The software and hardware don't cooperate? My guess is that people working with logic is crying today.
Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
Steve Jobs on Lack of Firewire in MacBooks
- Thread starter MacRumors
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
For want of a firewire connection, they lost the sale of two Macbooks to me. I don't think I'm that important to any corporation. But, if there are enough people like me it becomes important to any corporation. Creative content producers were for years the backbone of Apple. I've been a user since 1984. They can write us off if they want, but is that a wise business decision? I can move everything to windows because I am mixed use now. I just didn't want to.
"Berklee College of Music requires all entering students to own an Apple Macintosh laptop computer that meets certain standards established by the college."
THAT is a real world situation that's bound to change due to the lack of Firewire. There's NO WAY a University will require students to have to buy a premium-priced MacBook Pro because they've removed Firewire from their consumer...or "student"...laptop. No doubt there are similar situations around the country where the removal of Firewire will affect the institutional use of Apple Inc.'s computers.
THAT is a real world situation that's bound to change due to the lack of Firewire. There's NO WAY a University will require students to have to buy a premium-priced MacBook Pro because they've removed Firewire from their consumer...or "student"...laptop. No doubt there are similar situations around the country where the removal of Firewire will affect the institutional use of Apple Inc.'s computers.
You're absolutely correct! iMovie was one of the selling points of the Mac and for serious hobbyists it was a great solution. And, if you wanted to upgrade you could get MB with FCE installed. And the irony of it all is that they still offer that with the new MB, but FCE captures video through...you guessed it, firewire, which it doesn't have.
I had to check and see for myself to believe it, because it sounded laughably absurd...
(scaled down to 600 pixels)
I think it would be great if a bunch of people were to place an order via phone for the
top-model MacBook bundled with all possible upgrades, including Final Cut Express.
Then, as if by after-thought, you could ask: I can capture DV into FCE via firewire, no?
Then, feining shock at the glaring, inexplicable omission of a firewire port, cancel the order.
It would be an interesting turn of fate if Apple pushed away professionals for home users and Windows suddenly became the new hub of creative professional computing. If Avid or Sony were able to snatch away more Final Cut users it could happen. Any advantage in Photoshop the Mac enjoyed is certainly long since gone. Photoshop benchmarks used to be the staple of Mac superiority for creative work.
Email to Steve
To: sjobs@apple.com
Sent: Monday, October 20, 2008 4:20:03 PM
Subject: MacBook
Mr. Jobs,
I regret that I can no longer recommend the MacBook due to lacking FireWire to any friends,co-workers or family; it's critical that Apple bring FireWire back to the MacBook at any spec within the product line.
I believe the verbiage on your website is a brilliant justification. If we can't easily re-caliberate a water jet to cut that port in the brick of aulinum I suggest at the least a re-word of the below page is sadly in order.
Thank you
Kent
http://developer.apple.com/hardwaredrivers/firewire/index.html
FireWire is one of the fastest peripheral standards ever developed, which makes it great for use with multimedia peripherals such as digital video cameras and other high-speed devices like the latest hard disk drives and printers.
FireWire is integrated into Power Macs, iMacs, eMacs, MacBooks, MacBook Pros, and the iPod. FireWire ports were also integrated into many other computer products dating back to the Power Macintosh G3 "Blue & White" computers. All these machines include FireWire ports that operate at up to 400 megabits per second and the latest machines include FireWire ports that support 1394b and operate at up to 800 megabits per second.
FireWire is a cross-platform implementation of the high-speed serial data bus -- defined by the IEEE 1394-1995, IEEE 1394a-2000, and IEEE 1394b standards -- that can move large amounts of data between computers and peripheral devices. It features simplified cabling, hot swapping, and transfer speeds of up to 800 megabits per second (on machines that support 1394b).
Major manufacturers of multimedia devices have been adopting the FireWire technology, and for good reason. FireWire speeds up the movement of multimedia data and large files and enables easy connection of digital consumer products -- including digital camcorders, digital video tapes, digital video disks, set-top boxes, and music systems -- directly to a personal computer.
In fact, Apple's FireWire technology was honored by the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences, receiving a 2001 Primetime Emmy Engineering Award for FireWire's impact on the television industry.
To: sjobs@apple.com
Sent: Monday, October 20, 2008 4:20:03 PM
Subject: MacBook
Mr. Jobs,
I regret that I can no longer recommend the MacBook due to lacking FireWire to any friends,co-workers or family; it's critical that Apple bring FireWire back to the MacBook at any spec within the product line.
I believe the verbiage on your website is a brilliant justification. If we can't easily re-caliberate a water jet to cut that port in the brick of aulinum I suggest at the least a re-word of the below page is sadly in order.
Thank you
Kent
http://developer.apple.com/hardwaredrivers/firewire/index.html
FireWire is one of the fastest peripheral standards ever developed, which makes it great for use with multimedia peripherals such as digital video cameras and other high-speed devices like the latest hard disk drives and printers.
FireWire is integrated into Power Macs, iMacs, eMacs, MacBooks, MacBook Pros, and the iPod. FireWire ports were also integrated into many other computer products dating back to the Power Macintosh G3 "Blue & White" computers. All these machines include FireWire ports that operate at up to 400 megabits per second and the latest machines include FireWire ports that support 1394b and operate at up to 800 megabits per second.
FireWire is a cross-platform implementation of the high-speed serial data bus -- defined by the IEEE 1394-1995, IEEE 1394a-2000, and IEEE 1394b standards -- that can move large amounts of data between computers and peripheral devices. It features simplified cabling, hot swapping, and transfer speeds of up to 800 megabits per second (on machines that support 1394b).
Major manufacturers of multimedia devices have been adopting the FireWire technology, and for good reason. FireWire speeds up the movement of multimedia data and large files and enables easy connection of digital consumer products -- including digital camcorders, digital video tapes, digital video disks, set-top boxes, and music systems -- directly to a personal computer.
In fact, Apple's FireWire technology was honored by the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences, receiving a 2001 Primetime Emmy Engineering Award for FireWire's impact on the television industry.
Replace the word "country" with "world" and you got the scenario plotted out.
http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/08_38/b4100084242512.htm?campaign_id=rss_tech
I think it would be more useful if they put money into writing Linux applications, than in improving the OS, which is way ahead of any past, current, or future versions of Windows.
I think it would be more useful if they put money into writing Linux applications, than in improving the OS, which is way ahead of any past, current, or future versions of Windows.
I see you added on to your post since I responded, so I will respond to your addendum.
I would not buy the previous generation MB that is still available with firewire because it's yesterday's technology and I don't invest my money that way. But, I also teach high school video production and I have had students for the past several years that have used past generation MB's for video editing with FCE. I have encouraged them to purchase MB's for that very purpose. It was a good solution. And they edited on them daily. I have a few students using the black MB for editing with FCE daily. So, regardless of what you think the capabilities are, real world experience tells me it was capable and the latest version was exactly what I was looking for. Until I discovered it has been crippled.
On camcorderinfo.com, of the last 7 camcorders they reviewed, only one supported firewire (and it also supported USB2).
They list four "MOST POPULAR" camcorders (which aren't included in the last 7 that they reviewed) and none of them support fireware.
I know this means nothing to people who do have camcorders that dont' support USB for video transfers, but everything I've seen does make it look like USB is the direction in which camcorders are going.
It certainly may be the case. However the consumers (target of MB) will not go out to pick up a new video camera just because a laptop they want, MB, requires USB to transfer video. They are not into getting latest/greatest. Hence consumer users, not pro users.
That´s the problem. I have Mac Pro and an ibook that I have to upgrade to a MacBook Pro. I also have 2 HDV Cameras and lots of Firewire Hard Drives 400 and 800.
Only having one 800 port is a pain.
I know I a can buy the previous MBP and I´m contemplating it, but it´s very anoying to have to buy old tech when new just came out.
And they never have refurbs on the Norwegian store.
PS Hackintosh is not an option, I bought Macs because I make money using my computer and have no time for downtime or a lot of trouble shooting (I´m not techy enough)
There is firewire 400 available on the Mac Pro, imac, mac mini, 900 dollar macbook, choose one.
Great, I'll choose a 13" laptop that's an upgrade from my Blackbook. Oops.
Everyone keeps bringing up floppy disks with the G3 iMac, but a floppy disk is large and would have significantly changed the form factor of the G3 iMac.
An extra port on the MB would have a much smaller effect on the MB form factor.
They shaved a couple of bucks off the cost I guess, but other than that there's no big gain for Apple to exclude FW.
An extra port on the MB would have a much smaller effect on the MB form factor.
They shaved a couple of bucks off the cost I guess, but other than that there's no big gain for Apple to exclude FW.
My son is entering Berklee next year, so I have a little more detail on this. The "standard" Berklee system (the one they package up with the stock Berklee software and sell to students that dont have a Mac already) is a Mac PRO, and the cost of the entire package is close to $3000. So I think it is not too likely that this will change.
The refurb old MBP is a far better buy, and not really much older tech anyway (6 months?) It doesn't have the new MBP GPU, but its GPU is still better than the new MB GPU.
Plus it has a much better LCD, if you seen reviews comparing the screens of the new MB and MBP. And a signficantly higher clockspeed than the $1299 MB.
The only potential negative is if the bigger size is a significant issue for you.
Why do you need to own a camera to edit?
There's too many assumptions being made in this thread.
There is firewire 400 available on the Mac Pro, imac, mac mini, 900 dollar macbook, choose one.
Yes indeed!
Minority use
It has been proposed that only a minority of users would know what Firewire is, or that only a minority of customers use the firewire port. A similar argument could be used against a variety of other hardware and software features in a MacBook. How many users will seek to use terminal, or do a secure disk wipe, manually set up a network connection, upgrade RAM, do a forced disc eject...should Apple remove such features? Of course not.
The inclusion of such a useful port up till now has not adversely affected this proposed majority and even might turn out to be useful to them one day. Its exclusion is clearly very limiting for those of us who do know what firewire is and make use of its reliable and fast data transfer.
It has been proposed that only a minority of users would know what Firewire is, or that only a minority of customers use the firewire port. A similar argument could be used against a variety of other hardware and software features in a MacBook. How many users will seek to use terminal, or do a secure disk wipe, manually set up a network connection, upgrade RAM, do a forced disc eject...should Apple remove such features? Of course not.
The inclusion of such a useful port up till now has not adversely affected this proposed majority and even might turn out to be useful to them one day. Its exclusion is clearly very limiting for those of us who do know what firewire is and make use of its reliable and fast data transfer.
Do we actually have a statistic for that?
I run Final Cut Express admirably on my 2006 intel iMac, a system that is outpaced by the current MacBooks in every regard except for a few pixels of screen size. The new MacBook would work wonderfully for Final Cut, and we have many in this thread who attest to that, were it not for the lack of FireWire.
Maybe not most. But there are a lot of FC users on the MB's. Particularity FCE which was designed for consumers that are serious hobbyists. And FCE uses firewire for capture. Apple crippled the MB and took away a feature that was used by many consumers for a variety of purposes.
Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone 3G; CPU iPhone OS 2_1 like Mac OS X; ISO-2022-JP) AppleWebKit/420.1 (KHTML, like Gecko) Vendor/DoCoMo Mobile/3A100a Safari/419.3)
I don't like having ports disappear that I use regularly (without having to shop for, buy, and carry around adapters), but at the same time I remember the protests when we lost floppy drives, built-in Zip drives, and some grousing and grumbling when NuBus cards no longer worked. Apple may have to drag us forward as we scream and kick, but at least they've let us know the direction they are going.
Steve may write back that they are phasing out all technology from the year 1394!
I don't like having ports disappear that I use regularly (without having to shop for, buy, and carry around adapters), but at the same time I remember the protests when we lost floppy drives, built-in Zip drives, and some grousing and grumbling when NuBus cards no longer worked. Apple may have to drag us forward as we scream and kick, but at least they've let us know the direction they are going.
Sorry but without a VIABLE alternative technology, they are not dragging us forward, they are falling behind.
We are beyond 10k signatures now, thank you for signing the petition.almost 10,000 signatures
http://www.petitiononline.com/mod_perl/signed.cgi?MB1394
BRING BACK FIREWIRE
Here is what I just wrote to Apple via the feedback form: