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Want Firewire back?

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08380728

Cancelled
Original poster
Aug 20, 2007
422
165
I filed a complaint with Apple's Consumer Relations Division about the lack of firewire on the Macbook. Here is what I recieved...

THE RESPONSE: The response I recieved was in conversation with Apple tech support was, “I am actaully not sure what Apple was thinking, I just found out yesterday myself. I don’t understand because we use it for troubleshooting and diagnostics ourselves...” So even the people at APPLE are not happy…
***The person with Apple’s Consumer Relation’s division said if Apple gets enough viable complaints they may change the design of the products… Posting on this forum may do very little good, that’s why WE must file with Apple’s Consumer Relations Division which you can speak with my calling the main number and requesting to file a complaint with Apple’s Consumer Relation’s division…


To file a complaint about the exclusion of FIREWIRE in Macbooks you can simply click here... very simple.
http://www.apple.com/feedback/macbook.html

Or call 1800-MYAPPLE and ask for the Conumser Relations Division...

For MACBOOK PRO click here...
http://www.apple.com/feedback/macbookpro.html
 
Well.. I don't really care if firewire is back or not, but since they've removed it, I have to disconnect my harddrive to sync my damn iPhone because my other USB is occupied with my mouse. :mad:
 
I just sent in a form. I have a MBP but one of the reasons that i went with the MBP over the MB was because i woudn't have been able to import my movies from my miniDV camera.
 
drayon said:
I filed a complaint with Apple's Consumer Relations Division about the lack of firewire on the Macbook. Here is what I recieved...

THE RESPONSE: The response I recieved was in conversation with Apple tech support was, “I am actaully not sure what Apple was thinking, I just found out yesterday myself. I don’t understand because we use it for troubleshooting and diagnostics ourselves...” So even the people at APPLE are not happy…
***The person with Apple’s Consumer Relation’s division said if Apple gets enough viable complaints they may change the design of the products… Posting on this forum may do very little good, that’s why WE must file with Apple’s Consumer Relations Division which you can speak with my calling the main number and requesting to file a complaint with Apple’s Consumer Relation’s division…


To file a complaint about the exclusion of FIREWIRE in Macbooks you can simply click here... very simple.
http://www.apple.com/feedback/macbook.html

Or call 1800-MYAPPLE and ask for the Conumser Relations Division...

For MACBOOK PRO click here...
http://www.apple.com/feedback/macbookpro.html
Click to expand...


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Comon people. This horse have been dead for days, and you are still beating on it?

Firewire is gone. It's a dieing standard that very few consumers use. I've been working in a computer shop for the past two years, and I've hardly sold any Firewire products at all. I've sold serveral times as many Floppy drives, but since I don't see anyone asking for that feature back, I suspect that this is just an example of people not liking change...

Please note that I belive, that Firewire is still an important feature for professional use... but since it's still in the MBP I don't think there is a problem.

(this was my first and last response to any FW-related thread)
 
Skyldig said:
Comon people. This horse have been dead for days, and you are still beating on it?

Firewire is gone. It's a dieing standard that very few consumers use. I've been working in a computer shop for the past two years, and I've hardly sold any Firewire products at all. I've sold serveral times as many Floppy drives, but since I don't see anyone asking for that feature back, I suspect that this is just an example of people not liking change...

Please note that I belive, that Firewire is still an important feature for professional use... but since it's still in the MBP I don't think there is a problem.

(this was my first and last response to any FW-related thread)
Click to expand...

I completely agree. You also need to remember that this forum is mostly built up of professionals and people that have been using macs for quite a while. The average mac consumer doesn't even know what fire wire does, or doesn't even care.
 
It's not just computer equipment, there are 2 industries that rely heavily on that port, audio and video. And if you sold audio equipment or video equipment I'm sure a lot more of the products you sell would have a firewire connection.
For apple to add one, even a 4-pin would have been a what $1 addition maybe to the macbook, it wouldn't make it any bigger since there's room for it.
Instead of apple paying $1 to add it, now the people who need it have to pay a minimum $700 difference to get it.
 
thedarkhorse said:
It's not just computer equipment, there are 2 industries that rely heavily on that port, audio and video. And if you sold audio equipment or video equipment I'm sure a lot more of the products you sell would have a firewire connection.
For apple to add one, even a 4-pin would have been a what $1 addition maybe to the macbook, it wouldn't make it any bigger since there's room for it.
Instead of apple paying $1 to add it, now the people who need it have to pay a minimum $700 difference to get it.
Click to expand...

Its called marketing. That's how they attempt to make the bucks.
 
Strange...

I am a Windows guy and just switching to a MAC (Will arrive soon) and I can't understand how the hell Firewire became so much important to all MAC users?

In my entire life I never used FW or never really felt any need.

Is it really that big of a deal? Can't you people use USB ports? I think all Camcorders also support USB download feature.

Please explain.
 
drayon said:
I filed a complaint with Apple's Consumer Relations Division about the lack of firewire on the Macbook. Here is what I recieved...
Click to expand...

If you want FW, buy the MBP, thats the point of Apples move. Business...strictly business.
 
there's a difference in the way a usb camcorder transfers footage than the way a tape based firewire camcorder transfers footage to a computer.

With usb it's just a file transfer, drag and drop and wait for the transfer. With firewire the camera or deck is playing the tape through and the high quality stream goes through the firewire and is recorded in real time to the computer. USB can't handle that without getting issues like dropped frames, a big problem in video.

Why don't we just usb camcorders? Because there's a reason people use the minidv tape format, it allows higher quality recording in both standard definition and high definition. It allows 25Mbps video to be recorded, No hard drive or sd card camcorders can record at that high of a bitrate. Higher bitrates mean less artifacts and motion issues(in hd). Tapes are also more robust and are better suited for a lot of situations, and they are better for archiving all the footage you shoot. you don't delete your old shots to make room for new ones, you just throw in a new tape.
 
vilasgn said:
I am a Windows guy and just switching to a MAC (Will arrive soon) and I can't understand how the hell Firewire became so much important to all MAC users?
In my entire life I never used FW or never really felt any need.
Is it really that big of a deal? Can't you people use USB ports? I think all Camcorders also support USB download feature.
Please explain.
Click to expand...
Firewire 400 is faster than USB 2.0. Firewire 800 is screamin' fast. I use it for my external hard drive and it makes a noticeable difference in file transfer speeds. (By the way, you're switching to a "Mac" (Macintosh) not a "MAC" (Media Access Control).
 
vilasgn said:
I am a Windows guy and just switching to a MAC (Will arrive soon) and I can't understand how the hell Firewire became so much important to all MAC users?

In my entire life I never used FW or never really felt any need.

Is it really that big of a deal? Can't you people use USB ports? I think all Camcorders also support USB download feature.

Please explain.
Click to expand...
There's also another nice feature of Firewire that you can't do with USB: daisy chaining. If you ever buy an external enclosure that supports Firewire you'll notice that they all have two (or more) Firewire ports. You can chain up to 32 devices - only one of them needs to be plugged into the computer for them all to work.

Why does this matter? At my old workplace, we worked with video. Aside from performing video capture through Firewire, we had a fair number of hard drives to keep track of and back up to. Why bother with plugging and unplugging devices from the computer - just chain them. You could buy a USB or a Firewire hub to get around the chaining, but why? That aside, having a lot of USB devices on a hub is fine if you're accessing them one at a time, but it's shared bandwidth for USB - you should notice slowdowns if you're heavily accessing all drives on the line at once.

As far as mobile use goes, it's sort of the same thing. You have two USB ports (for 15" MBPs) and one Firewire 400 port (one 800 as well). That's not a whole lot of ports. However, due to the daisy-changing ability of Firewire, having a single Firewire 400 port isn't really a handicap. Even though I have a USB hub to get around the two-port limitation, I always buy enclosures with Firewire capability.

I will admit that in my own experience, Firewire is not noticably faster than USB 2.0. In my work experiences, it's made a fair bit of difference. Then again, you're less likely to notice a time gain of a few seconds when you're transferring files under a gig in size (home users) as opposed to the hour or two you gain when you're moving hundreds of gigabytes around.
 
On Windows: Kernel debugging. You can DMA across Firewire. You can't across USB.

More usefully: Because you can do DMA transfers, external harddrives don't bog down the CPU on Firewire; thus you don't hit 100% CPU during a file transfer, and you save power and don't have the fan-speed noise. Oh, and it's faster, too.

I'll be sticking with my blackbook awhile.
 
ryanwarsaw said:
I will kill myself if they don't bring FW back!!!
Click to expand...
YouTube video of that to be posted soon...... Really, that's such a ridiculous comment! Kill yourself over one particular computer not having one particular option? Get a life!
 
I'm skipping this model and keeping my 2 year old Blackbook for a few reasons.

1. There are always teething problems with newly introduced hardware.
2. Next gen Intel mobile chips are due 1st half of 09. (significant performance jump)
3. No firewire. I hope they bring this back as it provides tremendous flexibility or wait till USB 3 standard is ratified and included.

Otherwise, I'm loving the physical redesign!
 
vilasgn said:
I am a Windows guy and just switching to a MAC (Will arrive soon) and I can't understand how the hell Firewire became so much important to all MAC users?

In my entire life I never used FW or never really felt any need.

Is it really that big of a deal? Can't you people use USB ports? I think all Camcorders also support USB download feature.

Please explain.
Click to expand...
All MiniDV cameras are Firewire for the reasons thedarkhorse described.

I always use Firewire where possible, its the difference between night and day when it comes to file transfers. USB is just a crappy inferior system, it should never have become more popular than Firewire, thank Intel for that.

Firewire is gone. It's a dieing standard that very few consumers use.
Click to expand...
Bullsh*t.

Firewire is becoming far more popular in the PC world. More OEM's are shipping Firewire with their computers, most gaming motherboards ship with Firewire.

Whilst Firewire has disappeared off the Macbook, it is by no means dying, and is still killing USB on a daily basis.
 
It cracks me up that people are taking the "why do you care if they removed firewire? I never used it..." mentality.

For musicians and video artists, this is HUGE. For a long time, these very people have been advocating Macs when it wasn't so cool to do so. Our audio interfaces and cameras are FIREWIRE only. USB cannot support the stream bandwidth or the power.

So, as a musician who uses a MOTU 8-pre interface, I now have to spend 700 extra to use my interface (if I want portability).

I feel even worse for the Final Cut Studio users...there is finally a reasonably priced mac laptop that will actually RUN FCS, but now there is nowhere to plug in your camera.

For all those of you who say: "what do I care, I don't use Firewire" ---- remember your sentiments when Apple decides to remove some port/feature you DO care about. The price of including a firewire port is not worth 700 of MY dollars.

You can be smug and say, "who cares?" --- but this will ultimately hurt Apple as young musicians and video artists go to other platforms due to price (Apple assumes that every musician is a 'pro' who can afford the high-priced MBP along with musical gear and recording interfaces.....ha!).

I'm really pissed about this development. I was planning on buying a MB once they upgraded the graphics, but now it is an unusable machine for me. And the extra 700 JUST for the port isn't worth it either. For 700, I can go buy a thinkpad with FW and record on the road.

Sad day for musicians and film/video producers.
 
Do you know for a fact that these work? I've been reading about this very product on other forums and it appears that this won't work without drivers on the Apple OSX side. I'd love for this to be true, but so far it appears that this is a no-go...but thanks for the thought.

[I've also researched and found that this is for a network cable tester, but the idea of firewire over ethernet would require drivers, no?]
 
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