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New Apple Portables To Drop FireWire Support?

69 to 0 (as of about 10:45 EST)
Negative Votes to Positive Votes

That's rather telling of how Macrumors users feel. Usually there's at least one person who believes a rumor is positive.

IMHO, I can't think of a single reason Apple would get rid of the port they popularized across many platforms.
 
this is garbage

Many have mentioned that FireWire is the industry standard for DV camcorders. This is obviously reason enough not to drop it. But there is another reason... booting from external hard drives. Currently, FireWire is the only way you can boot from an external hard drive. They are not going to suddenly switch from FireWire to USB for external booting. Apple is too smart to do this- millions of their customers have large investments in FireWire hardware.
 
the sad thing is i actually find it somewhat believable...

the fact is though, if they include fw800, and fw400 can run through the same bus, then obviously a separate chip isn't needed, just the port, and come on, can that really be that expensive that you must only have a single fw port, that you have to share with all your fw400 and 800 peripherals?

if this happens, even on consumer lines, i will be absolutely furious. it pisses me off enough that they ditched it out of the iPod, but powerbooks? unacceptable... :mad:
 
ebuc said:
That's rather telling of how Macrumors users feel. Usually there's at least one person who believes a rumor is positive.
Click to expand...
I believe this is positive. Positively a joke or positively BS. I'm not sure which one.
 
Apple is trying to cut costs, just look at the recent iPods.

In other news Apple is still charging the same for the same product.
 
I think whoever the root of this rumors is, was just making an "educated guess". S/He figured since the iPods dropped support for firewire, all of Apple's computers would also.

But this is not true.
 
Losing the firewire on an entry level iBook probably wouldn't be a deal breaker for people buying them. If Apple intends to release a much cheaper intel iBook with the lower feature set that an entry level Dell has, they could drop firewire, iLife (keep iTunes of course), airport, bluetooth, external video output, and the modem. Think "No-frills iBook". They could have this at a much lower pricepoint than their current entry level 12-inch iBook model and people would probably buy it. Higher end models could retain similar feature sets. This lower end iBook, while not popular with the current mac crowd, could entice new buyers to try macs, similar to the way the mac mini has. The iBook starts at $1249 (CDN), whereas the lowest end Dell model starts at $699 ($599 on sale at the moment). The Dell has an Intel® Celeron® M 360 (1.40 GHz/1MB Cache/400MHz FSB), 256 MiBs of ram (shared with video card), a 40 GB hard drive and XP Home. Many people wouldn't even get to this point however because they see the price tag of the Apple and the price tag of the Dell and choose the cheaper one immediately due to the large differential. After this they start to choose the feature set they want. No, not everybody operates like this but many do, and if Apple wants to grow their market share they can't keep all the hardware features they currently have in their base models.

Edit: Given some of Dells current screen offerings (1920x1200 in a 15" laptop) I would have a difficult time buying an Apple right now. That's not to say I'm leaping at the opportunity to buy a Dell but Full HD resolution in a 15" laptop isn't anything to shake a stick at either.
 
FW400 is by no means an obsolete technology... unlike ADB or serial. It is still as fast as anything standard on the PC side, and a whole lot more stable judging by my experiences. FW 800 is just the icing on the cake!

It makes no sense to state that a FW800 port will remain for "video professionals".

Even if they drop FW400, aren't all those hundreds and thousands of people with FW devices going to need adapters?? iSights, Digicams, HDs, CINEMA DISPLAYS FOR CHRISSAKES!

This makes no sense and is a throughly irresponsible and immature response to Apple dropping FW support on iPods.

Having said all that, i may be incorrect. stranger things have happened!
 
*Laughs at the people waiting for the Intel books while running off with my new iBook*

But that really does suck a lot of people use their firewire ports.
I really dont belive this rumor.
 
Firewire 800 is in essence what USB 2.0 is to usb, fully backwards compatable. If they have 800, i'll be fine. Though i don't see them doing it.
 
ebuc said:
69 to 0 (as of about 10:45 EST)
Negative Votes to Positive Votes
Click to expand...
I don't know how to vote :eek:
Could someone help me out?

edit: nevermind
-but now I feel like a bigger idiot, I got excited that I figured it out, then my mouse slipped and I hit 'positive'
 
Apple is about to introduce the most the highly anticipated update to the portable line and it will be missing firewire? I suppose it will be missing an ethernet port as well. Consideing the emphasis that apple has placed on digital video editing and the increasing use of laptops, this would be a moronic decision. The only connectivity port that I can see Apple dropping is the modem, with the increasing prevalence of wifi connections at Hotels, that might make some sense(since the USB modem is only what 30 extra for those who need it?), but not firewire.

This deserves to be on page 2.
 
EricNau said:
I don't know how to vote :eek:
Could someone help me out?

edit: nevermind
Click to expand...

At the botom of the story on the main page there is a "positive" button or a "negative" button. Click which one you want. But it always seems to take a while to count the votes.
 
All of this is a load of crap. Apple is not going to get rid of firewire, and just another rumor not worth spending anytime on. Apple getting rid of firewire would be like apple getting rid of ethernet jack. "You don't need it, but a hell of alot of people use it!"

But, since everybodys saying what they would miss the most... I would miss Target Disk mode very much. And, the knowlege that I wouldn't be able to use it would make me worry.
 
Don't forget us musicians.

I'm a laptop performer and rely on firewire and usb to keep everything connected and running with as little latency as possible. Firewire is used for my sound card (10 ins and outs at 24/96) and my external drive. Also my midi is connected through my sound card into external gear or controllers. USB is used for every other controller and maybe a mouse until I go and get a BT one.

Now two FW800 buses would ****ing pwnz me. Too bad most gear doesn't come in firewire though, just usb (like the virus ti or various midi controllers).
 
runninmac said:
At the botom of the story on the main page there is a "positive" button or a "negative" button. Click which one you want. But it always seems to take a while to count the votes.
Click to expand...
Thanks, but now that I know it might not be a good thing - I hit positive by mistake :eek:
 
Transfering files

Without FW how would you transfer your files to the new ibooks :confused:
Is there a USB cable that can do this?
 
EricNau said:
Thanks, but now that I know it might not be a good thing - I hit positive by mistake :eek:
Click to expand...

Shame on you! :p

This has to be the fastest growning rumor I have seen. Apple will have a lot of explaining to do if they take it out.
 
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