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

[HardBall]

The cloud will rule ^ once and for all.

While I would love to give you a down vote I won't as you happen to be correct in Apple's thinking.

No money in anything but the cloud.

Thank you for your honesty;

I cannot believe how many people are still deluding themselves in thinking that things like Ethernet and FW are still current technology. In a couple of years, it will be very difficult to from any laptop that supports these long obsolete interfaces at all, from any OEM. People simply need to be prepared and upgrade peripherals in a timely manner, not holding onto the same video cam or sound equipment for decades.

I have no idea there are so many people who are resistant to change, and are afraid of new technology standards. USB3 and TB will be the future, there is literally nothing that anyone here could do about it. Just need to be flexible, and go with the prevalent and functionally superior standards, no reason to be stuck in the same rut of thinking decade after decade.

 

[Southernboyj]

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.

I agree, I see no reason to get rid of FireWire or Ethernet on iMac's, since they aren't portable and space isn't an issue. I see no problems with the new MacBook Pro's design however. If you are the 3% of user's that need an Optical Drive, buy an external one. Why should the majority have to carry those around at added thickness, weight, and production cost when we don't use them.

 

[Freyqq]

I'm not concerned b\c there is a cheap and accessible dongle available to give FW and Ethernet. They included 2 TB ports and HDMI. So, you can still connect an external screen and have FW and Ethernet with 2 dongles if you wanted. Sounds fine to me.

 

[Xiroteus]

Thank you for your honesty;

I cannot believe how many people are still deluding themselves in thinking that things like Ethernet and FW are still current technology. In a couple of years, it will be very difficult to from any laptop that supports these long obsolete interfaces at all, from any OEM. People simply need to be prepared and upgrade peripherals in a timely manner, not holding onto the same video cam or sound equipment for decades.

Current enough and many times for good reason. I moved along with technology as fast as I could, money plays a factor, what people already own does as well. Some people dislike the cloud aside from an offsite backup because it needs an internet connection to access your information, I like my files with me. Just because it is new does not mean everything is a set forward, it will just be forced onto everyone.

Sure I sound like people did thirty years ago, or twenty, ten etc..

I have no idea there are so many people who are resistant to change, and are afraid of new technology standards. USB3 and TB will be the future, there is literally nothing that anyone here could do about it. Just need to be flexible, and go with the prevalent and functionally superior standards, no reason to be stuck in the same rut of thinking decade after decade.

I like change that is good, USB3? Sure, it is faster so why not? Now as for digital, if compressed lower quality video with less content and twice the cost is the future I will have to pass.

 

[iMusings]

If you want Blu-Ray, buy a PS3.

Considering all the butthurt the Blu-Ray tech foisted onto the masses, especially the ineffective copy protections that do nothing but inconvenience legitimate usage, it's best to keep BR off a Mac. And really, 100GB write-once Blu-Ray XL discs when it's already possible to cram a 256GB SSD into a tiny mSATA drive? Tough choice.

mSATA drives, which Apple DOESN'T USE.

 

[jcpb]

why would your employer need to rip out every ethernet port in the walls? Just install a wireless router. Problem solved. Or just keep your current MBP. If your office has wifi, well they are kind of behind the times.

No one is putting a gun to your head to upgrade anything.

Network security.

There is a reason you don't want to give outsiders the ability to access your internal networks without physical access.

 

[ixodes]

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

This statement is so true. Just think of the huge amount of additional sales & profits Apple would make, if listening & responding to their customers were practiced.

 

[ericcumbee]

I agree, I see no reason to get rid of FireWire or Ethernet on iMac's, since they aren't portable and space isn't an issue. I see no problems with the new MacBook Pro's design however. If you are the 3% of user's that need an Optical Drive, buy an external one. Why should the majority have to carry those around at added thickness, weight, and production cost when we don't use them.

dont get me wrong i hav no problem with them dropping it on the laptops. otherwise i would not be getting one of the new macbook airs.

although there are still use cases where wireless can not beat a good hard wired gigabit ethernet connection. although i think alot of those cases are more likely to occur with a desktop computer than with a laptop.

as for the optical drive. i bought a Dell Latitude D630 in 2007. it has the multi-bay that you can hotswap a optical drive, an additional battery, or 2nd hard drive 99% of the time i had the battery in there. the 1% of the time i had it in, it always seemed to tear up. so i may have burned 10 discs 4 1/2 -5 years. so i know for a fact i will not miss the optical drive.

 

[iMusings]

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.

What exactly is Apple's vision? That everyone is going to sync and work with their files in "the cloud" using their AT&T 2gb data plans?

Get real.

 

[therealseebs]

I'm not concerned b\c there is a cheap and accessible dongle available to give FW and Ethernet.

Where exactly is the cheap and accessible dongle to give FW? Note: Where is. Not "where will it be maybe in a month or a couple of weeks honestly we haven't got a release date yet".

They included 2 TB ports and HDMI. So, you can still connect an external screen and have FW and Ethernet with 2 dongles if you wanted. Sounds fine to me.

If you use HDMI, you can't use a higher-rez monitor; you need to use Thunderbolt for those. Now, the good news is, they make a Thunderbolt monitor that also gives you FW and Ethernet ports, as well as more USB ports. The bad news is, it's a glossy display and it's a 27" display, so it's not something you can bring with you when you go somewhere.

If it weren't glossy, it'd at least solve the home system problem.

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I cannot believe how many people are still deluding themselves in thinking that things like Ethernet and FW are still current technology.

Apple's newest display, the 27" Thunderbolt, contains both of these.

Either they are current technology, or Apple's flagship display product is obsolete.

Please stop the excessive fanboy act. It does not actually do Apple, or anyone else, any good for you to go around being smug and rude to people who are, apparently, getting a heck of a lot more use out of their macs than you are out of yours.

If you're happy with the casual end-user subset of functionality, great! Be happy with it! But don't go around being a jerk to people just because they want more out of their machines.

 

[Xiroteus]

Finally got the keynote to work, it is a bit thinner, wonder if most of that came from losing the great optical drive.

On a random note, I wonder why no other notebook maker has done a high res display like this or at least close, why not try to beat apple to the punch line for once? It seems like a lot of companies are treading water all doing the same thing without pushing things forward a bit. However I still disagree with a lot of what Apple does, their design and currently display are highlights.

 

[Mac4Brains]

MacBook Pro and MacBookAir are basically the same computer

I understand the idea of having a small cheap laptop like the MacBookAir. but I am IT and I would like to have a computer that allows me to connect to mostly anything. I would be nice if Apple gave me the option.

The optical disks have been a major point of frustration for me. I don't care about watching movies on my laptop. I want to be able to make stable backups of my data at 25 to 50 Gigs a disk. Am external BlueRay drive would be useless if no other apple computer has the drive to access the backups. Think about it like this, 400Gigs on drive that you want a secured backup of, OK thats 100 DVDs, or 50DVD/DL, or 16 BlueRay disks(25G) or 8 BlueRay Disks(50G). Nothing beets the optical disk for storage. Heck I still have a CD for the Mac OS 7.5 install after all these years.

This on top of no RJ45 plug so I can jump on a network to work on an issue (what I do for a living). So in the end, if my current MacBookPro dies, I will have no choice but to replace it with a WinBlows Laptop or a Hackintosh. Gee thanks Apple!

It would just be a lot better if they made the Pro line more Pro like. Or made a laptop for IT people, with out needing to carry a pile of cables or converters to use it.

 

[mrsir2009]

Good riddance to FireWire. I mean, who uses that anymore?

 

[Xiroteus]

Good riddance to FireWire. I mean, who uses that anymore?

I have to agree with this one, I am sure people still have use for it, personally I have not used anything that uses firewire that plugs into the computer itself.

 

[therealseebs]

Good riddance to FireWire. I mean, who uses that anymore?

Musicians, for one. FireWire is still by far the best option for significant audio. USB has horrible latency problems and doesn't deal well with the possible clashes between low-bandwidth-high-priority things (say, MIDI events) and high-bandwidth-low-priority things (streaming audio, where you can stream a bit ahead and nothing goes wrong). FireWire deals with them brilliantly. There's a reason that you see USB interfaces on toy mixers, and firewire on larger ones; FireWire can handle it, USB really can't.

Also, try as an experiment getting a drive which supports both USB 2 and FireWire. Format it, then do a full Time Machine backup to it using each interface. Then tell me whether it matters.

Basically, people who know the technical details and want good data transfer speeds use firewire. People who don't know any better use USB and spend a lot more time waiting.

 

[mrsir2009]

Musicians, for one. FireWire is still by far the best option for significant audio. USB has horrible latency problems and doesn't deal well with the possible clashes between low-bandwidth-high-priority things (say, MIDI events) and high-bandwidth-low-priority things (streaming audio, where you can stream a bit ahead and nothing goes wrong). FireWire deals with them brilliantly. There's a reason that you see USB interfaces on toy mixers, and firewire on larger ones; FireWire can handle it, USB really can't.

Also, try as an experiment getting a drive which supports both USB 2 and FireWire. Format it, then do a full Time Machine backup to it using each interface. Then tell me whether it matters.

Basically, people who know the technical details and want good data transfer speeds use firewire. People who don't know any better use USB and spend a lot more time waiting.

Yeah, but these are professional niches. The average user won't need FireWire. That, and Apple would want to push thunderbolt as much as possible, which means axing older alternatives to it.

 

[therealseebs]

Yeah, but these are professional niches. The average user won't need FireWire.

Emphasis mine. The "average" user does not buy a MacBook "Pro". The MacBook Pro should, in fact, serve the needs of professional users.

That, and Apple would want to push thunderbolt as much as possible, which means axing older alternatives to it.

Well, that depends. Is the goal to serve pro users, who will happily spend $3-4k on a laptop that meets their needs, or to serve some arbitrary marketing directive while encouraging the pro users to spend that $3-4k on something else?

 

[KittyKatta]

I cannot believe how many people are still deluding themselves in thinking that things like Ethernet and FW are still current technology. In a couple of years, it will be very difficult to from any laptop that supports these long obsolete interfaces at all, from any OEM. People simply need to be prepared and upgrade peripherals in a timely manner, not holding onto the same video cam or sound equipment for decades.

I have no idea there are so many people who are resistant to change, and are afraid of new technology standards. USB3 and TB will be the future, there is literally nothing that anyone here could do about it. Just need to be flexible, and go with the prevalent and functionally superior standards, no reason to be stuck in the same rut of thinking decade after decade.

In your lectures you seem to ignore one important factor.

Working PRO Users have different needs than Enthusiastic Consumers.

As much as I "want" the new MBP and can even find uses in a retina screen, the reality of it is that My semi-Pro needs make me more of a hobbyist photographer so they aren't the same as those who buy these machines for legitimate Pro work so why would I lecture people based on MY needs when clearly there is a market that is higher end than me? What consumer out there that has no need for Ethernet, FireWire, large capacity hard drives, etc but has a true need for retina displays? Your condescending attitude for people still using "outdated" (yet widely available and highly affordable technology) only goes to show how little you understand the needs of many pro users out there. it's not resistance to change, it's about maintaining and improving an existing workflow without introducing unecessary inconveniences.

 

[mrsir2009]

Emphasis mine. The "average" user does not buy a MacBook "Pro". The MacBook Pro should, in fact, serve the needs of professional users.

It should, but everyone knows Apple is seriously shifting away from the pro onto the consumer. I doubt that the majority of people who purchase MBPs are true professionals. The average user DOES buy the MBP! Everyone that I've seen buy one in real life has been more on the consumer side than the pro side.

 

[InuNacho]

It should, but everyone knows Apple is seriously shifting away from the pro onto the consumer. I doubt that the majority of people who purchase MBPs are true professionals. The average user DOES buy the MBP! Everyone that I've seen buy one in real life has been more on the consumer side than the pro side.

Thats because people still care about ODDs and hard drive space even if they'll never upgrade the hard drive.
The 13 and 15 inch MPBs reign supreme in the real world only because the Airs killed off the Macbooks.

 

[HighFlyers]

Thank you for your honesty;

I cannot believe how many people are still deluding themselves in thinking that things like Ethernet and FW are still current technology. In a couple of years, it will be very difficult to from any laptop that supports these long obsolete interfaces at all, from any OEM. People simply need to be prepared and upgrade peripherals in a timely manner, not holding onto the same video cam or sound equipment for decades.

I have no idea there are so many people who are resistant to change, and are afraid of new technology standards. USB3 and TB will be the future, there is literally nothing that anyone here could do about it. Just need to be flexible, and go with the prevalent and functionally superior standards, no reason to be stuck in the same rut of thinking decade after decade.

As long as businesses continue to use Ethernet, there will be ethernet ports on laptops.

 

[cubbie5150]

I won't use the SD card slot nor the HDMI port, therefore they shouldn't be included on the new MBP. Isn't that what is basically meant when peeps argue that it's all good when Apple removes the ethernet & FW ports?

 

[Xiroteus]

I won't use the SD card slot nor the HDMI port, therefore they shouldn't be included on the new MBP. Isn't that what is basically meant when peeps argue that it's all good when Apple removes the ethernet & FW ports?

Seems like it, personally I think have a little of everything so people can have what they want.

I cannot imagine not using an SD Card slot.

 

[Martialis]

why would your employer need to rip out every ethernet port in the walls?

Um, because those ports would no longer work with the computers they are using?

Just install a wireless router. Problem solved. Or just keep your current MBP.

All of those are ridiculous and unacceptable solutions. I'm not even in IT and even I know that relying entirely on wireless networking is ridiculous and unacceptable, and never upgrading the computers is almost as absurd.

If your office has wifi, well they are kind of behind the times.

You mean "doesn't have wifi", I assume.

No one is putting a gun to your head to upgrade anything.

Yes, in a sense they are. What, do you think network and hardware upgrades are somehow optional?

 

[mrbutters]

Emphasis mine. The "average" user does not buy a MacBook "Pro". The MacBook Pro should, in fact, serve the needs of professional users.

Exactly! Let the average user buy the MBA if they want light and airy, stripped down laptops. Keep the PRO line for us photographers/videographers who need optical drives and musicians who need firewire ports and probably want optical drives as well. Stripping the MBP down to look like the MBA line is just stupid and redundant.