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Steve Jobs on Lack of Firewire in MacBooks

dizzy13 said:
With millions of macbooks being sold every year I think 9000 seems VERY insignificant
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What about this year MB? You have no idea how many they will sell. 9000
just represents the number of people that visit online forums. What about those that don't peruse forums? But what if all 9000 were going to purchase MB's? I was going to buy two. And if all 9000 were buying that would be nearly $12 million in sales, figuring at the lowest priced MB. With stocks tanking I don't think apple's shareholders would consider it insignificant.
 
editguy said:
What about this year MB? You have no idea how many they will sell. 9000
just represents the number of people that visit online forums. What about those that don't peruse forums? But what if all 9000 were going to purchase MB's? I was going to buy two. And if all 9000 were buying that would be nearly $12 million in sales, figuring at the lowest priced MB. With stocks tanking I don't think apple's shareholders would consider it insignificant.
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Plus on top of that, those 9000 people will be recommending the MacBooks because of their functionality. Instead, they will be advising people that they know not to buy them. Which in turn, those people will advise other people and so on.

Nearly 10,000 is a big number. It is a chain reaction when it comes to bad mouthing about a product, and it'll put a lot of so called "switchers" who would take advice from their "Mac friends" off purchasing. Whether they need the port or not.

Apple should do a survey and see how many people switched because their friend had a Mac and because of their friend's advice.
 
Nuvi said:
Sorry but I think this is different. I have never bothered to comment on these threads before although I've been reading MacRumors for years. I think Apple's screw ups are getting worse. Now Jobs is telling outright lies and nonsense on his private e-mails. This can't be good...
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Bull, you weren't here for the Macbook Air debut, it was ten times worse, people just love to complain about everything Apple do, if you don't like it, don't go and buy their products. There is some truth to the email by whoever wrote that email, whether it was Jobs or not, the world is moving away from firewire, get over it.
 
editguy said:
So, I'm supposed to throw out my prosumer camcorders that are still available for sale for $3000? You obviously know nothing about the video world, so the wise thing for you to do is not make comments about things you know nothing about. It just makes you look silly.
Also, even if it was a camera that is worth $25, if it's still usable there is no valid reason to throw it out. I thought apple touted itself as an environmentally friendly company? Throwing out functioning electronics is certainly not.
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So now Apple is forcing you to throw out your equipment, I mean there is no other choice in the world besides Apple right? :rolleyes:
 
editguy said:
To update, the online petition stands at over 9000 signatures as of this morning. Not an insignificant number by any calculation.

But I still believe Apple will ignore it.
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9000 out of the million smacbooks that will be sold, that's less than 1 percent, I'm sure Apple is shaking in their boots. :p
 
Adjei said:
So now Apple is forcing you to throw out your equipment, I mean there is no other choice in the world besides Apple right? :rolleyes:
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+1. Hackintoshes are quite easy these days and even the cheapest PC laptops have Firewire (is it dying? not in the PC world) so I guess that is where a lot of people who need FW but can't pay the Apple premium to go the the MBP (with its crippled FW chip) will go.
 
editguy said:
What about this year MB? You have no idea how many they will sell. 9000
just represents the number of people that visit online forums. What about those that don't peruse forums? But what if all 9000 were going to purchase MB's? I was going to buy two. And if all 9000 were buying that would be nearly $12 million in sales, figuring at the lowest priced MB. With stocks tanking I don't think apple's shareholders would consider it insignificant.
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When Apple dropped floppy drives there were more than 9000 people pissed off on the net, but yet they turned out fine, and floppy drive was even more commonly used than firewire.
 
Adjei said:
So now Apple is forcing you to throw out your equipment, I mean there is no other choice in the world besides Apple right? :rolleyes:
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Of course not. But you missed that people continously try to argue that that is exactly what one should do. ":rolleyes:" indeed.

Adjei said:
When Apple dropped floppy drives there were more than 9000 people pissed off on the net, but yet they turned out fine, and floppy drive was even more commonly used than firewire.
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Please, enough with this apples and oranges comparison. You seem to blisfully ignore that this time around, there is NO "superior" option to choose over firewire, whereas back in the days you could choose optical. What is there now?
 
Adjei said:
So why then are the majority of the devices out there USB, is dying, get over it, time to move with the times.
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Listen, one thing must be made perfectly clear: Firewire 400 is the standard for a majority of old and new PROFESSIONAL capture/transfer devices.

This particular series of Macintosh notebooks are not as suitable for professional use, leaving the mac pros as the only real choice in company's product line.

Whether Apple cares or not is the big question that will be answered with the next release and in the following years.
 
flopticalcube said:
+1. Hackintoshes are quite easy these days and even the cheapest PC laptops have Firewire (is it dying? not in the PC world) so I guess that is where a lot of people who need FW but can't pay the Apple premium to go the the MBP (with its crippled FW chip) will go.
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It has nothing to do with paying the premium and everythign to do with the form factor because they don't offer a 13" MBP.
 
Adjei said:
Bull, you weren't here for the Macbook Air debut, it was ten times worse, people just love to complain about everything Apple do, if you don't like it, don't go and buy their products. There is some truth to the email by whoever wrote that email, whether it was Jobs or not, the world is moving away from firewire, get over it.
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So, there were ten times as many people interested in the niche MBA (a brand new device with no reason for expectations) than are interested int the MB? Give me a break.
Keep drinking the koolaid if you want. Apple blew it with this one.
 
flopticalcube said:
Even better as there are many good quality but even smaller PC laptops that still have FW. I still think that in many cases it has a lot to do with the price, particularly in the education market.
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And they natively run FCP? School districts won't allow hackintoshes.
 
Adjei said:
So why then are the majority of the devices out there USB, is dying, get over it, time to move with the times.
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So why then are the majority of the devices out there MS-Windows, is dying, get over it, time to move with the times
 
Adjei said:
So why then are the majority of the devices out there USB, is dying, get over it, time to move with the times.
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You must work for the Apple marketing department because your every other word is "get over it" -- maybe that should be the new Apple slogan.

But I think these decisions are coming out of the production deparment, not design. Every decision lately seems to be based on how to cheapen the product: no Firewire in Macbooks, plastic on the iPhones -- both products I would have bought but have decided to not pull the trigger.

Let's face it, Apple is getting cheap -- except for their prices, of course.
 
numediaman said:
You must work for the Apple marketing department because your every other word is "get over it" -- maybe that should be the new Apple slogan.

But I think these decisions are coming out of the production deparment, not design. Every decision lately seems to be based on how to cheapen the product: no Firewire in Macbooks, plastic on the iPhones -- both products I would have bought but have decided to not pull the trigger.

Let's face it, Apple is getting cheap -- except for their prices, of course.
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Well, even an expensive whore is cheap, lol :p
 
Snide said:
What's wrong with the battery-level meter in the menu-bar? :confused:
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Agreed. Although when your Macbook is off (which it rarely is), it can be annoying to have to boot it up just to check the battery level. This is the only time you'd use the battery indivator lights.

Seems we lost the neat feature of having the indicators on the battery though. So managing multiple batteries is a serious pain now. And the batties still cost the same extreme amount of money: http://store.apple.com/us/product/M...EwMQ&mco=MTk0MDAwMQ&p=1&s=topSellers#overview

I bought 2 batteries from a different maufacturer after my 2 Apple branded batteries bit the dust. The 3rd party patter had much more power (if you believe the numbers) but none of them worked in my Macbook and the battery meter was the wrong way around.

Apple giweth and the Lord taketh away (features). Bummer.
 
No firewire = no upgrade - end of story.

Kilamite said:
Plus on top of that, those 9000 people will be recommending the MacBooks because of their functionality. Instead, they will be advising people that they know not to buy them. Which in turn, those people will advise other people and so on.

Nearly 10,000 is a big number. It is a chain reaction when it comes to bad mouthing about a product, and it'll put a lot of so called "switchers" who would take advice from their "Mac friends" off purchasing. Whether they need the port or not.

Apple should do a survey and see how many people switched because their friend had a Mac and because of their friend's advice.
Click to expand...

I am certainly advising all my Mac-using, non-geek friends about the new MB's omission
of firewire and its implications. Aside from rendering their mini-DV cameras useless,
I will no longer be able to boot their machines in Target Disk Mode for troubleshooting,
which is something that has been very handy (for example, DiskWarrior and other utilities
run much faster this way than with the machine booted off of optical drive media).

Personally, I wasn't thrilled about the prospect of new aluminum MacBooks, mainly because
of the clearly inferior Wi-Fi reception inherent in such designs, however, it was hardly
a deal-breaker. But no firewire is a hands-down deal breaker for me. If I ever need to
replace my Jan '07 2 Ghz MacBook, it will be with a last-gen. model with Santa Rosa chipset,
or perhaps even a Hackintosh (heaven forbid). Long live firewire and firewire devices!
 
Tosser said:
Of course not. But you missed that people continously try to argue that that is exactly what one should do. ":rolleyes:" indeed.



Please, enough with this apples and oranges comparison. You seem to blisfully ignore that this time around, there is NO "superior" option to choose over firewire, whereas back in the days you could choose optical. What is there now?
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So what will you do when firewire is dead within a couple of years seeing as how everything is moving to USB? Will you choose not to migrate and stick with your firewire, I mean I'm sure nothing will ever come along that is better than firewire, it's futureproof. :rolleyes:
 
I have to admit it's getting a little monotonous, seeing the same arguments rehashed, seeing that useless adapter mentioned once every 200 posts or so.

The simple reality is that many of us (consumers and pros alike) still rely on FireWire gear (sometimes by necessity), and would love to upgrade to the new MacBooks, but can't. Will Apple change its mind? I think the decision will largely be a function of how many 'non-technical' users will be calling Apple or bringing their Macs into the store asking how to connect their camcorders ("I thought these Macs just worked?"). Not everyone, especially the large number of 'non-technical' users that Apple is allegedly courting with the new MacBook, are bleeding edge early-adopters: Just last year my family bought a basic FireWire DV cam to replace our 1986 Sylvania VHS camera :)eek:). At least I can stop my family from 'upgrading' to MacBook that will render our 1-year-old video camera useless. What will be Apple's response to those that come in asking how to connect their cameras?

Employee: "Sorry, you have to buy a new camera."

Customer: "But I just bought mine a few months ago!"

Employee: "Sorry, but you didn't buy a camera with an interface that was popular enough."

Customer: "... so how much do these new cameras cost?"

Employee: "$150 for a tiny camera that has half the features of your current camera... or $500+ for a similarly featured camera."

The number of customers who say "Here, you can have your MacBook back, I'll buy a PC that I can actually hook my camera to" will determine whether Apple puts FireWire back in or not.
 
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