MacRumors reported on a ZDNet post yesterday that thinks the Macintel iBooks, whenever they arrive, will drop FireWire support altogether. The post's author, Jason D. O'Grady, also says that a little bird told him that PowerBooks are going to drop FW400, but retain FW800 as "a concession" to video professionals.Now I am neither a high-paid industry analyst, nor do I have little birds whispering in my ear, but to a lowly video student and Apple enthusiast such as myself, this sounds like a rumor that went just a tad over the top. Jason cites the lack of FireWire support on the latest iPods to spark off his post, but I think that decision was based on factors very irrelevant to FireWire and its intended uses. FireWire is a fantastic protocol, meant for more intense operations like video editing throughput and OS booting - two significant things that USB is all but useless at. iBooks may be Apple's "low end" portable line (I use quotes because they still rock the house), but there are plenty of video editors cranking out great work with them. Let's also not forget that the rest of the PC industry as of late has finally caught up to FireWire; it seems nearly ubiquitous on most of their hardware now.
I guess at the end of the day, I really hope Jason missed the mark, or that the bird whispering in his ear simply needs to lay off the sauce. FireWire has a number of essential uses, and it's a necessary standard in a lot of industries - just not with certain white music players that transfer a few songs from time to time. Enough with my rant though, what do you guys think: would, or should, Apple truly ditch their beloved FireWire?
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
12-09-2005 @ 8:05AM
Greg said...
I can imagine them doing that on the iBooks, but it could annoy a lot of professional DV people if they dropped it from the powerbook. I doubt they'll drop it cold.
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12-09-2005 @ 8:09AM
Jonathan said...
Surely they will keep firewire - how else could you include iMovie with new machines and not have a way to import the movies themselves ... ?
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12-09-2005 @ 8:28AM
Eric said...
I don't see them dropping firewire. It is one of the things that has set them apart. On top of that they are still improving things that work with Firewire. Take the Migration Assistant, with 10.4 they improved that by allowing migration any time and not only on the initial install. I don't see them improving something like that if they where about to abandon it completely, since that program would become useless without Firewire.
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12-09-2005 @ 8:53AM
Steve O'Hear said...
No firewire = no iMovie = no iDVD. This rumour just makes no sense. At the "low end" Apple has a Unique Selling Point called the digital hub. Its iLife software justifies the percieved higher pricing of iBooks / iMacs. Move on...
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12-09-2005 @ 8:55AM
ct77 said...
I think Jonathan nailed it. iMovie needs Firewire.
I certainly hope Firewire is here to stay on the Macintosh. I can't count how often I've used Firewire booting, Target Disk Mode, and other niceties of Firewire.
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12-09-2005 @ 9:03AM
Matt B said...
Just because the iPods dropped Firewire synch support doesn't mean that Apple will drop it from their computers. How do most people connect their video cameras to their machines? Correct, via Firewire.
The decision to drop Firewire from the iPod is down to cost and size. The number of PC users who actually use the Firewire connection was tiny, and lets be honest the majority of iPod owners are PC owners. So, it wasn't worth the extra cost to engineer a solution for the small number of people who boot their machines off their iPods.
As for the Nano I'm not suprised Firewire support was dropped. Have you seen the size of those things - they're tiny. Any extra space they could save was worth the effort.
I have plenty of Firewire drives, both 400 and 800. I have pocket drives that are bus powered and huge great big multi-disk arrays. If anything I expect Apple to feature Fw800 as standard on all new iMacs in the Intel era (as they already are on the Towers & Powerbooks). I'm less concerned about the iBook as I'm a PowerBook user and always will be.
Lastly, I expect Apple to come up with support for booting via USB drives in the Intel machines, whether upon launch or in a later revision.
Once again to reinterate - the inclusion of the interface on the machines has nothing to do with the iPod.
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12-09-2005 @ 9:03AM
Chris Meisenzahl said...
I'm not sure how I feel about this. I think USB 2 is fine for nearly everything though. I'd be surprised if Firewire was dropped from desktops, especially high-end models. Wouldn't shock me to see it dropped from iBooks though.
Chris
http://amateureconblog.blogspot.com/
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12-09-2005 @ 9:18AM
Brad said...
Correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't Apple own the Firewire trademark? My understanding is that it is a nice little revenue generator for them, so I doubt they would "lead the industry" like they did in pioneering USB peripherals and start the demise of their own source of income.
Also, I use a bus-powered Firewire drive on my PowerBook. The USB 2.0 drives would require use of both USB ports (to draw enough power) -- that's a HUGE difference for me.
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12-09-2005 @ 9:24AM
larchimage said...
I love firewire..
It would be very stupid to drop it down.
One of the first things I look at-when I want to buy a new scanner, an external harddisk....- is the firewireport.
It is just an advantage to have a Firewire port on each machine
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12-09-2005 @ 9:26AM
Jason said...
I really hope this is bad intel (ha). Firewire is an essential tool. iMovie, iSight, booting a target volume, portable hard drives... The list goes on and on. Apple would be biting off its nose to spite its face on this one. While Apple may be positioning itself to become an entertainment company, the iPod isn't its only product. Just because Firewire has withered on the iPod doesn't mean it's gone as a standard.
The ADC says it all. http://developer.apple.com/devicedrivers/firewire/index.html
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12-09-2005 @ 9:32AM
Mark said...
if there's no firewire on the new intel machines, i'm going to abandon Apple all together...
HA! FOOLED YOU! Just kidding. I would NEVER leave my precious... my precioooousss.s..s...s....s!
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12-09-2005 @ 9:39AM
Nathan said...
Sorry Jason, but it's been years since I went to O'Grady's PowerPage for credible info on new Apple products. What would motivate Apple to drop Firewire? Is there some port that would go in its place? Do iBook users need an extra USB port over a Firewire port? That sounds like a nominal gain for some users that would net Apple a lot of ill will. It's true that, if Apple was wanting to introduce a new standard port, the switch to Intel would be a great time to do it. But Firewire is no kind of ADB. Unless Apple has a much bigger secret under wraps, I think this is just another fart in the wind.
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12-09-2005 @ 9:45AM
Duncan said...
I though Apple invented firewire... Maybe I'm mistaken but eliminating them would be such a technological step backward. Seems like the opposite of the Apple train if you ask me.
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12-09-2005 @ 9:48AM
Marc said...
I reckon this is a proverbial stirring of the poo by someone who is just plain unhappy about the move to Intel. See where the ZDNet blogger calls it a "deal with the devil"? Come on!
The reality is that this would be a slap in the face to long time Apple customers. Myself, I own an older iPod. Third gen, if I remember right, and it's a FireWire 400 device. Are these people really trying to tell me that Apple would stop supporting something in their laptops while they're still covering it under AppleCare? Apple is smarter than that. If they're going to cut off the ability to use a product, they're going to do it after they're no longer providing ANY support for it if they're going to do it at all.
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12-09-2005 @ 10:00AM
Justin said...
Apparently I'm not the only one wondering how O'Grady shoehorned his way into ZDNet... though 90% of their content bites, it's still a high-visibility place to be...
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12-09-2005 @ 10:09AM
Kacy said...
It is not just video folks who would miss firewire. A good deal of the audio interfaces available are firewire. Companies like Maudio, Digidesign, MOTU all make multiple input and output firewire devices that are used in recording studios everywhere. USB 2.0 has more CPU overhead which makes it less than ideal for audio interfaces.
There is a lot at stake here. I'd be floored if Apple completely dropped Firewire support. Even a shift to FW800 is probably not a good idea. The interface market is still FW400 centered.
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12-09-2005 @ 10:10AM
subGenius said...
Jason O'Grady should be tested for JDS a.k.a "John Dvorak Syndrom" - a crippling, degenerative illness that strikes middle aged tech pundits down in the prime of their career. Writers who could once be called journalists are reduced to rambling incoherent curmudgeons.
If he wrote an article for ZDnet saying "I think the new PowerBooks will have FireWire", no one would pay attention(no click through, no ad revenue).
But If he makes some crazy assertion that has no basis in reality, now we have a news item(more click throughs, more ad revenue).
Ad Revenue is the root cause of JDS.
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12-09-2005 @ 10:35AM
Mike Schleifstein said...
iSight, iSight iSight
yes lets make its so we have to one redesign a perfectly good video offering and piss off a bunch of current customers and then we have to edit the code of iChat so it can support usb cameras.... hmmm let's just say the analyst is wrong....
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12-09-2005 @ 10:36AM
Matt B said...
All this is sheer speculation from one guys website. Forget it, he's just guessing - and guessing wrong.
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12-09-2005 @ 10:45AM
Peter Koritschan said...
they will not drop firewire, why would they? it's a great protocol, and seriously, what would we all do with our DV cameras?
as David mentioned: apple dropping FW from the iPods has nothing to do with this.
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