Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
MacBook and MacBook Pro Port Speculation
- Thread starter MacRumors
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
Seriously, Apple runs the 4 & 800 on the same bus?!? Thats pretty weak for a PRO computer esp if using both ports (what its made for afterall) cause the 800 to run at 400 thats misleading to the average user. I'll say it again, I'd pay more to have TRUE bandwidth with both of those running on independent buses...instead of Apple's current "short bus" system.
I'd hate to be a client of that firm. I would expect whole disk encryption, 10 minute automatic locked screen savers and strong-password policy.
magsafe is on the left on both macbook and macbook pro. And there are no ports on either right side.
Would you please shut the hell up you annoying spamming troll?
Your words independently make sense, but the way you put them together doesn't make any.
No, it's an ethernet port. It is however possible that it's also an FW-S800T port (firewire through rj45)
Would be much simpler to use HDMI or DisplayPort as both can easily adapt down to DVI-D, and both natively support audio.
Furthermore in the other thread a macrumor google master discovered mentions of a mini-displayport port R&D'd for apple by a taiwanese firm. Which might be our mistery display port.
These are professional tools, I'm pretty sure that as far as Apple's concerned you don't use >$1000 worth of tool with a $1000 worth laptop.
In other words, they don't care about that.
It's not and it can't be
I still have this sinking feeling that we might see some sort of break-out box containing additional expansion/connections.
Or maybe they've simply found a way to bring ethernet in over the magsafe connector, and moved the ethernet port to the power adapterThat'd be awesome - I almost never used a tethered network connection without plugging in for power, so could care less about a dedicated network port on the machine itself.
This would make the big square hole in the MB casing a....
FIREWIRE PORT!
Remember the "brick" rumours and everyone was talking about wireless AC? There was talk about ports being on a brick near the wall socket, sort of a base station. Perhaps its possible that could happen w/ FW & additional USB ports, maybe ethernet even.
+1
All my outlets are to that side of where I sit. I have to wrap the skinny cord around (already replaced one adapter).
AFAIK it's the same on the old G5 Powermacs, and the current Mac Pros, that's why when I finally get me a TC Powercore I'm gonna but a PCI FW card, just so it can run independently on it's own bus away from my MOTU 828 Mk3.
And if I knuckle down for a Duende I'll do the same too.
Theory:
The case with no firewire is the $800 model. Plastic lid.
The MBP will start at much cheaper prices and have FW.
My only hope will be that the Pro model is in the smaller 13.3/14 size.
The case with no firewire is the $800 model. Plastic lid.
The MBP will start at much cheaper prices and have FW.
My only hope will be that the Pro model is in the smaller 13.3/14 size.
Stop buying macs then, cause it sure seems apple has decided that all ports go back to the left.
It's not. I put $100 down on it not being HDMI.
I certainly will stop buying macs if there is no FW on the new macbook!
it would be a bad mistake from apples point of view.
Blah to apple and their non FW ported macbooks and left sided charger ports
That's funny... I'd say that they DEFINITELY care, considering that they happen to sell those tools. Besides, Logic Express (the 'lite' version of Logic) is a $200 piece of 'ware targeted at the consumer market, and it still needs a good audio interface. Apple's going to turn around and prevent all Logic Express users from using a FW audio interface?
Hm... not buying it.
Yeah, that might have been me speculating that back in the brick thread
I'm a fan of breakout boxes, especially if they can get integrated into a piece of equipment that you're already carrying around. A power adapter that offloaded a few key ports from the main machine, and added others, would be killer.
Even if they were just able to add ethernet to the magsafe connector, and move the rj45 to the pwr adapter, I'd be thrilled - having one more cable that could stay under the desk instead of climbing on top would be great.
I'm fairly sure that even the Mac Pro has a single FW bus (for its 4 ports).
The express card solution has two problems. First it does not supply power, so you have to have extra wires and power brick making you less mobile. Secondly the card pops out of the slot way too easily on the current MBP (at least my card does), and if attached to the Duet, that's instant kernel panic.
Maybe stick it on the back? would give room for just one more USB. 2 is not enough...
1. Cooling pad
2. time Machine Backup
Uh-oh now where do I plug in my jump drive.
Also 4 on the mini is not enough.
1. Keyboard
2. Time Machine backup
3. Printer
4. Ipod Connector
uh-ho now where do I plug in my jump drive and scanner?
I am not one for USB hubs. I had 2 that would not work, and the extra wires. the only hub I ever had that worked was for my targus cooling pad (and the new pads do not have the built in hub). most PC laptops have 4 USB and most PC desktops have 6 USB (2 extra on the front).
ok apple, time to make use of the extra space on the right side or back.
Not a huge fan of the potential loss of Firewire here.....
I do like some of the suggestions though of eSATA or HDMI additions though with only a few reservations:
HDMI: There are not many if any LCD computer monitors on the market that are cost effective that have HDMI connections. Hell most of the ones that finally have DVI still have VGA on the back! However, pro photogs will like the addition for viewing their shots on a nice HD screen. They, but I believe it was Dave Cross, had a nice small segment on PhotoshopUser TV a while back about this. However I just don't see this being a widely used viable option as a replacement to a widely used port that has many many periphs already on the market that use FW400.
eSATA: While this is the way I prefer to hook up external HDDs, that is all it is good for at this moment. If eSATA could be implemented into all other periphs from printers to scanners to DVD/Blu-Ray burners then I think it has some real legs to stand on. I know it is stupid to say but what if eSATA could be used in place of Gigabit Ethernet to network a small number of Macs together in a cluster? Would it not have maximum speeds roughly 3-4x faster?
I do like some of the suggestions though of eSATA or HDMI additions though with only a few reservations:
HDMI: There are not many if any LCD computer monitors on the market that are cost effective that have HDMI connections. Hell most of the ones that finally have DVI still have VGA on the back! However, pro photogs will like the addition for viewing their shots on a nice HD screen. They, but I believe it was Dave Cross, had a nice small segment on PhotoshopUser TV a while back about this. However I just don't see this being a widely used viable option as a replacement to a widely used port that has many many periphs already on the market that use FW400.
eSATA: While this is the way I prefer to hook up external HDDs, that is all it is good for at this moment. If eSATA could be implemented into all other periphs from printers to scanners to DVD/Blu-Ray burners then I think it has some real legs to stand on. I know it is stupid to say but what if eSATA could be used in place of Gigabit Ethernet to network a small number of Macs together in a cluster? Would it not have maximum speeds roughly 3-4x faster?
It was funny in my head
If they made the dual sided touchscreen laptop, it would be no problem.
Macbooks are used actually used widely with Logic etc, as a portable option, since although they are "consumer" laptops, many audio people don't need dedicated graphics, both MB and MBP support 4GB RAM, and the difference in processing power is not worth the extra for the MBP.
You can still use them. USB to serial, USB to parallel, USB to SCSI, USB to ADB and other converters have been around for a long time.
There is no such thing for FW. While a FW to USB converter could work well for DV/HDV camcorders, added latency would make it very unsuitable for real time audio applications.
Christian
of course!
I totally agree, with a slight change in design it is possible that we could several other ports on our macbooks insted of losing one!! Seen as apple are so good at the design of these things i would have thought they would have done this alread
I totally agree, with a slight change in design it is possible that we could several other ports on our macbooks insted of losing one!! Seen as apple are so good at the design of these things i would have thought they would have done this alread