Jobs responds to outrage over MacBook's missing FireWire - Page 35

I just went through their site, which offers more than the stores. They don't list any Firewire or IEEE 1394 in their specifications, but they don't list much of anything, so I cross referenced a several of the higher-end drives with Newegg to see if any have FW. None did.

Even looking on Amazon, the number of newer consumer-grade camcorders with Firewire are few and far between. I know it sucks to have the market change before we're ready, but I think Apple called this one correctly. I see only 2 out of the top 25 that have IEEE 1394 and they also have USB2.0.

You think that Apple 'called this one correctly'?.
Aww, come on people. This is getting pretty ridiculous!
OK, FW400 is nigh dead, so... FFS replace it with FW800 on the MacBook! Simple!

And yes, I've visited my local PCWORLD and have checked out as many PCs as I could possibly have and... guess what... most of them, and I mean MOST OF THEM have FireWire ports included. From the cheapo models up! It's not a big deal. Don't have me go round listing model numbers because what I have seen is plain and simple. FireWire is still very much a popular and defacto standard for most PCs. An observation.

There are many on here who will support Apple to the death, perhaps blindly, Excuses excuses... but anyone with an ounce of common sense could see that this was a poor and badly timed decision - to remove FireWire from the MacBook was not a good idea at this particular economic point in time. I'm not talking FW400, I'm talking any flavour of FireWire.

Up-selling in its rawest form. Plain and simple.

Why not give us FW800 on the MacBook?

Maybe because that would eat into Pro sales. There is your answer.

Then again, some people will just not allow this type of heresy to be spake.

Will they?

Are you kidding? We've heard nothing but complaints about the removal of FW400 from the MB and MBPs, despite the long list of evidence that it was coming.

As for FW400 being removed to up-sell to a MBP, that is the the worst argument I've heard on these forums. FW is just not as ubiquitous as the consumers that use it think it is so the argument falls flat. With 50% of Mac purchases being from switchers and most people buying the MacBook it doesn't make sense that FW is Apple's driving force to upsell to the MBP when they have...

...made it a unibody aluminum enclosure that matches the MBP in scale and look when they could have gone for a cheaper plastic option.

...added a much faster Nvidia integrated GPU when they could have gone with the cheaper, more weathered Intel solution.

...not included the ability to run a 30"+ monitor.

...not added features like LED backlit display and backlit keyboard

Every single one of those is more of a draw to the average consumer than the inclusion of FW, so I can't see how anyone can honestly think that Apple did what they did with the sole intent to up-sell. As for "defacto [sic] standard" it is an IEEE standard, but so are many other obsolesced or obsolescing IEEE standards.

As for PC World, are you sure they weren't clearance items, because I'm not seeing much of anything with IEEE 1394, FireWrie or i.link on their site.

http://www.pcworld.co.uk

It looks like I'll have to repeat what I said a few pages back. Nothing has made Firewire obsolete as a technology.

None of us know for sure why Apple left it off the MacBook as they are keeping mum on the whole subject. That's not exactly a nice way of going about your business. Third parties are investing time and money in products using an Apple developed technology precisely because Apple has pushed it and they thought they could count on a park of FW ports. Apple offers a platform that third parties build on.

Many of those products are also tied to the Mac OS. I know for a fact that one developer wrote to the FW list saying he was surprised that Apple left FW off the MacBook and that the move had put some of his products in 'jeopardy'. It seems clear that Apple gave no early warning to developers about this move.

Of course that might be because Firewire is alive and well at Apple, just not on the new unibody MacBook (although I very much doubt it).

IMO the attitude at Apple is that 'we pull the shots and users/developers have to like or lump it'. One can safely say that the decision to remove FW from the MacBook has backfired from a PR perspective. And this issue is simmering all over the net, it's not just the English speaking sites. It has made a lot of people angry. Increasing prices has also rasied eyebrows.

The MacBook unibody was unveiled a little over a month ago. Let's see how things progress it's early days yet. I have a hunch that sales are not meeting expectations. They lost a sale to me because of this (the MacBook I planned on buying is now a Lumix G1 camera) so let's just see if I'm the only one reacting this way or if droves of users are voting with their wallets.

I suppose that's your way of admitting that Apple got it's market research wrong when they designed that machine. Just as they did with the Cube, the flower power and dalmation iMacs etc.

I wonder if the current MacBook unibody will end up being another one to add to that list?

If you were replying to the second sentence in that quote, your reply was disingenuous. He made it clear that he wasn't stating any kind of absolute fact by including the word might. It was a general off the cuff statement. A personal opinion.

As much as i like FW, I agree.

From everything I've heard, the new MacBook is selling like hotcakes. There was plenty of pent up demand from people who were waiting far into the education cycle and from PC switchers.

I have no doubt that Apple will announce at MWSF that the new machines are a hit. Where they have lost is in sales to their core users, and a serious distraction from the uniqueness of the MacBook's architecture (focusing on what's lost instead of what's new.)

They've also virtually killed any real street cred they had for Mac-only tech. After the dismal failure of the ADC connector a few years back and now possibly Firewire, Apple is demonstrating that they are wizards at software, but don't have the stomach to really push hardware standards of their own.

Look at how defiantly Sony has promoted Memory Stick. Apple ditched their own interface on the iPod and has now purposely sidelined it in favour of an outside technology that won't even be out in the market for a year.

Well said. Likewise, they lost a sale to me for the same reason. If I have to upgrade anything, it's my peripherals (since all of them, three video cameras, a FW hub, and several FW audio interfaces). So, instead of a new MacBook, I bought a used MacBook from eBay (with FW, mind you), and perhaps a new JVC HD camera WITH FIREWIRE.

What does "my way of admitting" mean?

According to Jobs, they don't do market research, or at least not too much.

It doesn't matter where the error was, what matters is that they tried a small machine, but it didn't sell well, so they discontinued it.

The flower power and dalmation color schemes were like Dell offering their models in many colors. Apple had run out if ideas for the old iMacs, and until their new models came out, which were possibly delayed, they offered these rather odd "updates".

The Cube was a great idea, but Apple made it a high end machine with the G4, which was expensive back then. Most people agree that if Apple had come out with a G3 version for less, it would have sold better. Apple's marketing was also piss poor. They failed to get across the point that the machine was very upgradable despite its size. People though it wasn't. That didn't help.

Oh please! Speak for yourself. He's a big boy. We all use the word "might" when we really want to simply say "all" but want an out in case we're wrong. Don't pretend you don't do it also.

There's a big difference. Sony also produces memory. Not very big player, but a player. Sony also has hundreds of devices that can use memory sticks, Apple has few. Sony makes a good deal of money selling memory sticks, and licenses to other makers. As Sony has large portions of some markets, they can force consumers to buy their memory sticks. Apple has no comparable marketshare in computers.

Apple was not able to force others to pay them much for FW, or to use it.

You can't compare that.

is there a substitute for target disk mode, so when i get a new macbook how do i do the data transfer?? use ethernet??? it was so simple with FW

there are plenty of FW equipped items on pcworld.co.uk
just type the word "firewire" into the search function on the top right
and sort by price descending

there are FW equipped laptops as low as £399 like this one

you'll have to scroll down and click on "full product information..." to see the connection details
they only list the main features in the blurb

Mel this doesn't seem to be a response worthy of a 'global moderator' \
most people choose their words careful and actually mean them
if "might" means "all" to you then you obviously read the forums in a different way to most
(and please don't resort to a 'you're new here' response)

on this thread we're all just trying to get to the bottom of why apple removed firewire
for which no one has been able to give (or get) a definitive answer - but many have good ideas

some don't give a hoot about firewire (ok that's fine for them)
some simply want to justify their recent alu MB purchase
some just don't like hearing that apple may have made a poor decision
some think that there's no current alternative to FW (and don't want to see it go)
& other's are more impacted and therefore more passionate about it

from my perspective it's all good - it's been a very informative and on the whole
an intelligent thread

PS i choose my italics carefully too

You say it yourself, a long list of complaints about the removal of FW (not just 400 but altogether) from the MacBook. No one has mentioned the removal of 400 from the Pro simply because it was replaced with 800 on this model. Do you not think that this in itself is symptomatic of a possible error on Apple's behalf? One only needs to look at the popularity of this thread and others like it on other boards to see what an emotive subject it has turned out to be.

Have you recently been to PCWorld? One only has to turn the machine(s) around or look a little closer to see the FireWire / iLink socket even though little or no mention of it is given on the sales blurb (either in-store or on-line).

Except I said this several pages ago and many of the pro-MB folks agree.

The point isn't that losing FW is some huge plus but that new MB is so much better than the old one regardless. Enough so that the MBP is going to see reduced sales anyway even with the new MB lacking FW.

Some audio pros got hurt but a whole lot of other folks got a MB that can easily replace the MBPs they own. With the exception of firewire (and the expresscard slot) the current MB is better then my 2006 MBP with a X1600 GPU.

Yes, lets wait and see. But I doubt that the MB isn't meeting expectations for two reasons:

1) XMas isn't here yet. It's hard to "not meet expecations" for a quarter that essentially hasn't happened yet. We haven't even had Black Friday yet.
2) While XMas is the important sales quarter, back to school is the other important quarter for the new MB and that hasn't happened yet either.

So to find out the new MB really is doing will require you to wait until the results are known for Q1 and Q4 2009.

1) So what if cheap PCs have FW400. Cheap PCs has floppy drives, serial, parallel, VGA ports, etc. long after they were relevant. If you look for FW peripheals at PC World you see how relevant it is. Every HDD will also have USB, and I couldn't find any camcorders that had FW.

2) FW400 wasn't replaced with FW800 in the MBP. It was removed, just like on the MB. The sole FW800 port carried over from last case design.

It's nice for folks to claim they are the core users to the exception of all other "core" users that have supported Macs for a long time. I guess any pro not using firewire simply isn't a pro.


Because some battles are worth fighting and others are not. I doubt Apple is lacking hardware street cred these days anyway. Tilting at windmills does not improve one's reputation.


Yes, but it didn't turn out all that great for Fuji though.

Sony is a different sort of company than Apple. The iPod using USB was a move that allowed Apple to cut costs while being able to support the dominant OS on the market. Which was not and is not OSX.

Actually, you don't choose your words that carefully, while you may think you do.

You are also not very careful in reading other's words, though you think you do there as well.

And please don't give me that moderator silliness please. When they gave me this, I mentioned that very thing. As long as I'm not monitoring a thread, but participating, I can speak with my own voice, which means that if you say things that that are nonsense, as you have, I can point that out the way I choose, as I have always done.

I've always felt that those who distort what is said should be told so in their face, so they won't be so smug about it.

That's the case here.

When you're more careful in your replies, I won't find it necessary to point out your errors.

It means what it means.


Can I please have a link to something that can support that claim?


I think it would matter to shareholders if Apple is putting machines onto the market with little or no market research to justify the R&D + marketing + support etc.


I think Apple spent something like eighteen months perfecting injection moulded plastic technology before releasing those iMacs. They definitely had the idea way before the models were released. And the suggestion that Apple could even theoretically run out of ideas must cause Jobsy many a sleepless night. Of course if ideas really were to dry up he could always pull that ace out from his sleeve and put firewire back on the MacBook. The brightest idea of all!

It may be true that that sometimes occurs but who are we to decide for other people if that is really happening at any given time?

"We do no market research. We don't hire consultants. The only consultants I've ever hired in my 10 years is one firm to analyze Gateway's retail strategy so I would not make some of the same mistakes they made [when launching Apple's retail stores]. But we never hire consultants, per se. We just want to make great products.

"When we created the iTunes Music Store, we did that because we thought it would be great to be able to buy music electronically, not because we had plans to redefine the music industry. I mean, it just seemed like writing on the wall, that eventually all music would be distributed electronically. That seemed obvious because why have the cost? The music industry has huge returns. Why have all this [overhead] when you can just send electrons around easily?"

http://money.cnn.com/galleries/2008/...fortune/3.html


It is obvious that Apple does some kind of market research but not the focus group kind you get from consultants.

That they have duds isn't surprising. It's that they have so few duds since Jobs returned with the corresponding home runs that's interesting and above average. That's why Jobs is so important to Apple.

But hey, you can choose to disbelieve what Jobs says about Apple strategy if you like.

In other wordsnothing.


Sure, there are plenty. Here's one:

http://money.cnn.com/galleries/2008/...fortune/3.html


The justification is the sales numbers, and profits. Market research means nothing if it results in a wash, as much of it does.


What does the imprinting, on, or in, the plastic have to do with the basic injection molding, which was a very well known technology when Apple started using it?

As I've provided you with the link you asked for, you can show us a link telling of the 18 month research project Apple had in perfecting the injection molding. Not a link showing how they decided on, and perfected the design, but one showing how they perfected the process which was inadequate to manufacture Apple's product. I wasn't aware that plastic injection molding wasn't "perfected" until Apple got into the game.

That was the point to my reply.

Arggh! You got back to the thread before I did, even with the same link!

Yes. Thanks both. I think you'll find it's the only link to that information. I believe it's also true to say that Jobs is bragging when he makes his claims. 'Distorting' is the word that comes to mind.



That second line makes things a lot clearer. Let's turn the RDF off for a second. I think he's referring to external market research. We don't do it 'per se'. Why did he say that if they've only hired one consultant in ten years? What is more interesting is that there is obviously a lot of market research that goes into Apple Retail Store locations. How would he explain that one?

I think we should take his comments for what they are: Complete nonsense.

It is similar to Clinton saying "I did not have sex with that woman".

Apple does lot's of market research. Heaps and heaps. You will find evidence of it in almost every Jobs presentation, Ives interview etc.

I can't at the moment. I said 'I think' as I'm speaking from memory but I can tell you where I think I heard those comments. From Jobs himself at the keynote where he revealed those models.

LINK

After a quick search I only came up with that snippet. I'll try to track down the keynote. I'm talking about the technique of injection moulding as carried out by Apple. Here's a later reference to injection moulding (for Cube), again from SJ.

There's a bit of distortion of your own going on here.

I guess you can say whatever you want to. There's no point in supporting our information with facts, because you won't want to believe them anyway.

I read that three times to make sure I didn't miss anything.

It said NOTHING about the manufacture of the cases other than the patterns weren't stamped on, but in the plastic.

That's no development. That's multiple injection technique. It's been used in plastic for decades.

So you won't believe the words of Jobs himself about market research, and come up with a highly tortured explanation that totally distorts his words, but you use a statement by him that says nothing about that you've said, as partial proof of your statement?

See anything wrong there?

Some of the latest scoop on USB 3 and Firewire.

Too bad, but it does look as though USB 3 will likely be pushed back to 2010, as some have (hopefully it seemed) guessed.

As I've now said numerous times, I think Apple jumped the gun here, but they are ahead of the trend that will follow more severely, and that has actually started.

But, I do agree with Joel's statements about FW. Or rather, his statements agree with mine.

http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post...s-in-2010.html

Here's another one.

Apparently, we're all right to some extent. It's should (hopefully) to be in computers in late 2009, but consumer devices will arrive in 2010.

http://news.zdnet.co.uk/hardware/0,1...9554846,00.htm

some more food for thought
Microsoft's view on FW

and this is a good summary of the situation
by Oxford semiconductor
note the CPU load of USB vs FW
and that FW800 has the bandwidth to "meet current maximum hard drive performance"
(ie USB3 or ESata won't get you any further - not to say that they're not faster per se)

There are a small number of posters who continue to act like little school girls by primarily posting about each other instead of the subject. Can it stop as it's messing up this thread big time?

I gave you a reference to where I think Jobs himself mentioned the eighteen months developing the techniques. The only bit I haven't located so far is an actual copy of the keynote address where he introduced those macs (MacWorld Tokyo 2001). When I locate a copy (and I said I was looking for one) I'll extract the necessary quotes. In the meantime I provided some links to what Jobs himself had to say at that same conference. From the links provided it seems that the technique used was new. NOT injection moulding as a technology but the way Apple used it. This was further defined in the other link that states that Apple had to design new injection moulding tools to achieve the results it wanted.

I made it very clear that I am speaking from memory. That's how I remember it from 2001.

Can you provide any links to the type of injection moulding that Apple used prior to it being used by Apple? The reason I ask is, if you can provide such a link, why on earth did SJ even bother to give the issue any keynote space at all? Could it be that the technique was new?

On the other issue I find my comments on Market Research to be far from tortured. I posed a question. Why did he throw 'per se' into the picture if Apple doesn't use MR?

My explanation is very clear.

And yes, I agree. The subject of injection moulding is not on topic so when I find the relevant quotes that bit can be put to rest.

It's not distorting. Jobs is clearly stating that market trends is less important than making things that they are proud of. That is their strategy...not to chase the market but to define it for themselves.


What RDF? I clearly stated that Apple does market research and if you bothered to even google it you'd find market research work mentioned on Apple's own site.

"In Product Marketing there are opportunities to work across just about every discipline of the company, from market research to product design, engineering to legal and finance, industrial design to sales, manufacturing to customers, you name it."

http://www.apple.com/jobs/us/pro/marketing/scenes.html


Only because you disagree that the removal of FW was something they didn't do out of spite.

Apple's strategy may not be one you agree with but it does work for Apple and it has more successes than failures under Jobs.


Strawman. At least for me. The point isn't that market research doesn't happen at Apple but that it's not the primary driver for Apple. You may think that "we just want to make great products" is spin but it isn't. It's the corporate culture at Apple just like market dominance is the corporate culture at Microsoft. Even the scoffed at "You can make money without doing evil" at Google is a real part of their corporate culture (#6 as it happens...#1 is Focus on the user and all else follows). These companies may misstep or have to make compromises but they all do strive toward their corporate goals that is in harmony with their corporate cultures (market dominance as a corporate goal with Apple's culture would be a failure and was in the 90s).

That is what great companies great and average companies average. A commitment (and good execution) at the top to a focused corporate goal and culture vs market research/spreadsheet driven.

Apple has decided that FW isn't needed for the MB moving forward for the next couple years. Expansion (and to a lesser extent size) is the differentiation between their consumer and pro lines now that graphics and computing power is not. Hence no expresscard or FW on the MBs.

It's simply wrong, and there have been many tests that show that, including the one I posted a few days ago from BareFeats. SATA just kills FW800.

Gee, I wonder why Oxford, the biggest producer of FW conversion chips would try to have us think this? Could it be because they're seeing their business shrivel up?

It's interesting that it seems virtually no one supports FW800 in their computers except Apple. It's almost all FW400. That was also in a posting I made.