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Steve Jobs on Lack of Firewire in MacBooks

I clicked on the Sony Vaio ad link on the front page to "learn more". I did. Did you know that there are consumer based laptops out there with Firewire??
Shocking!

cube said:
To get FireWire on the MacBook, you will first have to convince Apple that an Air without it is not acceptable.
Click to expand...

The Air is not acceptable in and of itself.
 
cube said:
To get FireWire on the MacBook, you will first have to convince Apple that an Air without it is not acceptable.
Click to expand...

The Air is a completely different story. It's a total niche product.

Although Steve said Netbooks are a nascent market, the Air is really a netbook , albeit a large one.
 
dba7dba said:
I agree but what I don't get is this. MB and MBP are different MB is smaller and has SMALLER LCD. How much more do you need to differentiate them 2?
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That has been a long debate at these forums. Everyone has an opinion on the matter
 
Even if this bull***** was true (and it isn't - I have a brand-new Canon HV-30, tape-based camcorder sitting next to me here and it is 2 weeks old), this is still not an acceptable excuse.

I have over 40 tapes of Mini-DV footage. I am not going to keep all this footage on hard drives, I will keep them backed up in their tapes, and capture what I need, when I need it. I won't be able to do this without firewire. This is not like removing the floppy disk - people have treasured memories on their mini-dv tapes!

Besides. I have a WD MyBook Studio. It has USB2, Firewire 400 and Firewire 800. Why would I want to use this kick-a$$ product over USB2? I paid extra for such a model, because I wanted firewire, and since Apple invented Firewire, I expected it to support it for a long long time.

And what about Firewire 3200??? Why on earth is Apple removing a standard connection while at the same time advancing this connection well into the future? I am willing to bet that these Firewire 800 connectors on the MBPros will be able to support the 3200 speeds in the future as well (Just like imacs/macbooks had 802.11n wifi although this was not publicized until the software update).
 
dggraphics said:
The Air is a completely different story. It's a total niche product.
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It's not a different story. Apple's reasoning is that a person interested in the Air might opt instead for the cheaper MacBook if this has FireWire and the Air does not.
 
RedBear said:
Maybe if you use more italics every time you say that you'll end up with a valid point. Or maybe it doesn't hurt anybody to follow the link and sign the d**n petition along with doing everything else they can like writing emails and letters.

As I pointed out before the online petition is only online until the one who started the petition figures there are enough signatures to have it printed and send someone a 50-pound case of paper with unique signatures on each page. I'm pretty sure that if enough people sign it, it will make a difference. Why don't you give it a chance.
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Good grief. Read my previous posts to see my concern.

And by the way, I never asked how they work, I was questioning if they work.
 
odedia said:
And what about Firewire 3200??? Why on earth is Apple removing a standard connection while at the same time advancing this connection well into the future?
Click to expand...

I don't know how much interest Apple really has in it. FireWire development is run by the IEEE.
 
robanga said:
This is a matter of some debate on DV forums that you produce as a fact. Have you seen the results of some of these sub-par cameras of which you speak? :rolleyes:
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Yes, I have seen many USB cameras and their quality. Some suck and some are decent. If you used USB with DV content, you would get tons of dropped frames. Unless iMovie has changed in recent weeks, the only cameras you can import from are DV cameras with FireWire.
 
dggraphics said:
The Air is a completely different story. It's a total niche product.

Although Steve said Netbooks are a nascent market, the Air is really a netbook , albeit a large one.
Click to expand...

And Air costs about 3 times that of a netbook, which I understand costs around $500 or 600 each.
 
If Apple was trying to send a message like "only pros use firewire" then why, ffs, include it on the $999 MB? I realize the white plastic MB is last year's leftovers and will most likely not be a permanent fixture in the lineup but jeez.

What the hell-o kind of message does it send to say: the lowest of the low MB's have firewire, and the highest of the high MBP's have firewire, but those of you in the middle? {insert Nelson Muntz Ha-HA here}
 
Why?

cube said:
To get FireWire on the MacBook, you will first have to convince Apple that an Air without it is not acceptable.
Click to expand...

That makes no sense. The point of the MBA is to be a super-light Mac laptop. It is understood that you're trading ports and a CD drive for weight and thinness. If you need ports, you buy something else. Fine.

I want the smallest, lightest laptop possible that has a full complement of ports. I prefer Firewire external drives, and I also use Firewire on my current, long-in-the-tooth MacBook to mount drives of older machines in target mode to fix problems on those machines (I'm a field engineer). The way I see it, that Firewire port I want costs $700, the price difference between the MacBook I want and the MacBook Pro I'd have to buy to get it. That is totally unacceptable. Plus the MBP is larger, which I don't like.

I wouldn't mind them taking out Firewire if there was a way for me to add it back to meet my needs. For example, I didn't piss and moan about the internal modem going away, because I had the option of buying an external one. If the MacBook had a card slot, I wouldn't be complaining because I could buy a Firewire ExpressCard. If there was a cable adapter I could buy to use FireWire on the MacBook, I wouldn't be complaining. But they took Firewire away with no viable alternative that meets my needs (buying the still-sold "last year's model" is not a viable alternative to me any more than coughing up an extra $700), so yes, I'm complaining.
 
HandleVandal said:
If Apple was trying to send a message like "only pros use firewire" then why, ffs, include it on the $999 MB? I realize the white plastic MB is last year's leftovers and will most likely not be a permanent fixture in the lineup but jeez.

What the hell-o kind of message does it send to say: the lowest of the low MB's have firewire, and the highest of the high MBP's have firewire, but those of you in the middle? {insert Nelson Muntz Ha-HA here}
Click to expand...

Yeah, it's pretty lame.
 
First of all, it's not just cameras, although I will comment that the HD that comes out of most of these flash cameras is too compressed to be bothered with. What about musicians using firewire for multitrack recording? What about target disk mode for troubleshooting?

Secondly, I use USB for emergency hard disk access, not for day-to-day use. I don't want to waste a USB port when a Firewire port is faster, more reliable and isn't contending with mouse, printer, keyboard, headset, scanner, camera, memory sticks, flash video cameras, EyeTV tuner, etc. etc. for CPU time and bus space. Some people can't even get a USB headset to work on Mac Books, unless they plug into the 'good' USB socket that isn't on an internal hub with a whole lot of internal USB stuff. A headset !!

If I have a 'bag of hurt' it's USB.

Losing communication with the printer, having to unplug the EyeTV to get the signal back to 100%, iPhone refuses to work to a hub (and I have a high powered HUB 1 amp rated for the iPhone port - no good, it must be direct into the back of the computer), reformatted memory sticks, dropped camera connection - don't get me started on whether USB isn't the rock-solid, trust all your data to me, go-get-'em technology for the future...​

Maybe if you buy Apple's LOW END computers, you'll take it in the ear for Steve, after all, like the 20" iMac screens with 3 different colours for anything, depending on where you put it on the screen - they're not for professionals - suck it up - welcome to the new recession-proof Apple. If you can't spend $3000, we'd rather you bought a PC.

Apple's going to take a hit for the 'product transition', not because their margins are lower, but because nobody's going to buy a Mac Book... there's very little improvement in performance, most people are going to wait for the next models hoping THEY have something to offer.

The only people who are buying, are those with old notebooks that died and absolutely HAVE to.

While we're at it, let's start a list of everything else Apple doesn't care about now that iPhone is making money hand-over-fist
Video
Audio
Blu-ray...

wonder how long before they drop iLife...?
 
I was considering getting the new macbook after checking it out at the Apple Store yesterday but I doubt I'll take the plunge because of this issue; pretty disappointing as it's a great way to transfer information. I'll just save some more to get the MBP.
 
Let's not forget pro audio

I am fumed about no Firewire on the new MBs.

While everyone is talking about video and HD, let's not forget the bashing we are going to take in the digital world as all (or most) of all the pro audio interfaces are FW400. This is a major bump with anyone in pro audio. There is no way that I can update to a new MB without FW in it.

This is literally going to strand us in audio. While the MBP does have FW800, these devices are not equiped for this.

This is a huge mistake!!!
 
phillymjs said:
That makes no sense. The point of the MBA is to be a super-light Mac laptop. It is understood that you're trading ports and a CD drive for weight and thinness. If you need ports, you buy something else.
Click to expand...

That's not true. The Lenovo X301 is lighter than the MacBook Air and it has DisplayPort, VGA, gigabit ehternet, stereo speakers, headphone/mic jacks, 3 USB 2.0, DVD burner, and optional WWAN besides the usual stuff.
 
Hatchet said:
I was considering getting the new macbook after checking it out at the Apple Store yesterday but I doubt I'll take the plunge because of this issue; pretty disappointing as it's a great way to transfer information. I'll just save some more to get the MBP.
Click to expand...
By getting an MBP, your probably doing exactly what Steve Jobs hoped.
 
The reason firewire was dumped was probably three-fold:
1) Save Money for producer, not consumer
2) Have a loyal base of supporters who will upgrade REGARDLESS
3) Have a new target audience who is unaware of the exclusion of firewire / does not care.

As to not think of myself on a soap box, I fall into the second category. I got a MacBook just because I needed something for portability. I'm turning my MacBook Pro into a desktop station so I'll still have all my firewire inputs but I'll have a more portable option for on the go photo editing (albeit no video editing with my older DV camera.)
 
Roessnakhan said:
The reason firewire was dumped was probably three-fold:
1) Save Money for producer, not consumer
2) Have a loyal base of supporters who will upgrade REGARDLESS
3) Have a new target audience who is unaware of the exclusion of firewire / does not care.

As to not think of myself on a soap box, I fall into the second category. I got a MacBook just because I needed something for portability. I'm turning my MacBook Pro into a desktop station so I'll still have all my firewire inputs but I'll have a more portable option for on the go photo editing (albeit no video editing with my older DV camera.)
Click to expand...

1) How much can you really save by dropping FW? $20? $30?
2) So it's ok to screw over people who have been loyal to you over the years? And these (creative/graphic/audio) people are the ones who really need FW.
3) Many of the people who switch to mac from windows because they want a better/easier tool to edit video of their kids or whatever. It certainly was the case for me. And that's one reason I told people to switch to mac. And many of these people have miniDV that can transfer video only via FW.
 
tell that apple that they should stop saving a couple of bucks...
remove of remote... i dont really care but it doesnt hurt to give them to us
so how much are they saving due to the remote? 4dollars?

and i guess that the most of the macbook owner arent aware of firewire anyway...
i was once a pc user i have to admit that i nearly never used fw -_-
i guess i am not alone.
 
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