“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?
Basically, the exclusion of Firewire puts my Macbook purchase off indefinitely, unless I choose to go with the white plastic models. When I buy a computer, I don’t expect to also have to replace my camcorder (which I only purchased last year) in the process. The whole reason I went with a Mini-DV camcorder in the first place was because most of the models available last year could only do a direct video transfer using a Windows utility. Plus, they all used a much lower video bitrate, which more readily degrades during the editing process. (Not to mention the fact that Apple slot-loading SuperDrive does not accept the mini DVD discs that most DVD-based camcorders use)
I was hoping to get one of the new Macbooks so that I could do video capture and editing on the go. I already use my iMac for video editing, but I would’ve liked to have the option of untethering myself from my desk at home when creating movies.
If Apple gains a bunch of new customers with these Al Macbooks, more power to them. I just won’t be one of them.
just realized I missed the info…
no target disk mode
and NO CARD SLOT TO ADD FIREWIRE!!!! WTF APPLE~!?!
I do NOT want to rely on BS usb 2.0 for timemachine, and storage!!! REALLY!!! THIS SUCKS!!! USB 3.0 better come out soon goddamnit!
oh and btw, there should be a 2 hard drive option in the MBP!
oh and there should be a mac mini with support for expandable graphics, and 2 hard drives… DO IT..
My poor black musician friend is now NOT going to get a new macbook. 🙁 sorry apple I tried
It’s odd that no one seems to be concerned about audio interfaces and the like. The lack of a firewire port I am sure will also affect a lot of people with such devices that had no need to buy a pro model, because the macbook had enough power to run these audio devices unless they were running video as well.
While I lament the loss of FireWire from the new MacBooks (I was Apple’s Original FireWire Evangelist from 1991-1993, while it was still code named ChefCat), I understand the reasoning. The BIG main advantage of FireWire over USB 2 is the isochronous (Same-Time) data handshaking/transfer. Guaranteed data delivery at the time it is needed. This is very important to professional video editors, needing to work with one or more realtime video streams. USB 2 just can’t deliver that. While consumers benefit from FireWire in faster sustained data transfers than USB 2, they don’t really take full advantage of FireWire’s isochronous capability.
FireWire does cost more to implement in (chipset, connectors, licenses, etc.) than USB 2, and with everyone clamoring for lower cost MacBooks, something has to give. Also, you may remember the loss of Floppy disk drives, which Apple spearheaded, many a reporter claimed that the tipping point for no-floppy PCs had not come yet. When in fact it had, and Apple saw it and acted on it before everyone else.
Such is the way of FireWire on consumer products (computers and cameras).
Apple will not be removing FireWire from the MacBook Pros or the Mac Pro towers, as these are the workhorses for most media production houses. Until such time as some other much faster peripheral interconnect comes to fruition, with the same or better realtime (isochronous) capability at a lower cost (there are faster interconnects – but much more expensive), FireWire is not going anywhere. FireWire also has 1600, 3200 modes coming down the pipe as well.
The impact for those of us semi-pro media/video editors, will be that FireWire based external drives may become more expensive as there will not be as large a market for them going forward.
As for Target Disk Mode, all Apple computers have had Gigabit Ethernet for several years now. Apple has made the new MacBook’s Migration Assistant work with Ethernet. Gigabit Ethernet is not much slower than FireWire 400 (on sustained data transfers), so I suspect this also made the removal easier, since there is a reasonable alternative.
No matter what, I won’t use Windows. I’m upset, too- but throwing a temper tantrum in public in hopes that Steve Jobs will see or hear about it and change the error of his ways is not logical or constructive. OK, it’s good to vent, though. But think about it- most PC users could care less about matte screens or firewire, many have never used or heard about it- so if you’re upset, you’ll be in the same boat with PC’s either now or very shortly if you switch. Ever go to Best Buy and compare PC’s to Apples? Ugh. I’d pay double for a Mac- uh, don’t tell Apple that…
In reference to my previous post, it would seem there are people also concerned with audio interfaces and the need for FW. I missed those posts (along with the whole second page of posts, it would seem). I will be keeping my recently purchased black plastic macbook which has every thing I need anyways.
buy a macbook pro?….
I, too, was rather dismayed to learn about FW being dropped. I’ve been waiting several months for these upgrades, as I need to hand down my current MacBook to a daughter whose aging 12″ Powerbook was teetering on the edge of death. Our nearly decade-old DV camcorder is FW only, so I can relate to the those who are feeling the pain of this move. A few thoughts on the other side, however:
1. There’s a (slim) possibility that the new MBooks have the hardware to do FW over E-net, but this was not mentioned because something wasn’t ready on the software side. You may recall earlier MacBooks shipped with undocumented N-wireless capabilities that were later able to be unlocked through a $2 download.
2. Remember Apple hasn’t dropped FW from the entire line, only the aluminum MacBooks. If someone absolutely needs it in their notebook and can’t pony up for a Pro, there’s still the $999 model.
3. Alternatively, one can do what I plan to do (yes, I went ahead an ordered a new 13.3″): import DV on to another Mac and then transfer the files. Sure, it’s less than ideal, but it is a workaround.
I remember the hue and cry that went up when Apple dropped the floppy drive from the iMac. At the time it seemed to many (including myself) that this was a huge mistake. In retrospect, of course, it was the correct call. During the Jobs era, Apple has almost always been on the mark with these kinds of decisions. Skating to where the puck will be, I guess…
Musicians, Live on stage all love the 13″ form factor and firewire for audio is like light and day over USB.
There is no 13″ Macbook Pro so there is a ton of musicians that are screwed.
It isnt all about cameras guys.
Apple sells logic so they need to keep their stage musos happy or they will loose sales on hardware and software like logic
a 15.4 screen is not an option a traveling muso wants either
“Also Target Disk mode is great for applying an image to a machine also for upgrading it if your drive is borked.”
Your Macs must get their filesystems trashed a lot more times than you’re think from all the “Macs are reliable it just works” talk that goes here on until someone removes a feature you apparently need each day to keep your Mac working.
It’s NOT JUST VIDEO CAMERAS!!
I use a firewire only audio interface. It cost me £800 if I wanted to upgrade my computer I’d have to buy a usb interface and, trust me. They are a shit load slower than firewire. Even USB2 would never compete with firewire 400.
One laptop plus an interface upgrade is really something I can not afford right now.
I’m not in the market for a laptop right now, but I’m worried about Apple’s move to drop Firewire. Everyone knows why Firewire is the preferred choice over USB for video.
USB is winning and its all Apple’s fault. They have let their greed get in the way. Had they offered Firewire at a reasonable licensing fee, Firewire would be standard on PC’s and USB may never have been necessary.
Good job Steve.
I bought my first FireWire drives when I purchased my first Mac. Will Apple continue to support FireWire? Inquiring minds want to know.
alansky: What HD boot? As far as I know, you cannot boot up from an external USB drive. Someone at Apple outlined a way to do it, but the method involved reinstalling OS X, which is absurd!
You also fail to understand that target disk mode is necessary for migrating data from one Mac to another. Without it, one can perhaps use ethernet, which means waiting hours for your data to transfer.
All Intel Macs, including the new MacBooks, can boot from an external USB hard drive. Just start it up with alt pressed, select the external HD (which needs a bootable filesystem, of course), there you are. The internal HD shows up on the desktop/finder like an external HD. And the system transfer has been updated that you can transfer from an external HD as well. Which people should already have around, for Time Machine or other backup purposes (I use two external HDs, one for Time Machine, another for a weekly Carbon Copy Cloning). After all, HDs are cheap these days. And I survived through two HD failures thanks to backups.
* not logged in
@jocknerd
“USB is winning and its all Apple’s fault. They have let their greed get in the way. Had they offered Firewire at a reasonable licensing fee, Firewire would be standard on PC’s and USB may never have been necessary.”
Boy, I can’t argue with that. I just looked up the cost of Firewire licensing and was shocked. Until 1999, Apple charged $1.00 license fee per port. In May 1999, a consortium of 11 companies announced a joint licensing agreement that brought the cost down to a more reasonable $0.25 per system.
http://www.macobserver.com/news/99/may/990512/newfirewirelincensing.html
However, I read somewhere else that the cost of USB licensing is $0.01 per port, so Firewire was never even in the game for volume.
Too bad. It’s a better standard.
I use target disk mode twice a day. Once in the morning to sync my laptop at high speed with my desktop at work, and once more in the evening to do the same thing. It takes 5 minutes, but without TDM I would have to sync across the network for over an hour.
Maybe there’s some other high method but I haven’t found it.
Education is a huge market Apple has just stiffed.
We have money invested in firewire peripherals – interfaces, drives, and cameras.
We won’t be “upgrading”. The older model looks like run-out stock that won’t be available by the time we come to purchase. The MacBook Pro is out of our budget range.
We’ll be looking at PC Laptops that offer firewire connectivity.
One more point: It’s fine for Steve to mention the new cameras all having USB2, but we are hardly going to rush out and purchase a whole lot of new cameras (not to mention hard drives) as well as new laptops. Most schools are in a similar situation.
Tthere would be less anger if Apple was not removing a port with no replacement port offered. ie. The previous MacBook has USB2 AND Firewire – now Steve is saying this new one is a step up when it has LESS connectivity and doesn’t outperform the previous model?!
He must be seriously deluded.
This is a problem with a single source vendor of hardware who makes a limited product line. Sometims they’re going to make decisions you don’t like, but there’s nothing you can do. If you ran Windows, you’d just pick a laptop vendor who had FireWire or use a USB to Firewire converter, which are available for the PC.
But someone will see this outrage and soon offer a Mac $49.95 USB to Firewire converter and this problem of using legacy firewire devices will become history.
In the not too distant future, probably no new Mac will have FireWire. I’ll miss it. Target Disk Mode was something unique to Macs because of FireWire (and SCSI before it).
I guess the value of FireWire-only external drives and other FireWire-based peripherals just took a nose dive.
>MDN wrote: We’re still trying to figure out how Apple…plans to resolve the dichotomy between MacBooks that ship with iMovie and the lack of a FireWire port for DV cameras.
Why don’t you try and figure out how to jump off Steve’s left nut. Will you ever stop being a bunch of Apple fluff girls?
Glossy has better color etc.etc, but IF you sit with light splashing on to the screen, it can get a bit iffy.
WHY the F*** would you sit with light hitting your screen? It will make it more difficult to see, matte or glossy.
FireWire is great, but its a dying protocol, sadly.
Apple tried to make it fly, but all those cheap-ass PC people wouldnt bite. So its USB or a Macbook Pro.
Or are you really going to go back to Windows?
If so, then you must be even more dumb than your posts suggests.
SO: Stop the glossy and FW complaints – they dont hold very much water, do they?
If you are angry at Apple, then go see a counsellor.
Your anger is NOT at Apple, you have issues much deeper than anger at a computer co. that has no real connection to you. Maybe you need to get laid. Who knows, but it aint Apple that is making you nuts, its YOU.
Its really not possible to get more than irritated with a company – think about it.
If you still MUST HAVE matte, get a 17″ Macbook Pro.
NOW STOP THIS SILLINESS.
@ Grant Woods:
Cameras in a school are few in number, I would guess.
They also cost about $400 – $600 to replace, and wear out much more quickly than the Macbooks.
Surely you would use the ‘books you have and the cameras you have until they crap out.
That might be another 5 years.
When it comes time to replace equipment, you will just have to deal with the fact that almost NO cameras have FW any more.
“We’ll be looking at PC Laptops that offer firewire connectivity.”
Windows? You would inflict Windows on kids?
What kind of frickin sadist are you, man?
Thats why we home school our kids – these illogical and angry posts remind me what assholes most teachers are……
I justy don’t see the problem. If you need firewire, buy the old white macbook or the macbook pro. It’s not like there is no way to have an apple laptop with firewire, just that two of the models, air and aluminum macbook, don’t. So there is a choice, one cheap and one expensive. You can even bring out the old spray-paint can and paint your white new white macbook aluminum.
Also, seems like a lucrative market for someone to make a firewire hub that connects to usb, or a firewire to usb single cable. Probably won’t take more than a few months.