Comments on: FireWire Isn’t Alone: A Brief History of Features Apple Has Killed

By: A Bevy of New Macs: More For Less, But No Major Surprises | Technologizer

Tue, 20 Oct 2009 17:12:21 +0000

[...] a built-in button, and a Mini DisplayPort connector. It loses the FireWire connector–oh no, not again!–but, strangely, doesn’t seem to gain an SD slot. It’s also got Apple’s [...]

By: YYY

YYY — Sun, 14 Jun 2009 00:02:55 +0000

I really can’t relate to those voices that love to speak on Apple’s behalf and patronise users of “entry-level” MacBooks with a snooty “Oh, they don’t need that” attitude.

By: pj wilkinson

pj wilkinson — Fri, 30 Jan 2009 15:12:47 +0000

As a Professional musician/producer, the lack of the firewire port is a disaster . we all know that firewire is better for streaming than USB. My first choice of sound card like many others is the MOTU and currently they only offer on model that is USB the 828MKII.
The first Macbook pros have so many faults that when mine is finally died, and it’s heading that way, I will not only have to buy a new laptop but also a new soundcard. I think many of us using mac with motu are in that sticky position right now. if I didn’t hate microsoft products so much I would go to PC. Maybe a Linux developer will offer a solution that is customer friendly and not designed to squeeze every last cent out of its clients..
Just for the record here is a list of the problems I have with my MacBookPro and absolutley no help from Apple..

1. Battery, a silent recall was issued unbeknowing to most customers!
2. audio output is now constantly on digital out, which means I cannot use the built in speakers.
3. CD/DVD drive does not burn DVDs and has trouble reading CDs
4. I pay for all my software and the new logic 8 has so many bugs I cannot list them all on this post..

By: Technologizer’s Fifteen Most Popular Stories of 2008 | Technologizer

Fri, 26 Dec 2008 14:45:15 +0000

[...] FireWire Isn’t Alone: A Brief History of Features Apple Has Killed (October): When the new MacBook’s lack of FireWire prompted controversy, I thought back to [...]

By: tow.com » blog » Backup Strategy

tow.com » blog » Backup Strategy — Mon, 08 Dec 2008 20:06:03 +0000

[...] The Drobo holds completed photography projects and other infrequently accessed files. I don’t have it on all of the time because (1) it’s a little noisy and (2) it’s slow because of the USB interface. There is a faster Drobo today that offers two FireWire 800 ports. Sadly, I don’t know how much longer FireWire will be with us, seeing that Apple may be phasing out the high-speed peripheral port. [...]

By: SunyGuy53

SunyGuy53 — Fri, 14 Nov 2008 06:12:22 +0000

You FW people should be getting mad at the industry for choosing USB 2.0 over FW.
Apple is an industry leader, but if the industry doesn’t follow, they have to cut their
loses at some point, and maintain “standard” ports.

With protocols like eSATA and SAS becoming standards for hard drives, FW will be
even less needed or relevant going forward. Apple doesn’t gain by becoming an
industry “holdout” to keep some disgruntled users pleased.

Sunny Guy

P.S. I loved FW 400 as well as the next guy. I still use FW 800 for my external disk.

By: Brent

Brent — Tue, 04 Nov 2008 18:38:58 +0000

I can see an optical drive being dropped and replaced by some other kind of portable media. The way that SD media and the like are moving in size and cost, it just may be that optical wont be cost effective. It will always be great for archiving as of now, yet it has it’s limited applications.

By: mac | Apple History | macfidelity

mac | Apple History | macfidelity — Thu, 30 Oct 2008 20:05:10 +0000

[...] Technologizer – FireWire isn’t alone – A brief history of features Apple has killed [...]

By: Gui

Gui — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 00:46:14 +0000

When the original iMac was released, we wanted to buy one, but we resisted due to the lack of floppies, which were basically the only way to get data out of the computer at the time, since dial-up was still expensive at the time and we had no other computers at home to network it with. But the dude from the shop gave us a USB/Parallel Zip Drive for almost free.

Apple eliminating SCSI wasn’t really a big deal to me, since by then, USB was already an option on Macs and many USB-compliant equipment worked reasonably well on Macs.

For ADB, you could get USB-to-ADB adapters that worked fairly well, and Apple still sells USB modems.

But in FireWire’s case, it’s the first time a clearly superior technology gets dumped from a Mac. USB might be good enough, but as anyone who is an audio/video enthusiast knows, even most amateur gear is FireWire these days, and many more PCs do have it these days.

And Steve might say all new cameras are USB, but for some reason beyond me, iMovie only accepts data from my Sony DV camera using FireWire.

That being said, I might be looking for a refurb “obsolete” MBP or black MB.

By: Jimbo

Jimbo — Mon, 27 Oct 2008 21:22:05 +0000

Apple dropped the ball on this one. For the price Apple charges you for a Macbook, it should definitely have a freakin’ Firewire port. It’s hardly an “entry-level” computer, for what they charge.
You don’t have to be a “Pro” to want a firewire port. I use mine for external hard drives; it’s way better than usb 2.
I think Apple doesn’t really give a shit about computers anymore. And especially, they don’t really care about marketing their products to the creative types and education sector ( the people who saved Apples’ ass in the tough times).
No, these days the priority is the iPhone and iPods.