IPOD. THERE’S JUST NO CABLE BEING SHIPPED! READ THE SPECS.
To help clear things up:
http://www.apple.com/ipodnano/specs.html
Under “Power and Battery”:
“Charging via USB or FireWire to computer system or power adapter”
—
I’ve read – on other boards from people who have bought the iPod nano – that it doesn’t sync via Firewire. It will only charge!
Can anyone confirm this?
To help clear things up:
http://www.apple.com/ipodnano/specs.html
Under “Power and Battery”:
“Charging via USB or FireWire to computer system or power adapter”
—
I’ve read – on other boards from people who have bought the iPod nano – that it doesn’t sync via Firewire. It will only charge!
Can anyone confirm this?
To help clear things up:
http://www.apple.com/ipodnano/specs.html
Under “Power and Battery”:
“Charging via USB or FireWire to computer system or power adapter”
—
I’ve read – on other boards from people who have bought the iPod nano – that it doesn’t sync via Firewire. It will only charge!
Can anyone confirm this?
Mac & PC Guy-
ill confirm it.. it inly charges.
There are a multitude of reasons why Apple used USB 2.0 on the nano. I think chief among them is the simple fact that all computers have USB of one flavor or another. This is consistent with the number of USB dvices on the market. Anybody got a Firewire keyboard? Apple wants to sell nanos to Wintel users, and most don’t have Firewire. Newer Wintel CPUs have, at the very least, USB 2.0, which is fast enough to transfer 1,000 tunes (10 minutes?). Few of them have a Firewire port.
USB 1.0 will be phased out of all CPUs in favor of USB 2.0 (which can support USB 1.0 connections).
No conspiracy here, just economic reality.
can we post images here?
in any case, the picture of the d-link device here http://www.dlink.com/products/resource.asp?pid=225&rid=718&sec=0 clearly states that it must be connected via both firewire and USB 2.0 to the host computer for its hub capabilities to work.
As such, this does not allow older Macs to become USB 2.0 via Firewire, they will remain USB 1.1.
I still cannot believe this is technically impossible to do.
bah … that didn’t work. Just click on the link for “Product Diagram”
Like I said, no Nano for me. My 1Ghz TiBook only has firewire and USB1. Can charge but not sync with the firewire, and can not charge and sync (very very slowly) with USB1. Paid over £2,100 for the TiBook only 2 years ago. Now it is obsolete as far as iPods go. Basically I would be wasting my money on a Nano as it would not work as advertised with my computer.
And USB is going wireless. Firewire, well, ahhh, well, ummmmm, well.
http://www.usb.org/developers/wusb/
http://www.deviceforge.com/articles/AT9015145687.html
http://www.wi-fiplanet.com/news/article.php/3529606
The reason there is no firewire support for the Nano is that it is not a firewire hard drive, as are all of the hard drive based ipods. The shuffle does not have firewire support either.