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Steve Jobs on Lack of Firewire in MacBooks

darkblu said:
so first it was an mp3 player, and now it's the macbook air which is a public image product (as in 'look what we can do! cool, eh?'), and as such has little relevance to the discussion in this thread which, low and behold, is entirely about features & productivity in a workhorse model. also, i didn't say you didn't have the right to be here - you may want to read what i said again (hint: i asked about your incentives). generally, there are those people who go into threads because they discuss subjects those people care about. then, there are those who go into threads to wield their e-peen; 'cause it's 'their right too'.
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If you bothered to read the thread you'd understand why Firewire is important to people in the audio and video world. You've made it clear you personally don't need Firewire. That's Great. I'm happy for you.

So what would you like to say about Firewire that you haven't already said?
 
darkblu said:
so first it was an mp3 player, and now it's the macbook air which is a public image product (as in 'look what we can do! cool, eh?'), and as such has little relevance to the discussion in this thread which, low and behold, is entirely about features & productivity in a workhorse model. also, i didn't say you didn't have the right to be here - you may want to read what i said again (hint: i asked about your incentives). generally, there are those people who go into threads because they discuss subjects those people care about. then, there are those who go into threads to wield their e-peen; 'cause it's 'their right too'.
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No I said they dropped it from the iPod, then the MBA and now the Macbook, notice a pattern, they are dropping it from the consumer products first.
 
Compile 'em all said:
get the macbook pro. i hear it has firewire.
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Yeah, I know, but...

I need a laptop that actually works with most Firewire audio devices. Unfortunately, the MacBook Pro is using the problematic Agere firewire chip since early 2008, so there's no way in hell I'd consider buying the damn thing for audio production.

Previously to this screw-up Apple made some great laptops for audio production... they just apparently lost their ability to do so.
 
localoid said:
Yeah, I know, but...

I need a laptop that actually works with most Firewire audio devices. Unfortunately, the MacBook Pro is using the problematic Agere firewire chip since early 2008, so there's no way in hell I'd consider buying the damn thing for audio production.

Previously to this screw-up Apple made some great laptops for audio production... they just apparently lost their ability to do so.
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Well that just takes the biscuit hearing that the new MBP uses the Agere chipset, so it looks like anyone wanting to do Audio on any portable mac has to get the older plastic macbook.

In the voice of the comic book guy "worst update ever" :D
 
myca said:
Well that just takes the biscuit hearing that the new MBP uses the Agere chipset, so it looks like anyone wanting to do Audio on any portable mac has to get the older plastic macbook.

In the voice of the comic book guy "worst update ever" :D
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Anyone with a new MacBook or new MacBook Pro care to boot with control-V and report what the line concerning Firewire says? If it ends in TI, it's the TI Firewire chipset, else it's something that probably won't work, e.g., Lucent (Agere).

Steinberg's forum had some reports the new MacBooks and Pros were using the Lucent (Agere) chipset. But earlier in the year people had reported Apple had gone back to TI on _some_ (repeat "some") MacBook Pros, so what your chances of getting a working laptop (for Audio) was more or less a "lottery". And that ain't good...
 
localoid said:
Anyone with a new MacBook or new MacBook Pro care to boot with control-V and report what the line concerning Firewire says? If it ends in TI, it's the TI Firewire chipset, else it something that probably won't work.

Steinberg's forum had some reports the new MacBooks and Pros were using the lucent (Agere) chipset. But earlier in the year people had reported Apple had gone back to TI on _some_ (repeat "some") MacBook Pros, so what your chances of getting a working laptop (for Audio) was more or less a "lottery".
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Some guy on the cubase forum tried it out

http://forum.cubase.net/phpbb2/viewtopic.php?t=106153

funny thread, apart from the Agere chipset revelation.
 
localoid said:
That thread's a real zoo... Personally, I miss the old Usenet flame wars and B1FF... especially B1FF. ;)
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I don't feel quite so bad for calling someone an imbecile on this thread now after reading the abuse on that thread :cool:

Still it's disappointing if the person who checked the chipset was right, at least that could stop all those people using the line

"Well get the MBP then" :)
 
Sulley Muntari said:
Yeah worst update to you but to the majority of customers its good enough.
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So Apple can afford to loose all the home recording people, the "pro" audio people, musicians, etc. and it shouldn't be a real problem for Apple? They can migrate to Windows. And when people stop buying Logic (because its OS X only) that won't be a problem either.

BLOG: Why musicians shouldn't buy Apple's new MacBook

Whither, FireWire? What the New Apple Laptop Port Changes Mean for Audio

Podcast: Sonic TALK103 - Stinky Macs, Stinky Mics (MP3) Coverage of MacBooks starts at 7:55
 
Good to see some more news coverage. Sadly the petition isn't mentioned, though. Without some publicity, I'd imagine the petition will level off in a few days.
 
localoid said:
If you bothered to read the thread you'd understand why Firewire is important to people in the audio and video world. You've made it clear you personally don't need Firewire. That's Great. I'm happy for you.

So what would you like to say about Firewire that you haven't already said?
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i do believe you quoted the wrong person in this post of yours.

Sulley Muntari said:
No I said they dropped it from the iPod, then the MBA and now the Macbook, notice a pattern, they are dropping it from the consumer products first.
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it just happens so that one of those 'consumer products' used to be an av productivity platform (there was a time apple took pride that all their machines were such).

see, apple may drop fw from whatever they count as 'non-pro', hoping that people will shrug off and upgrade to the next better higher margins model. it's just that the moment apple did that, that same moment people would complain (see this thread for reference), and there's no way you could accuse them of being whiney, as now they have to pay more for something new, whereas the old thing used to meet their needs just fine. basically, apple has effectively pulled a price hike on those people, just because apple can, and people are not happy. notice the causality.
 
dolphin842 said:
Good to see some more news coverage. Sadly the petition isn't mentioned, though. Without some publicity, I'd imagine the petition will level off in a few days.
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I hope it keeps going, it's nearly at 14k now, I just hope that most of those who signed it also left feedback to Apple, and maybe spammed a certain CEOs email with their thoughts.

I did find it funny that someone has started a no firewire petition though, only 1 supporter so far, come on firewire haters and fanboys, let's see if you can catch up :eek:
 
localoid said:
I just had a "vote now" button instead of "submit reply" show at the bottom of the text editing section in another posting... Maybe the gremlins are out tonight. :confused:
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Uhhh... It's always like that if you edit very soon after you just posted.
 
My video camera is firewire.
All my external hard drives are firewire. I even daisy chain them.
Bad decision dropping firewire.
My next mac will have firewire. I hope Apple reconsiders. I hope nVidia put firewire into their chipsets.
 
corinhorn said:
Some of us were waiting for these notebooks to replace are aging PPC based Macs.

Also, several of us are concerned that the lack of FireWire in the new MB is a hint at a future trend for Apple. When someone has accumulated a large array of FireWire devices over the past few years, its' disconcerting to see the possible death of FireWire when no suitable alternative exists in the market.
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Exactly. When you're doing something productive in a business with your computer, you can't sit around with outdated technology If you're just a consumer surfing the web and doing email then it doesn't matter. This was the notebook I was waiting for for my business. It would have been the perfct location notebook, if it had firewire.
And, if Apple's doing it to save money, it will definitely disappear from the iMac. And that's what takes Apple out of the education market. My school isn't going to pay the price of Mac Pros for an editing lab. Nor would I recommend it. It's an innappropriate use of school funds. We will be forced to PC's by Apple. And if anyone thinks that doesn't matter, they don't know how much influence the educational market has had on young buyers.
 
Sulley Muntari said:
No I said they dropped it from the iPod, then the MBA and now the Macbook, notice a pattern, they are dropping it from the consumer products first.
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They didn't drop it from the MBA. It never had one. It's not a laptop for content production. It's just a monster sized, overpriced netbook.

Are you Adjei reincarnated? Your posts sound very familiar.
 
myca said:
Well that just takes the biscuit hearing that the new MBP uses the Agere chipset, so it looks like anyone wanting to do Audio on any portable mac has to get the older plastic macbook.

In the voice of the comic book guy "worst update ever" :D
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I wouldn't want it for video, either. T1 is the only chipset that has consistently proved itself to be reliable.
 
The Agere/TI FireWire problem reminds me of the (much smaller) controversy when Apple dumped the (arguably better) Wolfson DAC for another chip when they released the iPod classics.
 
dizzy13 said:
Because people (like myself) get annoyed when other people constant whine about stuff. Like MMS and Copy/Paste, but at least those 2 have some real purpose although not worth crying about!

You can't do anything about it so just go buy and HP or use your damn video camera on your iMac and not on your notebook? If I used FW I wouldn't be working on video stuff anyway on a notebook I would be doing it on my main computer.
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Please also read post #1301.
 
Sulley Muntari said:
No I said they dropped it from the iPod, then the MBA and now the Macbook, notice a pattern, they are dropping it from the consumer products first.
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It isn't a pattern. There are unrelated reasons for not having FireWire on these products:
iPod: needs to be PC-compatible.
MBA: designed to be a mostly wireless platform, and razor-thin design forced dropping most ports anyway.
aluminum MB: force more customers to higher-margin top-of-the-line systems.
 
Sulley Muntari said:
Yes they saw the need not to include it because they don't really see the importance of it.
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No, it was simply because the target the MBA was intended for doesn't really see the importance of it. That's slightly different; the MB though is another story whether you think the firewire should have been dropped or not, it's just an unfair comparison to put the two on the same table.
 
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