Users Rage Over Missing FireWire On New MacBooks 820
CWmike writes "Apple customers, unhappy that the company dropped FireWire from its new MacBook (not the Pro), are venting their frustrations on the company's support forum in hundreds of messages. Within minutes of Apple CEO Steve Jobs wrapping up a launch event in Cupertino, Calif., users started several threads to vent over the omission. 'Apple really screwed up with no FireWire port,' said Russ Tolman, who inaugurated a thread that by Thursday has collected more than 300 messages and been viewed over 8,000 times. 'No MacBook with [FireWire] — no new MacBook for me,' added Simon Meyer in a message posted yesterday. Several mentioned that FireWire's disappearance means that the new MacBooks could not be connected to other Macs using Target Disk Mode, and one noted that iMovie will have no way to connect to new MacBooks. Others pointed out that the previous-generation MacBook, which Apple is still selling at a reduced price of $999, includes a FireWire port. Apple introduced FireWire into its product lines in 1999 and championed the standard."
Drat you Steve! (Score:5, Funny)
Now I won't have anywhere to hookup my HD-DVD drive!
Re:Drat you Steve! (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Mod parent up (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Drat you Steve! (Score:5, Informative)
An external adapter would still require somewhere to plug into. The MacBook doesn't have an ExpressCard slot like the MBPro does.
The only ports available are 2xUSB2 and Gigabit Ethernet. USB2 can't keep up with FW400 (even though the theoretical max is slightly higher) and doesn't transfer in the realtime mode needed by DV cams. There is talk of Firewire over Ethernet, but there is no known compatible adapter.
If the Ethernet adapter in the MacBook supports this (but possibly not until Snow Leopard is released, then come out and say so now. That would likely shut a number of people up.
I was planning on switching to a MacBook because the video card in the old one wouldn't work properly with Blender (Apple's OpenGL problems, as the same card works with Win/Linux and Blender) ... but the lack of a FW400 port means I can't hook in my DV camera, and using iMovie/iDVD was one of the reasons to want to switch to a Mac to begin with.
Having to capture on another computer and then move the video to the Mac means having to have a system around specifically for when I want to capture. Not very elegant at all. Now, I'm thinking I'll probably get a ThinkPad.
Re:Drat you Steve! (Score:5, Insightful)
Let's face it:
FireWire is on its way out due to USB's huge dominance... if it's not discontinued now, it will be eventually. It will join the ranks of all the other discontinued proprietary formats like Atari, Commodore, Amiga, VHS, Betamax, DivX, HD DVD, and so on.
Re:Drat you Steve! (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Drat you Steve! (Score:4, Informative)
Macs can also be hooked to eachother (as can PCs and Linux boxes) via crossover ethernet
Actually, Macs have NICs that can automatically detect crossed pairs in ethernet cables, so you don't even need a special crossover cable to connect two computers directly, as long as one of them is a Mac. Just a regular ethernet cable will do.
This is also the reason that a Mac will sometimes work when plugged into a wrongly-wired wall jack when all other computers fail.
Re:Drat you Steve! (Score:5, Informative)
Actually, Macs have NICs that can automatically detect crossed pairs in ethernet cables, so you don't even need a special crossover cable to connect two computers directly, as long as one of them is a Mac.
Every Gigibit Ethernet NIC needs to be able to do that, it's not Mac-specific. It's required by the Gigabit Ethernet standard.
Re:Drat you Steve! (Score:5, Informative)
IEEE Std 802.3-2005 clause 40.4.4 Automatic MDI/MDI-X Configuration
Automatic MDI/MDI-X Configuration is intended to eliminate the need for crossover cables between similar devices. Implementation of an automatic MDI/MDI-X configuration is optional for 1000BASE-T devices. If an automatic configuration method is used, it shall comply with the following specifications...
I'm not an IEEE expert but the above appears fairly unambiguous. What I do know is that if it isn't required then you can be certain someone, somewhere omitted it. Heck, it would be found missing even if it were required. Crappy hardware abounds.
Re:Drat you Steve! (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Drat you Steve! (Score:4, Insightful)
While new devices that use firewire might be rare, I have no intention of replacing my camcorder just because Apple says I should.
Re:Drat you Steve! (Score:4, Insightful)
Well then don't.
And I'm not going to stop using my Super VHS VCR just because JVC stopped making them, but it's fact that this standard I'm using is now obsolete and will eventually die.
Re:Drat you Steve! (Score:4, Insightful)
But the firewire standard is not dead. It is used in all sorts of video, audio and hard disk devices. Nothing that remains works as well. Usually when they drop something, is because the replacement is better. In this case it is not true. The replacements are worse, or not useful at all.
Re:Drat you Steve! (Score:5, Informative)
While new devices that use firewire might be rare, I have no intention of replacing my camcorder just because Apple says I should.
Apple is saying no such thing. It's so silly that people get worked up about a product that doesn't support their particular need, especially when there's an alternative product that does.
FireWire is only required for older DV cameras, some high-end video production equipment, certain musical equipment, target disk mode, and certain aerospace applications which really have nothing to do with personal computers.
1. Older DV cameras (dwindling market) - Get a new one, or don't get a new MacBook. If you still want a Mac, there are both cheaper and more expensive Macs that will do what you need. However, if you are thinking of buying a MacBook Pro just for FireWire, and would actually prefer a smaller screen, you can buy a MacBook and a new video camera for the same or less than a MacBook Pro.
2. High-end video equipment (niche market) - tens if not hundreds of thousands of dollars in video equipment, with the level of income that goes with it, and you can't afford a MacBook Pro?
3. Musical equipment (niche, but potentially low-end market) - This is really the best case for FireWire on the non-high end MacBooks, and it's still pretty lame. It's an extremely niche market, and it's silly to cater to them at the expense of the average person on the specific model targeted directly at mass consumer.
4. TDM (not niche, but relatively geeky) - The hard drives are insanely easy to get to. A $20 enclosure and an extra 10 minutes tops.
5. Aerospace - Added for completeness.
The mass market has moved to USB. The MacBook is the mass market Mac notebook. You can still buy a higher end, and even a lower end Mac notebook with FireWire.
This does not signal the end of FireWire on Macs. It just signals the end of FireWire as standard on all Macs. If you want both a Mac and FireWire, there are still, and will be for some time to come, plenty of options.
Re:Drat you Steve! (Score:5, Interesting)
The major gripe for ordinary users is the loss of Target Disk Mode [wikipedia.org]. I can't count the number of times my ass has been saved by being able to boot my powerbook/ibook/macbook as a firewire drive.
It's not as big of a deal these days as it used to be, but back in the day target disk mode was the only way of getting to the contents of your powerbook's hard drive without disassembling the entire machine. On the macbooks now, it's easy - take out the battery, unscrew three screws and pull a tab - but it's STILL not as easy as restarting your computer, holding down the "T" button and plugging in a cable.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
There are very few devices that actually use firewire, due to the massive success of USB.
That is not true. Case in Point: video cameras. And huge percentage of other devices that do use firewire were designed specifically for Macs. Apple had a very long history of advocating for Firewire.
Macs can also be hooked to eachother (as can PCs and Linux boxes) via crossover ethernet.
Target disk mode doesn't work over crossover ethernet. Target disk mode is a very cool, very useful feature.
Also, Apple's own support documentation from the Macbook and Macbook Pro update this spring [apple.com]: "FireWire connections are still the fastest way to migrate applications and data from an older computer to you
Re:Drat you Steve! (Score:4, Informative)
Okay, Commodore/Amiga and Atari were companies not formats.
They produced closed-source operating systems and non-IBM-PC motherboards, but their machines actually used standard connectors and protocols for the most part. Commodore failed due to gross mismanagement (there's a hilarious/tragic book about it), not because they were particularly proprietary, and Amiga didn't really escape, becoming a suehappy I"P" holding company rather than producing real stuff.
I _agree_ that USB will/has basically killed firewire (that and the stupid firewire per-board licensing fee that OEMs had to pay that slowed takeup), but it is not directly comparable to the horrible zombification of the "official" amiga (unofficial amiga-like stuff is going strong - AROS is an AmigaOS-3-source-compatible open source operating system that runs on IBM-PCs, for instance).
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Proprietary? Do you even know what that word means? Considering your list you apparently don't have a clue what "format" means either.
How you got modded insightful... that's a great big wtf there.
Re:Drat you Steve! (Score:5, Informative)
not in the audio world it isn't... try finding a multichannel professional usb sound card...
there are many differences between firewire and usb that make firewire far better for audio work (and video too, but that isn't my area) and it isn't just better speed (although that helps).
porl
Re:Drat you Steve! (Score:5, Informative)
Exactly. FireWire is great for pumping high-bandwidth data like multiple audio streams (think mixing board) into the computer for processing. Firewire's biggest advantage is that it's designed to do all of this while bypassing the CPU as much as possible, freeing the CPU's cycles for audio effects processing. USB's theoretical speed is higher, but the architecture relies on the CPU to a much greater extent than FireWire.
Maybe we will get to the point soon where USB's CPU-intensive nature won't matter, but as someone who still occasionally overloads the USB input using only a MIDI controller, I can authoritatively say that we're not there yet.
Re:Drat you Steve! (Score:5, Informative)
A couple of points:
DV cameras (and associated transports such as HDV, DVCPRO, etc.) actually operate at S100 (100mbps). It should be possible to construct an interface that lets these low-speed firewire devices operate over USB2. Plus, the protocols themselves are robust enough to deal with a bus problem. Older ibooks often had trouble keeping up capturing firewire video and they recovered just fine. An occasional hiccup shouldnt be a big deal.
I believe this is what apple or a third party vendor should do. It would be a VERY good product. There are readily available USB2 PCI bridge chipsets and PCI firewire chipsets. Such a product coould probably sell for around $100. While it wouldn't work very well for firewire hard drives, USB2 should be able to keep up with S100 if its the only demanding thing on the bus.
Secondly the IEEE1394c draft specifying an RJ45 connector is *not* Firewire over Ethernet. It's Firewire over UTP/Cat5e with some additional tricks that would allow ports to detect either standard and switch between gigabit ethernet and firewire as needed. I have been hoping for this standard to take off for a long time (It could be really neat in low end storage networks), but I'm not going to hold my breath.
I have to say, this seems a bit overblown ..... (Score:5, Insightful)
Note, I'm saying this as someone who still uses both firewire audio gear (I have an M-Audio Firewire 410 unit) AND a Sony Digital 8 camcorder with firewire ... so I *do* get the need for the connector at times.
But still, I think all this "outrage" is overblown. For starters, firewire is a slowly dying standard. No, it's not dead yet - but it's been struggling for years. The music industry is the biggest proponent of it still, but they're always SLOW to adopt changes - so that shouldn't come as much of a surprise. (Remember when Windows XP was released, and for years afterwards, you still had big-name audio apps that only officially supported Win '95/'98? Look how long music synthesizer/workstation makers hung onto SCSI ports as the answer for attaching your CD/DVD-ROM drives and external storage. They only started moving to memory card slots and USB ports after they exhausted their list of drive makers willing to re-brand external SCSI drives for them!)
As for camcorders? Apple's iMovie '08 total rewrite should have been the first clue on that! The main reason it was done was to support "AVCHD" video formats, as used on all the cameras popping up with built-in hard drives or flash drive storage. All of these were using USB interfaces, which older iMovie versions didn't even recognize. Go to any retail store today, and count how many camcorders on sale still use firewire! I bet it's no more than 1 in 5, and would be even less if it weren't for Sony's clinging to firewire (i.link) on their products.
Apple is known for a rather "minimalist" attitude with their products, and will delete options any time they think one is getting "old in the tooth". They were the first to ditch the 3.5" floppy drive, and go to great lengths just to eliminate switches and buttons on their products (iPhone, iPods, their very basic wireless remote control, slot-loading drives on portables with no eject button to be found on them, etc. etc.).
Obviously, they recognize that true "Pro" type users (who generally earn an income from the work they do on their computer) could still need firewire, so it's there on the Macbook Pro. It's there on all currently shipping Mac Pros too, and at least for the time being, even on consumer iMacs. (But I bet it disappears off the next revision of those too.)
Bottom line? A lot of people just wanted to try to do things with Apple's cheaper "consumer focused" portable that go a little beyond what that core market would ever care to do with one. Apple pushed back, and is forcing you to choose a "Pro" version of their machine if you're doing "Pro" things with it. Either go along with this thinking, or don't -- and use a last generation notebook that you can pick up cheaper than ever right now. By the time IT wears out, firewire will be much less attractive an option for you anyway, I suspect.
Re:I have to say, this seems a bit overblown ..... (Score:5, Informative)
I don't want to seem like an ass, but the fact that you are using M-Audio gear indicates to me that you're really not working "pro" audio interfaces (particularly on Mac, since the OS X support for M-Audio is awful).
While you are probably correct that Apple is further straying down the road of "consumer appliance" for their sub-2000$ computing devices and they can be served by USB2 ports, what it says to me even more is that Apple is happy abandoning some of the creative folks who are frequently the traditional standard bearers for OS X (video and audio creative folks). There's a lot of audio editing and composing, for example, that doesn't need a $2000 MBP.
But, as I said on Ars, that's fine. The audio folks will eventually just move to an alternate OS platform.
re: M-Audio (Score:4, Interesting)
No, that's very true. M-Audio gear is "prosumer" grade, at best. I'm not a professional audio engineer or musician. It's a hobby for me. I used to play rhythm guitar in a local band, but that was over a decade ago - and was really just a "phase" for me. I still like tinkering with music though. (Every time I've decided to just sell off all my music gear, it seems like a buddy comes along and wants to "jam" on some Saturday evening or what-not, and I get the urge to buy some stuff back again. So I've learned that "once a musician, always a musician" saying has some truth behind it. I just keep my instruments now....)
What I meant in my original post, though, was -- one can loosely describe Apple's definition of a "pro user" as anyone who is an "enthusiast", "power user" or earns money with what they do with their computer. If you really don't fall into any of these categories, and just want a cheap notebook because it's needed for a few music things you do (say, maintaining a tone library for your Line 6 guitar processor or something?), why are you fixated on buying a "latest and greatest" Macbook revision anyway?
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
If Apple's competitors can include firewire with a $1000 laptop, why should I be forced
Re:I have to say, this seems a bit overblown ..... (Score:5, Insightful)
Well, I think the main problem with the audio industry and USB is that USB is completely, absolutely horrible for audio. Really, that standard seems to have been designed by retards. It works OK for low-quality, low-bitrate things like speakers and microphones and headsets. However, the streaming model is terrible, and almost completely unsuited to professional audio. There is no way to reserve bandwidth (except in isochronous mode, which doesn't have error detection or recovery), it's very hard to use asynchronous clocks, and it's almost impossible to have low latency (due to the previous issue). Therefore, most USB soundcards run in synchronous mode, where the sample clock of the soundcard is locked to the USB clock. This, of course, is completely unsuitable for professional audio.
I think Apple has royally shot themselves in the foot with this. The people who buy Macbooks are disproportionate users of Firewire, since many of them do A/V type stuff. Considering there's no Expresscard slot, those people are basically fucked. I'm sure many of them will just switch to a Windows laptop, or get the older Macbook.
Re:I have to say, this seems a bit overblown ..... (Score:4, Insightful)
I think they're using this as a lever to push the audio-editors to the Pro models.
Re:I have to say, this seems a bit overblown ..... (Score:5, Informative)
The vast majority of portable audio interfaces are firewire... because at this point there is no alternative. USB2 for audio pretty much sucks. All of the portable plugin hosts are firewire. It has nothing to do w/ "audio is slow to adopt to standards". Firewire is the proven low latency interface for audio.
Apple is being Apple... they try to force their users - being the fanboys they are - to shell out more money for the "Pro" series. So much for their 'warning' to the market about slimmer margins. I don't know where that was coming from or referring to.
If I didn't already have a huge amount of money invested in Mac audio software, I'd flee.
Re: no alternative? (Score:4, Informative)
Getting music equipment manufacturers to adopt standards has always been an exercise in cat-herding. My studio is quite modest, and almost every piece of gear has some interface unique to itself. The sampler has SCSI, the controller keyboard has USB, the audio interface has FireWire, the Roland module has the R-Bus connection that not even Roland uses anymore, there's a synth with a "to-host" serial port.
About the only standard that everyone can agree upon is MIDI (which was adopted jointly by the two heavy-hitter manufacturers back in the day) which is why everything still has a MIDI in and out 25 years later. There are some products that use Ethernet, for example the Muse Receptor, but I think the problem is that nobody wants to adopt a new standard until they're sure everyone else has adopted it, or else it's a wasted investment. I've believed for quite some time now that the major hardware manufacturers need to settle on some kind of MIDI-for-the-21st century specification, but perhaps it's a moot point now as people turn more towards software tools for audio synthesis and production.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
"USB2 can't keep up with FW400 (even though the theoretical max is slightly higher) and doesn't transfer in the realtime mode needed by DV cams."
If this is true, why do most new DV cameras (lower end ones) have USB2? And really, are you going to buy a high end DV camera, with FW only, and a lowend laptop like the MacBook?
I'm still screwed because my DV is firewire only, but that isn't the case as much anymore. And so I really don't see what all the stink is about. There aren't a lot of FW only devices le
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
AFAIK, the reason new cameras can get away with USB instead of FW is because the new cameras don't store their data on a DV tape, but on a hard drive or other random access digital media.
A tape drive really only plays at one speed, so to get data off that tape, you need an interface that can cope with real-time speed. If you want to transfer 10 minutes of data off the tape, you need to do so in 10 minutes. With a hard drive, this restriction goes away; you can leisurely transfer that 10 minutes of data at
Re:Drat you Steve! (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Drat you Steve! (Score:5, Informative)
the original macbook pros lacked a firewire 800 port, which was added to the next refresh on them. I expect to see a fw800 port added to the first refresh on these new macbooks.
Yes, no firewire sucks. I do mac repair work, and I use the firewire port a LOT. This is going to make it a lot harder for me to get my job done. I hate working on the slot load imacs that lack the firewire port.
I use to pity the PC service tech as he always had to disassemble machines and pull the HD out to work on certain things.
Re:Drat you Steve! (Score:5, Funny)
I do mac repair work
Stop spreading lies. Everyone knows that Apple products do not break down. Any issues you may be experiencing with your Apple product are merely a result of insufficient faith.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
But they do get damaged by angry and frustrated Windows users who can't stand the smug Apple users who won't stop taking about how their Apple product never breaks down .....
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Are you kidding? Apple users spill their coffee on their macbooks in overcrowded coffee bars ALL THE TIME! And no, they are NOT EVEN REMOTELY spillproof. However, they are too pretentious to tell the truth about it. This is why the new ones all have moisture detectors in them.
Re:Drat you Steve! (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Drat you Steve! (Score:4, Insightful)
No, FireWire is not coming back on MacBooks any more than it is coming back on iPods.
Look, back in the day on PCs, we had a different port for every single purpose. You plugged your modem into the "serial port", your printer into the "parallel port", your mouse into the "mouse" PS/2 port, your keyboard into the "keyboard" PS/2 port. If you wanted a scanner, you bought a SCSI card and then you plugged the scanner in there.
This sort of thing is lame, lame, lame. Many PC laptops are still sold like this with a profusion of weird ports. For a huge majority of users there is no reason to have more than one type of port for general-purpose peripherals. It's completely uneconomical to ship a consumer laptop with a port that will go unusued almost all of the time.
FireWire is technically great but due to some historical accidents it did not win the battle against USB2. Placing it on a consumer laptop so that a few musicians and the people using older DV cameras can save a few bucks is completely crazy. (I've seen people on Mac forums complain that this affects "millions" of users -- nonsense). It makes perfect sense for a pro line to have special connectors, and this is where FireWire will stay until Apple manages to kill it off.
I know that a bunch of Mac users have everything from FireWire external drives to FireWire webcams, especially since USB performance on PPC Macs was awful. This does not play into Apple's plans any more than users with SCSI scanners did back when Apple dropped SCSI.
Not quite (Score:5, Insightful)
The white macbook is still being sold in the Apple store, and will be for the foreseeable future, having just been made Apple's "cheap" notebook. And white macbooks still have firewire400. Which is exactly what these whiny people are screaming that they want.
It seems to me that a few very loud people quite badly aren't going to shut up until Jobs give each and every single one of them their own free, customized mac.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
I have a Sony HDV-A1U camera that I used in Africa to videotape stuff and digitize into my MacBook. 1) I'm rarely a loudmouth here. B) I own the camera. III) I preferred to lug a more rugged MacBook to Africa than a much more expensive and delicate Pro model.
Steve Jobs' take. . . (Score:5, Informative)
Sigh, I'm probably picking up a MBP, but I know plenty of folks that use firewire for things other than camcorders (particularly good external HDs)
Re:Steve Jobs' take. . . (Score:4, Interesting)
Then maybe I'll buy a new HD camcorder and skip the MacBook purchase.
Good Job(s), Steve.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Those are quite expensive cameras; people who have those also have MBPs. Cameras under $2000 (AVCHD) all use USB.
FireWire has DMA, not USB! (Score:5, Informative)
If I remember correctly, USB2 is controllerless and requires CPU overhead and therefore the latency of USB2 sucks badly compared to FireWire (IEEE 1394x) with its controller and DMA (Direct Memory Access) channel.
This just makes sense if you have ever tried it.
FireWire 800 is even better than FireWire 400 for most anything and it is backward compatible. I believe it is much much faster than USB2 could ever hope to be and it is here NOW. (USB3 is still a LONG way off)
This is really about MONEY and Apple's either being greedy or cheap or both. Apparently they did this specifically on purpose as other 'new' models have FireWire... So, Why?
Apple is not wanting to pay the FireWire licensing fees and they are apparently wanting to push their user base into buying an affordable Hackintosh laptop (what many will likely do) or er.., will, uh... I mean Apple intends for their FireWire needing users to just pay many hundreds more for the "Pro" model that has FireWire.
As I understand it, there are also many cool things you can do with hard disk (and DVD and CD) 1-to-1 disk imaging with FireWire on the OSX macs too.. Not anymore. It's a Feature!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FireWire [wikipedia.org]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_Serial_Bus [wikipedia.org]
Seems like it would just be a lot cheaper to just add a FireWire CardBus 54 (PCIe) notebook controller card?
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Its about differentiation between the consumer and pro laptop ranges nothing more. I've not used the firewire port on my original Macbook Pro except for the initial installation when I connected my old Powerbook to pull the information from it. I can now do that via Time Machine backups so won't need it in future.
The thing that all of these 'angry' users never seem to grasp is that there is no real reason to replace their current Macbook that does have firewire. Shocking though such a statement is its true.
Firewire Common on PC Notebooks (Score:5, Insightful)
Firewire is actually fairly common on even budget PC notebooks, including Dells, so this omission by Apple is all the more perplexing. And Apple still doesn't offer Blu-ray drives or 3G wireless at any price on any model. (No 3G wireless option from the iPhone company!) It also amazes me that their latest hardware refresh still caps RAM at 4G maximum. Even Dell has figured out how to go to 8G max on a notebook.
That said, there is some great design in these new MacBooks. But Apple engineers waxing eloquently about "unibody" construction (it isn't, by the way) when they forgot the damn Firewire port is a bit too much to stomach.
No worries (Score:5, Funny)
Boo effing Hoo (Score:4, Insightful)
Sorry, Steve was right, most new if not all HD recorders are USB.
Hell, I could not tell what they whining was loudest about, the fire wire or that the base aluminum macbook doesn't have a back lit keyboard (no macbook before this offered that feature anyway)
Fact is, people feel the need to be a victim or otherwise justify a decision for them. In other words, instead of admitting they had no wish to buy the new one (or means to) they can not blame Apple for not doing it. Very nice and tidy and common practice on message boards world wide. Besides getting to portray themselves as the victim they can get a sense of belonging with a possibly valid aggrieved party. It is always easier if you can blame someone else, regardless of the truth.
Yeah, it would nice nice if Firewire was there. However Firewire has always been associated with "Professional" and it has become an artifact of days gone by. Apple sunk FW themselves when they pushed USB to the forefront on iMacs and even with iPods now.
You want firewire, its easy to get, but the PRO line. It is only $400 more to the bottom end of the Pro line from the top of the "consumer" mac line.
Frankly, the new MacBooks are great. Some of the best integrated graphics seen on an Apple laptop. In fact the 9400M series removes a major reason people always held over Apple's head for not buying one before.
The real fault with the 13" Macbook is the viewing angles and color reproduction of that panel are horrible. Really cheaped out. So if you want your firewire and a great display get a Pro. After all if your buying an Apple laptop for more than sitting around Starbucks to look cool you would have gotten the Pro and never bitched
Firewire is a standard, not a luxury (Score:5, Interesting)
The average audio/video hobbyist/artist is not going to shell out 2 grand for a firewire port so they can record their music and capture their video.
Do I care? (Score:4, Interesting)
The world has chosen USB for just about everything.
Re:Do I care? (Score:4, Insightful)
USB is terrible for external hard drives. Transfer rates suck.
eSATA solves this problem, but the designers thought that hard drives should be powered by an A/C adapter. That, and it's pretty assinine to have an external port dedicated only to 1 class of peripherals.
Powered firewire ports are so nice. Only one cable needed.
How about updating USB camcorder support then? (Score:4, Informative)
If they're on the way to eventually eliminating Firewire I sure hope that Apple has plans to update USB support for more camcorders then.
I have a JVC hard drive camcorder that is USB and iMovie has absolutely no idea what to do with it when I plug it into any of my Macs. It seems thatt if I had chosen a camcorder with Firewire instead (which Apple themselves trumpeted as the thing to do) I'd have had no issues.
Nice.
And yet... (Score:5, Insightful)
And yet Apple will still probably sell a metric assload of new MacBooks.
Saying that hundreds of users are pissed off just means there is a small but vocal minority who are annoyed.
The vast majority of MacBook users and potential buyers couldn't care less what FW is, and probably don't even know what it is.
As a number of commentators have pointed out, the vast majority of consumer grade video cameras now use USB. Seriously, if you don't like the product, don't buy it. Is it really that hard?
Recording (Score:5, Interesting)
Firewire is absolutely key when recording audio (in my case, guitar, bass, vocals, etc). USB pushes the CPU too hard and doesn't leave it free for realtime sound processing - amp simulation, etc. Currently I'm doing it on a 2 year old MacBook, but at this point my only upgrade option is a MBP. After factoring in the cost of replacing my Firewire hardware, the MBP isn't much more expensive anyway.
Then again, I guess that's what Apple wants.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Along with the last of the white plastic MacBooks, the Mac mini still has a FireWire port. Both have Intel Vampire Video, but that wouldn't be an issue with audio.
I think this decision was lame, but at least there are options for now.
Something to think about (Score:5, Informative)
USB Target mode? (Score:4, Interesting)
I realize that video recorders and many other devices are still predominantly firewire. But for most external drives and even still cameras, USB reigns supreme and is about as fast. Probably Apple's view is that if you're into video editing, you ought to be paying the big bucks for the privilege of using firewire on a top-of-the-line machine.
Does not Apple support target-mode with USB these days? It seems like it should be possible for Apple to make the device appear as a USB mass storage device.
Big Surprise!!! Lets all freak. (Score:3, Insightful)
Apple drops support for X feature on a whim. How about PowerPC chips? How about MacOS 9? How about my Newton?
print $open-source-rant
The great thing about relying on a simple company is your at their mercy. You KNOW that Asus or MSI would throw a Firewire port in if they were competing with apple (and could run OS/X).
naivate on the part of Mac Users (Score:3, Insightful)
We've all known from day one that USB was being pushed by Intel, against rival IEEE-1394 (aka fire-wire, aka iLink, etc.).
We also knew that fire-wire would eventually go away the day Apple said they were switching to Intel CPUs.
(this has been signaled, as we've seen Apple release patch after patch that tended to introduce more fire-wire problems than they fixed; Apples priorities were evident. Who did not know we weren't witnessing a gradual phase-out? Probably the nicest and most gradual in the history of Apple.)
We're all aware that fire-wire is faster, we're all aware that fire-wire lets you do cool stuff that USB can't even dream about, and we all know that USB needs to be arbitrated by the host's CPU (which is why Intel supports it: USB performs better; overall when you have a faster CPU - so USB increases demand for Intel's flagship products - duh. No brainer. No wonder Intel wants people to use a keyboard/mouse interface for heavy data transfers).
From day one of the PC-age, crappy inferior technology has ALWAYS won-out over superior technology.
So. . . um, duh?
Whine all you want. Be happy that fire-wire was cool, and it was around for a long time.
If you want choices, why are you buying Apple? (Score:5, Interesting)
Matte screens
Hi-res screens
BluRay
2 hard drives installed
VGA or DVI output without an adapter
A quality keyboard (yeah, I said it)
Actual mouse buttons
TrackPoint style navigation
Fingerprint Reader
Built-in 3G/WWAN networking
Built-in Wireless USB
Tablets (x61t, x200t)
Subnotebooks (12" x200 models, etc.)
Hotswap between 2nd hard disk, dvd-rom, bluray devices
The list is pretty huge. Point is, there are a TON of very worthwhile hardware features that you can't get on the new Mac laptops. How relevant is the OS at this point anyway? Start thinking about functionality more than design aesthetics.
Loss of Target Disk Mode is a big deal (Score:3, Informative)
The loss of Target Disk Mode is a big deal. I've used it to retrieve data from laptops with a bad display or bad logic board and wipe the disk of those laptops before taking them in to be repaired. I've also used it to install Tiger (OSX 10.4) on G3 iMacs which didn't have a DVD drive.
Seems simple (Score:4, Informative)
Re:is that still around? (Score:5, Informative)
The complaint is because the Macbook makes all their firewire accesories useless. (Duh).
Re:is that still around? (Score:4, Insightful)
Not only that, but Macs usually have this nice little feature called "target disk mode". Basically, I can reboot my computer into target disk mode, and then it acts like an external hard drive through firewire. This can be very handy for troubleshooting, imaging, and repair.
The problem here is that USB doesn't support it. I don't know the technical details of why, but supposedly it's something that firewire can do because of something about the hardware spec or the protocols it uses, and whatever it is, USB doesn't have that, and you can't fix it with software. (from what I understand)
I'm going to miss having that option, though I'm not sure it's a deal-breaker for many people.
Re:is that still around? (Score:5, Funny)
Hey, you can bet I'm still pissed about the iMac, with their switch from ADB to USB, making my WACOM tablet obsolete.
(in fact, the fucker's still working JUST FINE on my beige G3 - wish I could connect this $600 monstrosity to my Pro.)
USB to ADB adapters exist (Score:3, Insightful)
Hey, you can bet I'm still pissed about the iMac, with their switch from ADB to USB, making my WACOM tablet obsolete.
(in fact, the fucker's still working JUST FINE on my beige G3 - wish I could connect this $600 monstrosity to my Pro.)
Will it not work with a USB to ADB adapter like this [griffintechnology.com]? $39 doesn't seem like a bad price to possibly rescue a $600 device.
Re:is that still around? (Score:5, Informative)
They both have the same specifications, but the marathoner can keep it up much longer.
USB does it in bursts and firewire is continuous transfer - thats why its better for movies.
(Aren't you glad I didn't use a car analogy? :-))
Re:is that still around? (Score:5, Funny)
(Aren't you glad I didn't use a car analogy? :-))
No. You suck. I hate you.
Re:is that still around? (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm REALLY glad you didn't use a sex analogy.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
but a Mac without Firewire is like a shark without fins - menacing, but no real danger.
you mean, like a shark with no teeth..... right?
(a shark with fins, but no teeth will be menacing, but no real danger)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:is that still around? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:is that still around? (Score:4, Insightful)
I think it a fair comparison to say that USB is to Firewire as IDE is to SCSI. SCSI is a clearly superior interface, using its resources far more efficiently, while IDE's strength is in being cheap. The same is true of Firewire vs. USB.
That said, unfortunately, sets up USB FTW (in the consumer market, at least), despite the fact that many of us (myself included) actively use Firewire.
Oh, and I'm not an Apple user. I was, however, using SCSI for many years until the price differential between SCSI and IDE just became too big to blow off.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re:is that still around? (Score:5, Interesting)
Speed isn't the issue, at least for me.
USB doesn't let you use the Mac in Target mode, turning it into an HD without needing any OS to boot. It's great for system recovery.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
USB doesn't let you use the Mac in Target mode, turning it into an HD without needing any OS to boot. It's great for system recovery.
On the new MacBooks, you can remove the hard drive very, very easily. So if you are into repairing computers, just get an adapter that lets you plug in a naked hard drive (I found them for around £25). Apart from that, Time Machine is the end user's friend.
Re:is that still around? (Score:5, Informative)
Come on. With Target mode you can use you Mac as a HD anywhere, anytime, without opening the case. That's great for a lot of stuff, not just recovery.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
BTW, many people don't know that Target Disk mode *also* gives the host Mac access to whatever is in the target Mac's optical drive. Very handy for certain tasks.
http://macworld.com/article/57005/2007/03/tdmoptical.html [macworld.com]
Re:is that still around? (Score:5, Insightful)
That's SOOOO much easier than holding down some keys, plugging into a running computer and editing files.
Re:They will buy one anyways... (Score:4, Funny)
Hey look, I can generalize too!
The person who mindlessly criticizes Mac fans is the same person who cannot open his mouth without looking like an ass.
Re:Moi aussi (Score:5, Funny)
Fuck Yeah! Like, do you know how many ISA cards I have sitting in a box at home?
Re:Moi aussi (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Moi aussi (Score:5, Interesting)
The criterion used to determine whether a technology is outdated is not how long it has been around or if other technologies are superior. The single criterion used is whether the technology is still NEEDED--that is to say, no other reasonable alternative, either economically or technologically, exists.
Since FireWire (IEEE 1394) is a commonly used interface for external HDs, and more importantly, DV cameras, and iMovie uses this interface to read digital video from such a camera, it is still necessary because the loss of the interface means significant functionality is lost. USB is not an adequate replacement for this purpose, and the same is true for Target Disk Mode (otherwise Apple would have implemented it over USB but that has clearly not come to pass). Therefore FireWire is not outdated.
That is it not widely used outside the Mac market is irrelevant. The MacBook used to be able to do at least two things (as described above) that many users consider important, that the newest iteration cannot. Moreover, there is no known workaround, no effort by Apple to find a reasonable alternative. That is why so many are upset. I personally believe it reflects a poor design and planning choice. The MacBook is not the MacBook Air. It is the entry-level laptop, some users' only machine. Many of them are educational users.
FWIW I own a MacBook Pro. I personally think 13" is too small and wouldn't get a MacBook anyway. But should Apple ever get rid of FireWire across the entire laptop line (without furnishing a viable alternative), I think you'd have a reaction 100 times worse than what's happening now. It would effectively kill laptop sales. That is how accepted FireWire is in the "Pro" and Mac market as a whole.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
...not widely used outside the Macintosh scene...
What the hell are you talking about?
Even the Dell Inspiron 13 (Dell's cheapest non-netbook portable at $600) has a firewire interface.
Re:Moi aussi (Score:5, Insightful)
But sadly, there is no BBQ. Apple pushed FW on us as a superior solution and championed it, encouraging us to adopt it. We do. Then they drop it, leaving us with a load of FW enabled devices. Is that not clear enough to you? Hence the outrage. HENCE!
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
It's always amusing that the only people complaining louder about Apple than the Apple haters are the Mac fans.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Hey, I have hardware MIDI synthesizer cards at home that are ISA and I certainly wouldn't mind using. My old ISA modems that had a real UART chip also always worked far better than the software modems being sold now (even though I very rarely use a modem - still, it has happened within the last year that my power went out, including that to my router/DSL modem, but I was still able to connect using a regular modem to send out a few emails before the UPS gave out).
Still, though I would LIKE to have those th
Re:Moi aussi (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
USB 2.0 just isn't up to snuff (not with the equipment I use, anyway)
While Firewire > USB 2.0, it really only matters to people who are using fairly high end A/V equipment and need the dedicated bandwidth. So for "ordinary" users USB 2.0 should be just fine. For the high end users that require it, Firewire is still available on the Macbook Pro. I can see this as annoying for people who need Firewire but don't want to have to shell out for the Pro, but it's not going to affect the majority of users.
various uses of feces (Score:5, Funny)
"Yeah, I'm fucking bullshit about that."
I believe you used the wrong metaphor there. You should have used "apeshit"
apeshit = animated with rage
bullshit = expression of astonishment, or declaration of falsehoods.
horseshit = also a declaration of falsehoods
batshit = crazy
dogshit = indication of subpar behavior or characteristics. "My Yaris is dogshit slow with a body in the trunk"
gooseshit = excessive coolness - this comes roundabout from the way one slips on goose droppings and the slang word slick=cool "That Aptera EV is slicker than gooseshit!"
I'm sure there are many others, this is just short list I came up with quickly to illustrate.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
To summarize you: fucking bullshit crapload Pisses Assmonkeys
It reads like poetry.
Re:Maybe they were forced to drop it? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Maybe they were forced to drop it? (Score:4, Interesting)
I have a Dell laptop which cost £399 (which I think is approximately $60,000 USD) which has Firewire. I'm sure they could have managed it on a Mac that costs almost three times as much.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Mine has two (Score:5, Funny)
What does the Robotech Defense Force have to do with this? Are you Rick Hunter in disguise?
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
For consumers, BETA tapes are a dead standard. But I'm sitting here surrounded by BETA tapes from major national networks and advertising agencies.
When an industry settles on a standard, don't expect a replacement for 20-30 years. The video and audio industry expects to use firewire for at least another 10 years. By eliminating firewire from the low end laptops, Apple is imposing a "pro" tax on the A/V production industry. Considering we already pay a premium over comparable PC equipment, Apple is goin
Re:Lack of firewire is NOT the end of the world... (Score:4, Insightful)
Firewire is a "pro" standard. Apple included it on all older computers because at the time the USB 1 standard was worthless for anything but keyboards and mice. Apple was providing a convenient method of importing video from the cameras at that time.
Now, most of the consumer-level video cameras come with a USB connection, leaving the pro-sumer and pro cameras with firewire. Anyone who does any serious video editing is not going to do it on a MacBook. They will upgrade to the MBP. It sucks for all of us who still have perfectly good cameras and external drive enclosures with FireWire, but then again, I believe Apple is targeting the MacBook at *new* users who wouldn't necessarily be burdened with all the FireWire peripherals. They also need to differentiate the MB from the MBP in some meaningful way, otherwise very few will bother to pony up for the MBP - the MacBook is that good.
As far as the existing white MacBooks having it, it's already in their design and manufacturing process, Apple makes a good profit on them without changing the specs. I'll bet that next January we'll see Apple drop FireWire from the white MacBook, maybe make a few other cost-saving tweaks and roll it our at the $899 price-point, especially if the economy turns out to be hitting them harder then they are predicting.
The nice thing about the FireWire spec is that you don't need a computer to manage the transfers. This means we will be seeing more "adapters" with perhaps an intermediate HD in them that provide FireWire-in and USB/FW-out. Not a perfect solution, especially with Final Cut Pro set up to use time-coding for final imports of projects, but then again, if you've sprung for FCP, you're not going to do it on a MacBook and I'm sure USB cameras that are high-end enough to justify editing in FCP will be able to be accurately controlled over USB as well.
This still doesn't address target disk mode, but realistically I've only used that recently to migrate data from an older machine to a newer one. I'm sure there's a way with the migration assistant to use another method to make the transfer (if anybody knows, please reply). I have to admit, I'm typing this on a MacBook Air that I've had since day-one which has no firewire and have never needed target disk mode or to connect to any of my firewire drives. I really haven't missed it in spite of having a lot of FireWire devices (XL1 cameras, FCP, external drives, etc.) I use the Air for "everything else" and my tower for video editing where I can control the lighting, use a big monitor and be connected to my Drobo backup.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Maybe you don't need up-to-date equipment. Some of us do. Especially when more processor and disk speed, and more RAM, translate directly into more money.
For example, until laptops with 4GB RAM were reasonably available -- which first happened in 2007 -- I couldn't run two OSes at once without lots of unproductive swapping.
Beyond work, I like to be able to view current websites with reasonable speed. Much 2005 hardware won't do that anymore -- let alone 2002 hardware.
And today's features are useful to
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
If you're going to be doing video editing, why aren't you using the MacBook Pro already?
The same way we did video editing when we had 800 mhz processors, only faster. Unless you are doing a lot of editing, the vanilla Macbook is just fine for doing video.
And if you want to give me the "I want to edit video on the road" bit, well then I ask you how long is that battery going to last working with big video files?
So you use the power adapter?
But how many mainstream users actually use target disk on a regular