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Steve Jobs on Lack of Firewire in MacBooks
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As much as I do love that image Aiden has a point.
There's a single Mini-DisplayPort to HDMI adapter and a few other generics from Dynex that are bound to show up. I'd like you to bring up more examples.
Well in that case you probably are going to find both. Then again you're going to pay much more for a few of those WD drives with every port known to man.
I guess we're just lucky with the ports on our MacBooks. It's rare to encounter random power surges on the USB bus.
I wouldn't call it a "non-Apple use" if there's a third-party part targeted at Apple users with the proprietary port.
I would accept, and quickly admit that I'm wrong, if you can show:
- Non-Apple laptops, desktops or servers with Mini-DisplayPort connectors
- Graphics cards with Mini-DisplayPort outputs ("Apple Edition" cards excepted)
- Monitors with Mini-DisplayPort inputs
- KVM switches with Mini-DisplayPort connections
In my experience, most laptops and systems do current limiting on a global basis, not per port.
For example, a laptop with 4 USB ports will check that the current doesn't exceed 10 watts (2.5 watts per the spec times 4 ports).
They might not notice or care if one port uses 5 watts briefly to spin up a drive.
_____
Other systems, though, may monitor each port - and cut off any port that tries to exceed its 2.5 watt spec.
The former is actually violating the spec - and leads to the "might work" problem.
Laptops do appear to be a it more snarky with USB power surges. I've found OS X and Windows do respond somewhat differently on my MacBook using the same devices. I haven't been able to reproduce the surge behavior often enough to learn more though.
There are a few instances where OS X will just dump to the USB surge dialog box while under Windows everything is fine.
if you are waiting for firewire to come back you will most likely not ever be buying a Macbook.
I assume that you are referring to an external HD set up where your 160GB HD has been put inside an enclosure.
FWIW, enclosures vary. Some require 2 USB ports others require only one port.
The same thing happened to me when I swapped my 120GB hdd from my macbook with the 320GB drive from wd passport enclosure.
UPDATED!!!!
Updated Macbook 13" WITH FW800!!!!!
Just announced at WWDC! The impossible has happened. Apple listened!
Oh what do you know? A sealed battery allowed Apple to rearrange the internals so as to add FireWire back in? Whoever would have thought.
Anyone else noticed Apple rearranged the ports? DisplayPort is between FW and USB and the card slot is between the USB and audio ports now (at least on the 15 inch).
Anyone else noticed Apple rearranged the ports? DisplayPort is between FW and USB and the card slot is between the USB and audio ports now (at least on the 15 inch).
I am very happy to be wrong!
An SD slot and FireWire, is that right? It appears that torpedoes the argument that there just wasn't room on the board.
No, the sealed battery supports that argument, actually. As do the PICTURES OF THE ORIGINAL BOARD AND INTERIOR CONFIGURATION.
Take apart shots of both models coming soon of course.
It'd be nice to see the differences and how Apple should have done it in the first place.
Always good to hear.Yay for FireWire.
Do tell. It sits flush with with the case just like the ExpressCard slot did. Not to mention all the whining for one for ages.WTF for built-in SD card slots...seriously? That's so "Acer/Dell/Toshiba" of them...
Now we get rage over dropping the ExpressCard slot and the questionable status of Apple's "Pro" laptop line.
Oh please... If Apple had wanted to design a case around a MacBook that included a FireWire port they certainly could have done so.