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Steve Jobs on Lack of Firewire in MacBooks

editguy said:
You're wrong on so many levels, but how many tims do we have to say it? They don't make a MBP in the small form factor and that is what some of us want and need.
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Maybe your argument then should be "why doesn't apple make a small form MBP?... " not I want to use an underpowered small notebook that is meant for consumers rather than professionals ...

I know the current macbook worked great for editing small video projects and recording tracks .... but that is not what it is sold as being a entry level laptop (despite it's cost)
 
Well - I must admit this sounds like a completely pants decision to remove Firewire.

- The bottom line is - it doesn't really matter what the relative injustices of it all are. - All that matters to Apple is whether they sell or not, or whether they make a huge profit or not.

The only way to get Apple (Steve) to change his mind is vote with your wallet by not buying either product (The MacBook or MacBook Pro), so their sales plummet.

- Then Apple will have to do something about it. - It's not like they won't know what the reason is!

Given the global Financial climate, I suspect people are not going to be shelling out for feature incomplete products. Apple may be forced to lower the prices and up the features to boost sales.

- It's not like it's difficult to add another firewire port given their newfound manufacturing method. - Just get the CNC machine to drill out another hole and stick a port in it!
 
Only time will tell

corinhorn said:
Is there any evidence that these online petitions actually do anything, or do they only make us feel better?
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If the number of signers reaches 100,000 or even 50,000 I would sure hope someone at Apple would wake up. If EVERYONE who actually feels strongly about this amazingly stupid decision would sign that petition I think it would easily reach and go beyond 100,000.

Petitions only change things if enough people participate to make someone pay attention.
 
audio

isaacc7 said:
I do need it in a macbook if I'm going to buy an Apple cause there's no effing way I'm spending 2 grand on a notebook. What, exactly is the MBP going to get me over the $1299 MB for audio? Not a damn thing except I'll have less money, a larger computer, and a firewire port. No thank you. You're right, no one is forcing me to buy a new laptop, but when i do, it will be a laptop that does what I want it to, I won't use it the way that jobs wants me too. Jobs is cutting a lot of us out of Apple...

Isaac
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So you have a MB right now? did it explode last tuesday ... Cuz that would be newsworthy...
 
sfh said:
Maybe your argument then should be "why doesn't apple make a small form MBP?... " not I want to use an underpowered small notebook that is meant for consumers rather than professionals ...

I know the current macbook worked great for editing small video projects and recording tracks .... but that is not what it is sold as being a entry level laptop (despite it's cost)
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Of course it's been sold as a video editor. One of the options is FCE preinstalled. And it's not underpowered at all. It would have been perfectly suited to my needs if they hadn't stripped the firewire.
 
editguy said:
Well, if you're volunteering to carry my desktop to the location shoot, I won't worry about the smaller computer.
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I'd happily carry a macbook pro, considering its hardly heavy at all and offers a lot better functionality for photo-stuff than the macbook anyway.. Compared to other pieces of photography or film equipment a MBP hardly seems expensive either.

The 15" macbook pro is thin, light enough, and if you're going on a location shoot id imagine other bits of your equipment are a lot more cumbersome.

I'd prefer fw on the macbook too don't get me wrong, but I have no misconceptions about me being the core demographic for the Macbook, unlike a lot of people here.. :) I seriously think they'll find a way to add it in the next revision - whether it means putting in one of those weird combi ethernet /firewire ports or some other method.

We're all just repeating what people said after the Air came out - and I think the Air's been pretty successful..
 
YES most new camcorders have USB 2.0 connectivity!!!

BUT!!!!!!!!!!


Most new camcorders use that to transfer still images to your computer off of SD card or Memory stick.

You still need firewire to transfer the video.

Thats how my 2008 HDV Sony Camcorder works.

What about everyone and their Panasonic DVX100?
 
mixel said:
I'd happily carry a macbook pro, considering its hardly heavy at all and offers a lot better functionality for photo-stuff than the macbook anyway.. Compared to other pieces of photography or film equipment a MBP hardly seems expensive either.

The 15" macbook pro is thin, light enough, and if you're going on a location shoot id imagine other bits of your equipment are a lot more cumbersome.

I'd prefer fw on the macbook too don't get me wrong, but I have no misconceptions about me being the core demographic for the Macbook, unlike a lot of people here.. :) I seriously think they'll find a way to add it in the next revision - whether it means putting in one of those weird combi ethernet /firewire ports or some other method.

We're all just repeating what people said after the Air came out - and I think the Air's been pretty successful..
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I didn't say MBP. I said my desktop, because that's what I have currently except for my outdated 12" Powerbook. I try to reduce the footprint of all my equipment as much as I can. Every little bit helps, And the bottom linme is I don't need a MBP for what I want it for. So why spend the extra money?
I'm trying to make money. wopuld I by a Semi when all I needed was a pickup?

And what does it matter what the core demographic is? Continuing with a firewire port would have been minimal cost but satisfied so many people. Instead of complaining I would be talking about how wonderful my new MB was.

And I hope you're right about a revision, but I'm not holding my breathh.
 
editguy said:
Of course it's been sold as a video editor. One of the options is FCE preinstalled. And it's not underpowered at all. It would have been perfectly suited to my needs if they hadn't stripped the firewire.
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Yes FCE can be installed but it is still consumer/entry level laptop. the MB doesn't have dedicated graphics, rendering takes almost twice as long and the display is horrible for color. why would you want to use that?
 
Jumped the gun?

Vulpinemac said:
Heh. I'm glad to see I'm not the only one to agree with SJ on this matter. Yes, I do think he jumped the gun a bit; but if you really look at what's currently on the shelves in the consumer-level camcorder department, they are almost exclusively USB2 and have been for at least a year.
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Talk to me again when:

- the MacBook actually becomes a $700 "consumer" device AND...

- after everything is USB 3.0 (not 2.0 because 2.0 is emphatically NOT faster than FireWire) AND...

- after no FireWire devices whatsoever have been manufactured for at least three to five years. (Not just "consumer" devices.)

At that point it MIGHT be justifiable to drop the FireWire port from the MacBook.

Yeah, he jumped the gun. He jumped the gun by about ten YEARS. In a device that costs $1300 and now even has decent dedicated graphics, the removal of FireWire is completely unjustifiable. This thing is basically a 13" MacBook Pro without FireWire, which is totally ridiculous.
 
RedBear said:
If the number of signers reaches 100,000 or even 50,000 I would sure hope someone at Apple would wake up. If EVERYONE who actually feels strongly about this amazingly stupid decision would sign that petition I think it would easily reach and go beyond 100,000.

Petitions only change things if enough people participate to make someone pay attention.
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All that makes sense, but I really wonder how effective online petitions are. My point is, I don't think we should expend our energy on something that will not work. Somehow, I can see Steve Jobs pissing on an online petition. Personally, I think our protest needs to be more than signing an online petition.
 
mixel said:
I seriously think they'll find a way to add it in the next revision - whether it means putting in one of those weird combi ethernet /firewire ports or some other method.
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I hope so. Maybe if a third party company will come out with one that works with the MB.:cool:

This nonsense about removing ports to save space got me to wondering. Would Apple remove the Ethernet port next? "All the internet hotspots are wireless and most consumers use wireless routers at home. So no point in ethernet, right? Wired networks are for institutions and businesses.":eek::rolleyes: You want ethernet, you have to buy the Pro laptop.:rolleyes:
 
firewire still needed

The more and more I think about this it just reminds me of when the imac was introduced and it didn't have a floppy drive. I remember a lot of people being upset they couldn't do small backups without buying a external floppy drive.


If you look at any hdd camcorder on the market you will see that they all use usb2. I also can say they work fine in imovie and transferring them is so much faster then the old fashioned mini dv realtime import mode (used both a sony and a jvc)

On the other hand I think its way too early to drop firewire. Until hdd camcorders become the mainstream then taking away firewire could be a possibility


I do think its ironic that integrated graphics was the main thing holding people back from getting a macbook and instead its firewire

Mousse they could easily remove ethernet and the outrage of it would be just as bad but again the majority of users (95%) wouldn't care about it at all because they never use it.

I have a macbook pro and have used ethernet twice since i've gotten it (march of this year)
 
editguy said:
And what does it matter what the core demographic is? Continuing with a firewire port would have been minimal cost but satisfied so many people. Instead of complaining I would be talking about how wonderful my new MB was.

And I hope you're right about a revision, but I'm not holding my breathh.
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Yeah ok wishful thinking on the revision, but hopefully.. I think the core demographic matters a lot when designing a product..

Looking at the disassembly photos the thing is absolutely packed in there.. http://static4.ifixit.com/igi/qFsHP2uMXoMCagVy.large and http://static4.ifixit.com/igi/AUZYBwBSf4DGQiru.large They will have given it careful consideration I'm sure, but if it came to losing one USB or the firewire I think they probably made the right choice.. I would think the smallness is important for the target demographic more than the fw, but there'll always be some people who needed it. :/

I just think it’s a shame how we're so distracted from appreciating this machine for what it IS by concentrating so much on what it isn't.. It's fit for purpose, just not everyone's purpose. (But they definitely should have included fw if it had been practical.)
 
syndalis said:
as a musician... I have a mac pro, and a macbook pro.

I would never ever ever consider running reason, logic, drums from hell, etc. on a macbook. You are creating a situation that does not exist.
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I use Logic on my 8-core MacPro, and use MainStage on my MacBook. The situation DOES exist. I have the original MacBook and would like to upgrade to something with 802.11n, more RAM etc, but I don't need the graphics or processor performance of the MacBook Pro - I just need Firewire as I used the Apogee Duet.
 
sfh said:
Yes FCE can be installed but it is still consumer/entry level laptop. the MB doesn't have dedicated graphics, rendering takes almost twice as long and the display is horrible for color. why would you want to use that?
Click to expand...

You don't need dedicated graphics for editing video. the time for rendering in a video editing application is determined by the speed of the processor. And you don't use the display to determine color. You use an external monitor (but the display is fine with color for video editing, otherwise Apple is lying about it being an effective 3d gaming machine). You only need the discrete graphics for programs like Motion and that's where the graphics card comes into play for rendering. But I don't use Motion because it's not a full-featured effects program. that's a job for After Effects and I do that on my PC.
 
editguy said:
You don't need dedicated graphics for editing video. the time for rendering in a video editing application is determined by the speed of the processor. And you don't use the display to determine color. You use an external monitor (but the display is fine with color for video editing, otherwise Apple is lying about it being an effective 3d gaming machine). You only need the discrete graphics for programs like Motion and that's where the graphics card comes into play for rendering. But I don't use Motion because it's not a full-featured effects program. that's a job for After Effects and I do that on my PC.
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I agree. But I'm afraid too many people have been sold on buying apples for form at the expense of function.
 
I have a Canon HV30, which is a consumer camcorder. It was released around March of 2008. It uses Firewire.

I guess I'll hang onto my white Macbook until I feel like spending the money on a MBP.
 
OK, I've got a quiz for you guys.

On Tuesday did every single firewire port on a macbook worldwide explode?
Did your Macbook suddenly stop working?
Did Apple stop selling a laptop for under $1000?
Did Apple suddenly re-write audio and video applications so that they require a video card by ATi or Nvidia?

As I'm feeling generous, I'll give you a clue on the last question. Video capture does not touch the GPU, and little of FCE/FCP is GPU accelerated.
 
Some pondering thoughts...

The whole thing about this situation that is funny is that most of these new Camcorders record AVCHD or MPEG2; which I can honestly say sucks ass for editing; even HDV sucks ass and requires a "Pro" level computer to even deal with the footage in an reasonable amount of time -- I know because my Dual G5 (which is a pro machine) chokes on HDV, slows it to a crawl.

So the machines everyone including Apple targets towards consumers for dealing with these new codecs which aren't designed to be edited in real time; are already under-powered. So in the grand scheme of things, a consumer machine is just not going to cut it for any "real" editing of AVCHD, MPEG2 or HDV.

Standard 25Mbps DV footage is another story; the codec was designed from the start to be edited and requires little horsepower to decode; which is really what consumers should be using; except everyone and their brother is shoving HD down their throats --- see above for the problems with that.

Both of my Professional video interfaces use Firewire; my SD setup is an AJA IoLA + Dual G5 and my HD setup is a AJA IoHD + Octo MacPro; Apple has clearly shown ignorance to that fact that the video world is still using Firewire to a great extent. The audio world is pretty much all Firewire because USB2 sucks for anything that requires data to show up exactly when expected.

The article linked on the first page listing the Amazon camcorders; I already found 2 that support Firewire - not just 1 like stated. Sony calls Firewire i.Link for those in the dark.

Apple ****ed this release up big time - whoever they are using as consultants or advisors need to be fired. The MBP is a decent machine; but glossy screen, come on. Steve Jobs has lost touch with a lot of his customer base and I can see laptop sales tanking; and/or previous models going for more than new on eBay.

These are the things that Apple needs in the Pro-level laptop and I am quite surprised that they don't seem to have a clue:

1. eSATA port --- all new high speed cheap RAIDs are using this now
2. Matte displays that are more than 24bit color depth
3. That express32 slot need to be a express54 slot --- DUH!
4. More RAM... I want a laptop with 8GB
5. DisplayPort??? Nobody is using that right now... stick with DVI (or at least supply the adapters at no cost)

-mark
 
Shasterball said:
A lot of it has to do with the direction they took in this last update. E.g.: "But amid theories that the United States is in its worst economic crisis since the Great Depression, Apple's steadfast focus on highly stylized, more expensive products makes one wonder if executives have their heads in the sand..."
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The stock was already tanking before they introduced these notebooks, in fact it the stock price was even lower before they introduced the new notebooks. America's economy has been in the tank for awhile but George Bush wanted to put his head in the sand and pretend everything is ok, which is why the economy is so messed up right now. Even with all this economic turmoil Apple has been experiencing growth everywhere, I'm also sure the executives at Apple are smarter than a bunch of dudes posting in a public forum. ;)
 
corinhorn said:
Personally, I think our protest needs to be more than signing an online petition.
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Your right. As far as I am concerned I will not be purchasing any Apple hardware or software because I don't know what direction I will go with when I get my new laptop. I would hate to buy a bunch of Apple software only to turn around and get a linux machine.

I also canceled an order I am from SSL. When asked why I canceled a $1000 order I informed them because it would not work with the laptop I would need to go with it.

The lack of firewire does not only hurt the end users, but also other manufactures who if told about the drop of firewire ahead of time may have been able to adjust their products. They have been caught of guard as well.
 
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