Thank you Apple: No more FW, Ethernet, and Optical

[HardBall]

Thank you Apple,

For moving technology and the industry forward, by phasing these interfaces that are old, decrepit, and superceded by better standards and technology. It's about time that they go the way of floppy disks, serial ports, P/S2, and a myriad of ancient interconnect standards.

Ethernet was simply designed during a time when mainframe dominated, and when mini-computers size of refrigerators were considered "portable". There is no excuse in continuing to use a port that is designed during Watergate, and has a totally unreasonable size for the function that it performs and the designed bit rate. Its plastic and fragile construction was originally designed for data centers and intranets, very few people today can justify its continued existence.

FW is something that has not been used by normal people in many years. It is mostly a few stubborn people in photo/video production who have a baseless fear of new technology, while clinging to the things that they knew best. Even the iPod and most Apple consumer electronic products have not used it for nearly a decade, that tells how arcane and ineffective this interface really it. It's simply time to upgrade people's drives, peripheral, cameras, etc, and move on from this anachronistic monstrosity.

The ODD itself takes up huge amount of space. Even the media oriented Apple machines like the Mac Mini and Apple TV no long use such outdated forms of media recordings like DVD. Most people today watch shows and films on Netflix and Hulu, places like Blockbuster are dying a slow by certain death. Hopefully these huge space and weight hog in laptops will meet their final demise in all laptops soon, and we will never have to worry about having a disk stuck in the drive and rendering it useless, and having to carry a laptop with +2 lbs just because some people refuse to migrate to the streaming model.

Great job, , it's time to make the switch. Now that these ports have been relegated to legacy status, only being found on old, outdated models of MBPs. Please also phase these out on the iMac and other computers, and not look back.

 

[therealseebs]

Yeah! I totally want my $3000 laptop to be limited to a handful of ports so that it requires latency-inducing hubs to use any other medium, and I especially want my network access to be 54Mbps instead of 1000Mbps, because a factor of twenty performance hit makes me COOL AND MODERN.

I am all for trying to move forwards, but the fact is, modern ethernet and firewire, at least, are still pretty useful. USB is great for some stuff, but it has atrocious performance characteristics for some workloads. Wireless is nice except when it isn't, and then wired networks are awesome.

 

[Boe11]

Thank you Apple,

For moving technology and the industry forward, by phasing these interfaces that are old, decrepit, and superceded by better standards and technology. It's about time that they go the way of floppy disks, serial ports, P/S2, and a myriad of ancient interconnect standards.

Ethernet was simply designed during a time when mainframe dominated, and when mini-computers size of refrigerators were considered "portable". There is no excuse in continuing to use a port that is designed during Watergate, and has a totally unreasonable size for the function that it performs and the designed bit rate. Its plastic and fragile construction was originally designed for data centers and intranets, very few people today can justify its continued existence.

FW is something that has not been used by normal people in many years. It is mostly a few stubborn people in photo/video production who have a baseless fear of new technology, while clinging to the things that they knew best. Even the iPod and most Apple consumer electronic products have not used it for nearly a decade, that tells how arcane and ineffective this interface really it. It's simply time to upgrade people's drives, peripheral, cameras, etc, and move on from this anachronistic monstrosity.

The ODD itself takes up huge amount of space. Even the media oriented Apple machines like the Mac Mini and Apple TV no long use such outdated forms of media recordings like DVD. Most people today watch shows and films on Netflix and Hulu, places like Blockbuster are dying a slow by certain death. Hopefully these huge space and weight hog in laptops will meet their final demise in all laptops soon, and we will never have to worry about having a disk stuck in the drive and rendering it useless, and having to carry a laptop with +2 lbs just because some people refuse to migrate to the streaming model.

Great job, , it's time to make the switch. Now that these ports have been relegated to legacy status, only being found on old, outdated models of MBPs. Please also phase these out on the iMac and other computers, and not look back.

 

[ericcumbee]

Please also phase these out on the iMac and other computers, and not look back.

Decent points up until here. Wired at least for now is faster (what 802.11AC has to offer is still yet to be seen), but wired is also more secure, as you have to have physical access to tap into it.


plus space and weight is less of an issue on desktop computers.

 

[NewbieCanada]

If you want Ethernet, it's there, via a tiny adaptor. Same with Firewire.

Would you really want them to have to design the computer around these ports that most people don't use?

 

[niuniu]

If you want to use old tech for any reason, just pick up an adapter. No need to bog laptops down with floppy drives, faxes etc

 

[therealseebs]

If you want Ethernet, it's there, via a tiny adaptor. Same with Firewire.

Post proof or retract.

I don't want to hear speculation that someone has announced that such an adapter will eventually exist.

Can I, TODAY, walk into an Apple store, hand them money, and acquire this adapter? If not, what you just said is not true. I can't have those things.

Would you really want them to have to design the computer around these ports that most people don't use?

"Design the computer around" is pretty emotionally-laden language. No one is asking that they give us a machine which is a five foot scale model of a roman amphtheatre with a firewire port on a pedestal in the middle, with soft lighting shining down on it.

But yes. I would like Apple to continue to provide basic support for a few more options here and there. If I wanted a computer from a company that would strip a port I needed to use because it saved them $0.25, I would not be buying Apple's hardware in the first place.

Apple's strength has been providing good and complete computers. As they migrate towards having only a couple of expansion plugs available, they migrate away from me being able to use their products without ever-increasing levels of hassle. I really do use FireWire, and I really do use Ethernet. My MBP is, right now, using both. Heck, I actually use an eSATA adapter in the card expansion slot on my old MBP -- shame that there's no longer such an option.

At this rate, my next Mac will probably be an ASUS. For $1500, I can get a big bulky machine (which I don't mind) with better graphics, a faster CPU, user-upgradeable memory, two drive bays and an optical drive, more expansion ports... I've been avoiding the hackintosh thing because I like Apple in principle, but the fact is, they have basically eradicated every part of their product line that I could use for a lot of the things I like to use Macs for. There's a reason I'm using a 2-year-old MBP and a 3-year-old Mini right now...

 

[Boe11]

^ easy there, fella.

The engadget live feed said there would be Tbolt adapter for gig ethernet and firewire. That's about all I know.

 

[BlueGummiBear]

Post proof or retract.

I don't want to hear speculation that someone has announced that such an adapter will eventually exist.

http://store.apple.com/us/configure/MC976LL/A? -- scroll down to accessories. It was addressed in the Keynote that an adapter was to be released shortly for TB to FW800.

 

[SgtBulldog]

http://store.apple.com/us/product/MD463ZM/A

 

[grrrz]

to be fair
look there at connectors and expansions
http://www.apple.com/macbook-pro/specs/
and if you're a regular person without more than 1500$ to spend on a computer you'll probably want the good ol' unibody with everything.
by the time this retina model becomes standard (one or two years maybe?),
there probably will be decent thunderbolt solutions for ethernet and firewire (that's probably why there are two).
But it's still far less convenient than a dedicated port and not a good solution for live gigs for example, where firewire is still a standard, and usb a second choice.
Personnaly I would avoid the adapter solutions and If had to buy a new laptop and no firewire option where present I'd probably buy a PC, instead of dumping a perfecly fine high quality 1000$ sound interface, or running it through a fragile adapter. but they kept the old line, and I'm not there yet. or maybe there will be a good option for a very stable adapter that's small and built into the cable.

 

[Martialis]

Thank you Apple,

For moving technology and the industry forward, by phasing these interfaces that are old, decrepit, and superceded by better standards and technology. It's about time that they go the way of floppy disks, serial ports, P/S2, and a myriad of ancient interconnect standards.

Ethernet was simply designed during a time when mainframe dominated, and when mini-computers size of refrigerators were considered "portable". There is no excuse in continuing to use a port that is designed during Watergate, and has a totally unreasonable size for the function that it performs and the designed bit rate. Its plastic and fragile construction was originally designed for data centers and intranets, very few people today can justify its continued existence.

FW is something that has not been used by normal people in many years. It is mostly a few stubborn people in photo/video production who have a baseless fear of new technology, while clinging to the things that they knew best. Even the iPod and most Apple consumer electronic products have not used it for nearly a decade, that tells how arcane and ineffective this interface really it. It's simply time to upgrade people's drives, peripheral, cameras, etc, and move on from this anachronistic monstrosity.

The ODD itself takes up huge amount of space. Even the media oriented Apple machines like the Mac Mini and Apple TV no long use such outdated forms of media recordings like DVD. Most people today watch shows and films on Netflix and Hulu, places like Blockbuster are dying a slow by certain death. Hopefully these huge space and weight hog in laptops will meet their final demise in all laptops soon, and we will never have to worry about having a disk stuck in the drive and rendering it useless, and having to carry a laptop with +2 lbs just because some people refuse to migrate to the streaming model.

Great job, , it's time to make the switch. Now that these ports have been relegated to legacy status, only being found on old, outdated models of MBPs. Please also phase these out on the iMac and other computers, and not look back.

Do you seriously not comprehend how ubiquitous Ethernet is in the workplace and how obscenely expensive it would be for our employers to rip out all those ports to replace with whatever hip, proprietary new thing Apple wants to push?

 

[therealseebs]

http://store.apple.com/us/configure/MC976LL/A? -- scroll down to accessories. It was addressed in the Keynote that an adapter was to be released shortly for TB to FW800.

So they have the ethernet adapter listed, but no one has actually gotten one yet, and the FW800 adapter has been "announced".

Which is to say: If, today, I had one of these Macs, I couldn't connect it to either of those.

Which was sort of my point.

 

[InuNacho]

So they have the ethernet adapter listed, but no one has actually gotten one yet, and the FW800 adapter has been "announced".

Oh it'll happen one day, just when it's convenient for Apple.

 

[Astroboy907]

Thank you Apple,

For moving technology and the industry forward, by phasing these interfaces that are old, decrepit, and superceded by better standards and technology. It's about time that they go the way of floppy disks, serial ports, P/S2, and a myriad of ancient interconnect standards.

Ethernet was simply designed during a time when mainframe dominated, and when mini-computers size of refrigerators were considered "portable". There is no excuse in continuing to use a port that is designed during Watergate, and has a totally unreasonable size for the function that it performs and the designed bit rate. Its plastic and fragile construction was originally designed for data centers and intranets, very few people today can justify its continued existence.

FW is something that has not been used by normal people in many years. It is mostly a few stubborn people in photo/video production who have a baseless fear of new technology, while clinging to the things that they knew best. Even the iPod and most Apple consumer electronic products have not used it for nearly a decade, that tells how arcane and ineffective this interface really it. It's simply time to upgrade people's drives, peripheral, cameras, etc, and move on from this anachronistic monstrosity.

The ODD itself takes up huge amount of space. Even the media oriented Apple machines like the Mac Mini and Apple TV no long use such outdated forms of media recordings like DVD. Most people today watch shows and films on Netflix and Hulu, places like Blockbuster are dying a slow by certain death. Hopefully these huge space and weight hog in laptops will meet their final demise in all laptops soon, and we will never have to worry about having a disk stuck in the drive and rendering it useless, and having to carry a laptop with +2 lbs just because some people refuse to migrate to the streaming model.

Great job, , it's time to make the switch. Now that these ports have been relegated to legacy status, only being found on old, outdated models of MBPs. Please also phase these out on the iMac and other computers, and not look back.

The only thing that has pushed it forward is the retina display.


Everything else was a step back.

On a near $4000 laptop, I would expect more than 2 USB ports. Even $300 crappy wintel boxes have 4! I carry around, like 3 USB drives at a time and use them. Plus, with an external drive... USB 3 was a great addition, but they still need more ports on the thing.

As for thunderbolt, who cares??? What if just spend all of my budget on a laptop? I cant afford thunderbolt accessories now...

Apple cares more about making it thinner than actual users. I dont use firewire (much), or ethernet for that matter. Or optical. But with this laptop, which is giving apple, like, $700 profit for each one sold, I expect performance!!!

These things need to have more than just processing power. THey need to be able to connect. Soon, you will be stuck with one USB port, and nothing else. Nada. Zip.

Oh look, the future!!! Where I can connect my laptop to the internet. Not much else.


And sure, I would LOVE to pay apple another $1000, just so I can use proprietary, non upgradable flash storage. And 16gb of non upgradable RAM!

Much rather use a 15" non retina... At least that will be more future proof than anything else apple has to offer in the macbook line...

 

[kappaknight]

The only thing that has pushed it forward is the retina display.


Everything else was a step back.

On a near $4000 laptop, I would expect more than 2 USB ports. Even $300 crappy wintel boxes have 4! I carry around, like 3 USB drives at a time and use them. Plus, with an external drive... USB 3 was a great addition, but they still need more ports on the thing.

As for thunderbolt, who cares??? What if just spend all of my budget on a laptop? I cant afford thunderbolt accessories now...

Maybe you're doing it wrong per Steve Job's vision? Apple is moving into the portable/mobile world. A person who with a laptop who travels with 3 USB drives at all times is not the vision/scenario they have imagined. They probably want you to upgrade to the largest internal drive available and use cloud based drives for backups or remote syncs.

No sarcasm here.

 

[wenstinator]

pretty sure this guy is being sarcastic... can't you guys tell?

Thank you Apple,

For moving technology and the industry forward, by phasing these interfaces that are old, decrepit, and superceded by better standards and technology. It's about time that they go the way of floppy disks, serial ports, P/S2, and a myriad of ancient interconnect standards.

Ethernet was simply designed during a time when mainframe dominated, and when mini-computers size of refrigerators were considered "portable". There is no excuse in continuing to use a port that is designed during Watergate, and has a totally unreasonable size for the function that it performs and the designed bit rate. Its plastic and fragile construction was originally designed for data centers and intranets, very few people today can justify its continued existence.

FW is something that has not been used by normal people in many years. It is mostly a few stubborn people in photo/video production who have a baseless fear of new technology, while clinging to the things that they knew best. Even the iPod and most Apple consumer electronic products have not used it for nearly a decade, that tells how arcane and ineffective this interface really it. It's simply time to upgrade people's drives, peripheral, cameras, etc, and move on from this anachronistic monstrosity.

The ODD itself takes up huge amount of space. Even the media oriented Apple machines like the Mac Mini and Apple TV no long use such outdated forms of media recordings like DVD. Most people today watch shows and films on Netflix and Hulu, places like Blockbuster are dying a slow by certain death. Hopefully these huge space and weight hog in laptops will meet their final demise in all laptops soon, and we will never have to worry about having a disk stuck in the drive and rendering it useless, and having to carry a laptop with +2 lbs just because some people refuse to migrate to the streaming model.

Great job, , it's time to make the switch. Now that these ports have been relegated to legacy status, only being found on old, outdated models of MBPs. Please also phase these out on the iMac and other computers, and not look back.

 

[calaverasgrande]

Thank you Apple,

For moving technology and the industry forward, by phasing these interfaces that are old, decrepit, and superceded by better standards and technology. It's about time that they go the way of floppy disks, serial ports, P/S2, and a myriad of ancient interconnect standards.

Ethernet was simply designed during a time when mainframe dominated, and when mini-computers size of refrigerators were considered "portable". There is no excuse in continuing to use a port that is designed during Watergate, and has a totally unreasonable size for the function that it performs and the designed bit rate. Its plastic and fragile construction was originally designed for data centers and intranets, very few people today can justify its continued existence.

FW is something that has not been used by normal people in many years. It is mostly a few stubborn people in photo/video production who have a baseless fear of new technology, while clinging to the things that they knew best. Even the iPod and most Apple consumer electronic products have not used it for nearly a decade, that tells how arcane and ineffective this interface really it. It's simply time to upgrade people's drives, peripheral, cameras, etc, and move on from this anachronistic monstrosity.

Wifi is simply not good enough for anything past half a dozen people.
If we wanted to implement wifi in my workplace it would involve $30-40k in infrastructure upgrades in order for everyone to be able to get online at once at workable speeds, and be secure.
It is of course absurd to use Ethernet at home, but in the workplace it is still a fact of life. TB to Ethernet adapters? Not cool.
Pro level audio interfaces for notebooks are firewire. There are no pro level interfaces with come with thunderbolt or USB3 yet.

 

[Astroboy907]

Maybe you're doing it wrong per Steve Job's vision? Apple is moving into the portable/mobile world. A person who with a laptop who travels with 3 USB drives at all times is not the vision/scenario they have imagined. They probably want you to upgrade to the largest internal drive available and use cloud based drives for backups or remote syncs.

No sarcasm here.

Whups... 3 Flash Drives makes quite a lot of difference.

I for one, am very appreciative about being able to hack/mod/upgrade my laptop, or computer in general. I already have a 1tb HDD internal, and I am running (slowly) out of space on it.

On the new Retina, I just feel locked down. For now I will be buying a non retina unless apple can make a real "pro", user upgradable laptop, with a retina screen. Sure, 512gb of flash storage is cool, but I can put 1tb of flash storage in mine pretty easily. And if I get a newer model, up to 32gb of RAM. To me, retina is not an option as of yet, theres just too much missing out. And its $1000 more, which offsets the benefits from the losses...

And while Steves vision was for mobile, I cannot justify that either. At any given time I have to carry around

Laptop
Magsafe power cord
USB flash drives
Display-Port to VGA adapter (dont get me wrong on this, its saved my bacon more than a few times)
Extra battery (I have removable type)
Occasional USB external drive (for more data)
Headphones
Phone (tether/data)
SD cards (photography)
Expresscards (occasionally)
3.5mm Audio cable (use it more than you would think)

When I go really light I just take the laptop, power cord, and display adapter. Still not mobile enough for Steve.

Unless they can power these off of solar or something, they are never truly portable...

So really, unless apple can take out most off that list, I cannot see why they are so concerned with thinness/portability, when they are not truly portable.And adding more adapters makes it less portable.

 

[makinao]

So they have the ethernet adapter listed, but no one has actually gotten one yet ...

We've had a USB to Ethernet adaptor since my wife got her 1st gen MBA in 2009.

 

[Tarzanman]

Ethernet is still superior to wireless.

Less latency
More secure
Faster
Doesn't slow down when trucks drive by (or other RF interference)
Uses less power

Wireless has its place and is more convenient for everyday tasks, but ethernet is still very relevant in a lot of offices. I'd rather have it and not use it, than not have it and end up needing it once or twice.

 

[iMusings]

Thank you Apple,

For moving technology and the industry forward, by phasing these interfaces that are old, decrepit, and superceded by better standards and technology. It's about time that they go the way of floppy disks, serial ports, P/S2, and a myriad of ancient interconnect standards.

Ethernet was simply designed during a time when mainframe dominated, and when mini-computers size of refrigerators were considered "portable". There is no excuse in continuing to use a port that is designed during Watergate, and has a totally unreasonable size for the function that it performs and the designed bit rate. Its plastic and fragile construction was originally designed for data centers and intranets, very few people today can justify its continued existence.

FW is something that has not been used by normal people in many years. It is mostly a few stubborn people in photo/video production who have a baseless fear of new technology, while clinging to the things that they knew best. Even the iPod and most Apple consumer electronic products have not used it for nearly a decade, that tells how arcane and ineffective this interface really it. It's simply time to upgrade people's drives, peripheral, cameras, etc, and move on from this anachronistic monstrosity.

The ODD itself takes up huge amount of space. Even the media oriented Apple machines like the Mac Mini and Apple TV no long use such outdated forms of media recordings like DVD. Most people today watch shows and films on Netflix and Hulu, places like Blockbuster are dying a slow by certain death. Hopefully these huge space and weight hog in laptops will meet their final demise in all laptops soon, and we will never have to worry about having a disk stuck in the drive and rendering it useless, and having to carry a laptop with +2 lbs just because some people refuse to migrate to the streaming model.

Great job, , it's time to make the switch. Now that these ports have been relegated to legacy status, only being found on old, outdated models of MBPs. Please also phase these out on the iMac and other computers, and not look back.

What about things like upgradeable memory and replaceable storage?

Industry standard things like SODIMM DDR3 memory slots & microsata connectors are "old, decrepit" technologies too?

Apple is just being an ass. Enough said.

 

[PeopleTheseDays]

Why is everyone complaining when there are still the regular MacBooks with all the legacy ports you want available?

 

[jcpb]

gibberish

Ethernet requires physical access and is thus by nature more secure than WiFi.

With WiFi, I can wardrive directly into your wireless network without needing to physically enter your premises.

In the world of IT security, the latter is an instant GAME OVER. When the cost of the security breach also includes customer data, you would be insane to continue using wireless over wired.

 

[BlueGummiBear]

So they have the ethernet adapter listed, but no one has actually gotten one yet, and the FW800 adapter has been "announced".

Which is to say: If, today, I had one of these Macs, I couldn't connect it to either of those.

Which was sort of my point.

Well, I guess you could always just buy the $999 "adapter" from Apple called a 27" LED Thunderbolt Display. It has a FW800 and Ethernet port built-in... and you can walk into any Apple store and pick one of those bad boys up.... TODAY. </sarcasm>