Comments on: Apple’s MacBook Event: Lots of Questions, Some Answers

By: Martha

Martha — Wed, 15 Oct 2008 16:29:15 +0000

Great! Just when I was all set to buy a 17″ MB Pro. Now I’ll have to rethink it.

By: terkwong

terkwong — Wed, 15 Oct 2008 15:36:07 +0000

very much agreed there. firewire is not for the pro. its a consumer tech that’s been around for a long time. I use it for external HDDs and camcorders and file data transfer between macs (target disc mode). target disc mode is very useful if you have a dying HDD that you need to savage without dismantling the computer and loading the OS.

By: pond

pond — Wed, 15 Oct 2008 15:34:27 +0000

re: Firewire, I was startled to watch podcasts from CES last January saying that almost ALL of the new camcorders had forsaken IEEE1394 for USB ports.

Apple seems to be bowing to the inevitable here. Moreover, USB 3 is coming, so I’d look for that to show up in a refresh of the MacBooks next spring or next year about this time.

One other problem in dropping Firewire is that (so far) there doesn’t seem to be a provision to launch ‘Target Mode’ under USB, and the MacBooks don’t have ExpressCard for even adding Firewire.

re: the GPUs in the MacBook Pro line, it seems like this will be a much bigger deal when ‘Snow Leopard’ comes out, if it includes the promised ability to use some GPU cycles for CPU stuff.

By: robert

robert — Wed, 15 Oct 2008 05:04:29 +0000

this shift in the macbook with the removal of firewire is a big deal for people who work in creating video or audio… these new macbooks are designed for people who consume multimedia content rather than produce it…. and the whole Pro logic is bullsh*t if I do say so myself as it’s been around on nearly every single mac (including very non-Pro macs) since it was introduced.

By: thehumanyawn

thehumanyawn — Wed, 15 Oct 2008 01:29:11 +0000

Apple’s website shows that the new MBP only comes with one FW800 port, dumping FW400 completely.

By: Jake

Jake — Wed, 15 Oct 2008 00:48:31 +0000

Yeah, I’d miss it too. I use it for my Time Machine disk, and it’s been very helpful for running in target mode. The former can be replaced, but the latter is one of those unique features that made the Mac special, and it’s a shame to lose it. Unless there’s another way to do it I don’t know about.

By: anders

anders — Wed, 15 Oct 2008 00:24:15 +0000

a lot of folks including me use the firewire port. It’s a shame as the Macbook was a great little portable laptop to run with things such as the Digidesign 002 or Apogeee Duet. Now you’ve got to shell out near 2gs for that! Yikes…