yes sherlock - but a decline in only one area of the overall market why don't you pick just one brand and use that to extrapolate a worldwide trend... oh wait you did !
Because Macs represent a significant portion of FW's computer market penetration since every mac had gone out with a FW port. No longer. So the millions of MacBooks that will sell in FY09 will not add to the projected growth of 0.2% total units shipped but instead represent an unaccounted decline in that projection.
Quote:
so you used only part of the research (the camcorder part) research which had overall conclusions stating that FW was not in decline... but might end up in decline over 2 years in the future which you used to go and predict the absolute death of firewire an interface which the same manufacturer you have been using to predict it's death - has just put on it's current flagship offering and no, one single model of one manufacturer's product line - which still uses that interface in it's latest products will not be enough to topple an interface technology which reaches far beyond personal computers (much less notebooks)
The research said that growth was going to be miniscule with decline beginning in 6 months (mid 2009) not 2 years. Note that growth of units shipped was expected to continue until 2011 (if you count 0.2% growth) but in terms of market share it was expected to decline this coming year.
You can argue that it was no surprise that Apple would drop FW on the MB since it abandoned FW on it's iPods but I don't think that those guys were quite this prescient to have predicted dropping FW on the MB in 2008.
Quote:
if you're not too scared of being swamped by marketing people
have a look at the 1394 website and see what other uses it has...
gee those guys are idiots - they're just about to release a camera with firewire on it - dang at least it's only at pre-order stage they should have consulted vinea first.... pfff sony's obviously going to hit the dust pretty soon
Yes, as others have pointed out...a pro grade camera...at $3,199.99. I think those users can afford a MBP which will continue to have FW for this rev.
As far as the impact of the Macbook to FW's future...it's rather telling that right under that picture of Sony's new camera are two notes about Mac. How odd they don't talk about how to turn your PC into a DVR under Vista/XP instead given that the Mac still has far less market share than Windows.
- apple only represents a small portion of the consumer market (i think the words were "microsoft dominates the market")
Actually Mac represents a sizable portion of the consumer market...21% in the US, 10% world wide.
However, Windows does dominate the market.
Quote:
- that the release of one single model of apple notebook computer (despite the "lack of domination" point) is indicative for the entire market
Given that Mac has 21% of the US consumer market share and Macs all shipped with FW until recently you can easily draw the conclusion that macs represents a very large part of the 33% total computer market penetration for FW and an even higher percentage of the FW market penetration in the consumer computer market.
Quote:
- any sound arguments indicating that FW might have a technological edge over current or near future tech is labelled 'marketing'
No, any marketing materials are labeled marketing.
Quote:
- statistically firewire is still in growth mode (from the same report used to highlight the decline of firewire as a percentage of all camcorders)
0.2% growth without taking into account the loss of the MB.
Quote:
- USB3 is nowhere to be seen for the forseeable future
2009 is unforseeable future?
Quote:
- camcorder and other peripheral manufacturers do not base their product sales or choice of technology on the smallest of markets
The consumer market is far larger than the pro market. Of course, the pro market is very profitable in comparison.
Quote:
- apple has not managed to increase speed or general CPU performance on it's latest MB
Incorrect with respect to power usage and thermal characteristics to get that CPU performance.
Quote:
- heat is a major issue in notebooks, and intel obviously see this as an important constraint to be overcome to continue increasing CPU load
Which is why the new chips are better than the old ones.
Quote:
so where does all this leave us ?
- firewire is nowhere near dead (even people who don't like it better hope it isn't - there isn't a proven replacement either now or in the foreseeable future)
Except for the fact that it is dying because it has largely been replaced.
Quote:
- firewire is still being deliberately chosen by (big) manufacturers, some of whom are deliberately aiming their products at the lower end of the market
Except that this is an untrue statement when you can see that 9 out of 10 of the most popular camcorders on Amazon are FWless. That consumer camcorders are now largely going both tapeless and FWless.
Quote:
- increasing CPU load is a problem, not just based on silicon costs, but heat, space and battery power constraints
Except it isn't and it has been shown that good USB implementations represent relatively low CPU usage...even in comparison to FW.
Quote:
- one cannot draw marketwide conclusions based on the release of one model of notebook computer from one small (albeit our favourite) manufacturer
Except when that one model of notebook computer represents a significant portion of FW computer sales.
Quote:
it leaves us with the idea apple is still a small player in the pc market (albiet a growing player - which could be good), who has issued one notebook in their line without firewire, most probably for the reasons SJ himself said - that the consumer market is going low end (using video as an unfortunate example - having just totally upgraded the video features of the MB to well beyond the needs of the market he was talking about)
Except that the video graphics processing that was upgraded has ZERO to do with the video tape capability removed. And it is by no means beyond the needs of the market but now adequate where it was inadequate before.
Quote:
it's your call as to whether this was a good move
It was an awesome move. The new GPU is great...well...great in comparison to the Intel GMAs anyway.
Quote:
either way I find no decent arguments to state that FW is either dead or dying, or being adequately replaced by another tech in the realm it has always been - which includes (but is not limited to) middle to upper class computers and peripherals...strangely the same demographic which has the funds to purchase a $1300 entry level notebook
Only because you refuse to look beyond the pain in your own small niche of audio production to look at the much greater benefit to the consumer user as a whole. Their ability to play WoW on the MB trumps your ability to do audio or video work on the MB to Apple.
ok so let's summarizzzzzze...people here are arguing that:
- firewire is dead
- camcorders are moving towards USB
- firewire is a technology which is in decline
- firewire can easily be replaced by USB2 since CPU power has increased dramatically
- the majority of camcorders are USB (!?)
- the majority of audio peripherals are USB (!?)
- the fact that Apple left it off one notebook model is a sure sign for the whole market (!?)
- USB 3 will replace firewire
- Esata replaces firewire
- GigE will replace firewire
- USB3 replaces firewire
- USB2 replaces firewire (!!?)
- firewire will replace firewire (just seeing if you're awake)
- they don't (personally) need firewire (my favourite)
- battery power is a constraint
but at the same time people are arguing that
- apple only represents a small portion of the consumer market (i think the words were "microsoft dominates the market")
- the consumer market does not buy expensive equipment (eg camcorders over $750 are on the high side apparently)
- that the release of one single model of apple notebook computer (despite the "lack of domination" point) is indicative for the entire market
- that with future technologies (USB3) while attempting to transfer more date at 10x the current rate, we'll be fine in terms of CPU and heat release rates.
- any sound arguments indicating that FW might have a technological edge over current or near future tech is labelled 'marketing'
- any arguments that FW architecture might not be able to be replaced are met with guarantees of future CPU power over non-proven connection methods
yet what we also see/know is that:
- firewire is still the choice of professionals (audio and visual)
- firewire is still used on the latest release of the current Apple flagship notebooks
(anyone's call as to whether the 15" alu is the flagship - either way there's not doubt that the 17" alu will carry FW)
- firewire is still used on the latest middle to upper releases of all the top camcorder companies
(where USB is strangely absent and interestingly the choice of tech seems independent of pc CPU 'advances' - odd)
- statistically firewire is still in growth mode (from the same report used to highlight the decline of firewire as a percentage of all camcorders)
- the price of the alu MB has increased significantly over the last model and is now well into the "expensive for a notebook" range
(yes, around double that of what people count as expensive for a camcorder - different uses but hey put it in the thinking pot and let it stew for a while)
- USB3 is nowhere to be seen for the forseeable future
- there is no other current equivalent technology which can replace FW for power, hot-swap, speed and architecture features
- in the majority of the tech market there is a burgeoning lower class of items, which will naturally skew statistics (unless you examine those statistics properly)
- camcorder and other peripheral manufacturers do not base their product sales or choice of technology on the smallest of markets
- apple has not managed to increase speed or general CPU performance on it's latest MB
- heat is a major issue in notebooks, and intel obviously see this as an important constraint to be overcome to continue increasing CPU load
- host controlled tech (USB) gives us no realistic alternative as to how they are going to increase the speed 10 fold without creating more problems than they solve
- USB3 is no guarantee of its advertised speed, any more than USB2 was a guarantee of its advertised speed.
so where does all this leave us ?
- firewire is nowhere near dead (even people who don't like it better hope it isn't - there isn't a proven replacement either now or in the foreseeable future)
- firewire is still being deliberately chosen by (big) manufacturers, some of whom are deliberately aiming their products at the lower end of the market
- firewire cannot be currently replaced (even if we wanted to - and some people obviously do - no idea why)
- increasing CPU load is a problem, not just based on silicon costs, but heat, space and battery power constraints
- one cannot draw marketwide conclusions based on the release of one model of notebook computer from one small (albeit our favourite) manufacturer
- one cannot draw conclusions based on the swelling super low price market any more than Steve takes any notice of the sub $500 notebook market
it leaves us with the idea apple is still a small player in the pc market (albiet a growing player - which could be good), who has issued one notebook in their line without firewire, most probably for the reasons SJ himself said - that the consumer market is going low end (using video as an unfortunate example - having just totally upgraded the video features of the MB to well beyond the needs of the market he was talking about)
all this would be fine... except that at the same time as removing features to make it entry level, apple have increased the price way beyond what most people in that low end market can afford
it's your call as to whether this was a good move
either way I find no decent arguments to state that FW is either dead or dying, or being adequately replaced by another tech in the realm it has always been - which includes (but is not limited to) middle to upper class computers and peripherals
...strangely the same demographic which has the funds to purchase a $1300 entry level notebook
That really wasn't too bad of a sum up, though you have moved some of the arguments to where they weren't intended to be moved.
But the one thing that you missed on is that when everything is advancing at say, a 20% rate, and another is advancing at say, a 5% rate, the that 5% is a decline in marketshare. In order to understand this, you have to understand that.
Right now, the numbers we've been seeing, show that Apple sells 20% of all computers at retail, and 66% of all computers over $1,000, in the USA. The Macbook has been given numbers as high as 16% of laptop sales in the USA, so that's not an inconsiderable number, and is up from 12% last year, same time.
While figures are much lower around the world, that's expected, as Apple has less presence there, though that, and the marketshare are both rising.
As is said in the industry, Apple has an influence far outsized to its sales, and always has. Where Apple goes, the rest of the industry follows. It may take a year or even three, in some cases where cost go higher in doing it, but it does happen. In this case, costs would go down.
Even if USB 3 would cost a bit more than FW to include, why would manufacturers want to include both, when USB is ubiquitous? They won't.
You are the only one who thinks USB 3 wn't be seen for the forseeable future. We see in in a year, possibly earlier, possibly a bit later, but here.
Around the end of 2009, all the new, and revised standards will be here. It will be interesting to see which gain share, and which decline.
Because Macs represent a significant portion of FW's computer market penetration since every mac had gone out with a FW port. No longer.
As far as the impact of the Macbook to FW's future...it's rather telling that right under that picture of Sony's new camera are two notes about Mac. How odd they don't talk about how to turn your PC into a DVR under Vista/XP instead given that the Mac still has far less market share than Windows.
what's telling about quoting mac on the front page... we all know mac is good, in many cases better than PC.
i concur on the placement of this model in the scheme of things - it's certainly not consumer market camera... but then of course Sony in all their wisdom would not put a dying interface on their expensive flagship model. That would makes no sense at all.
Isn’t FireWire just used for DV cameras, whereas USB can be used for a
wide range of peripherals?
There are millions of devices shipped each year with FireWire:
• 11 million Desktop PCs (which is roughly 10% of total PC market) are shipped annually with FireWire.
• 36 million Laptop PCs shipped annually have FireWire
• 6 million external storage devices have a FireWire interface
• 14 million Digital Camcorders have FireWire
how many macs does apple sell per year? at around 2.6 million per quarter that's only 10million per year (if we're being generous since the 2.6 is based on Apple's best quarter to date) - which is less than 25% of the firewire equipped PCs sold annually
i think someone might be overestimating the impact of removing FW from one single model of Apple notebook...
That really wasn't too bad of a sum up, though you have moved some of the arguments to where they weren't intended to be moved.
But the one thing that you missed on is that when everything is advancing at say, a 20% rate, and another is advancing at say, a 5% rate, the that 5% is a decline in marketshare. In order to understand this, you have to understand that.
errrr it depends around which segment of the market you draw the box.
simplified it's a Venn diagram with one circle (high end) getting bigger and the other
circle getting bigger faster (low end at 20%) - there is some overlap of course
since the entire PC market is growing (both circles) I'm not sure where you get your assumption that the low end is eating the high end?
and a decline in overall marketshare (the high end market as a % of both markets) is only important for.... errrr no one.
As I said, FW was always aimed at the middle to upper market which is precisely where Apple prices its products - and SJ just stated that he doesn't care about the low end of the market as a general Apple philosophy.
errrr it depends around which segment of the market you draw the box.
simplified it's a Venn diagram with one circle (high end) getting bigger and the other
circle getting bigger faster (low end at 20%) - there is some overlap of course
since the entire PC market is growing (both circles) I'm not sure where you get your assumption that the low end is eating the high end?
and a decline in overall marketshare (the high end market as a % of both markets) is only important for.... errrr no one.
As I said, FW was always aimed at the middle to upper market which is precisely where Apple prices its products - and SJ just stated that he doesn't care about the low end of the market as a general Apple philosophy.
Marketshare declines can start anywhere. The then tend to move to other areas.
Whether it starts at the high end, or at the low end doesn't matter long term.
What's been interesting the past three or four years, is that the professional markets have been adapting consumer technologies as they've been getting better. If fact, when FW first invaded the very high end, several years before, it was derided hotly, as it was, and is, a poor cousin to the interfaces used there, but has found some limited use.
That was one of the first technologies from the consumer camcorder market that moved upscale.
But most newer interface technologies are being developed with industrial, professional, and consumer interests in mind.
While it looked for a while that one interface might take over, it's now being thought that for best performance, that can't work, at least, not yet. I expect that someday, we will possibly have one interface for everything, except, possibly, for very specialized purposes. But that day may not come for at least another ten, and possibly, twenty years.
what's telling about quoting mac on the front page... we all know mac is good, in many cases better than PC.
What it tells you is that the Mac represents a significant FW base.
Quote:
i concur on the placement of this model in the scheme of things - it's certainly not consumer market camera... but then of course Sony in all their wisdom would not put a dying interface on their expensive flagship model. That would makes no sense at all.
Sony persisted with beta for a long time and beta persisted as a pro format for a long time. No one has said that the pro market would abandon FW as quickly or as much as the consumer market...especially any tape based unit.
If you look at the Sony HDD and flash models they no longer have iLink (Firewire) but USB2.
That's their flagship "prosumer" model actually. Not quite pro level. Yes, the pro models still have iLink and yes, they are still tape based.
how many macs does apple sell per year? at around 2.6 million per quarter that's only 10million per year (if we're being generous since the 2.6 is based on Apple's best quarter to date) - which is less than 25% of the firewire equipped PCs sold annually
Well, if Mel's number is correct up to 16% of the laptop sales just went poof for FW. But hey, lets just call it 10% of firewire notebook shipments...3.3M (about a third of the 10M total mac shipments). So instead of 33M laptops going out with FW a year it's now 29.7M.
So 67M total devices dropped to 63.7M. If the 0.2% expected growth held true, FW just suffered a significant loss (5%) because now we're not talking miniscule growth but real total unit decline in FY2009 and not in FY2011.
Probably the biggest hit it has taken since Apple stopped shipping iPods with FW.
Quote:
i think someone might be overestimating the impact of removing FW from one single model of Apple notebook...
oh sorry, this must be marketing data
I find the 14M firewire camcorders shipped an interesting number. I wonder what the total market size is. I'm not willing to pay $4500 for a market report to find out though.
As far as overestimating...FW just took a 5% hit on total units shipped by losing one product.
The fact (and nobody can deny it is a fact) doesn't mean much at all.
We know that USB operates at both the very low data rate and high data rate. Firewire doesn't, and never has operated at the low end. It's perfectly obvious the number of USB devices dwarfs the number of firewire devices. Firewire mice and keyboards, USB BlueTooth dongles etc have never existed as firewire products.
Remarkably firewire has done very well on the Mac (even without taking into account the PC world). Apple has put more and more ports on the market over the years and more and more mainstream disk manufacturers are not only catering to this market but some of them are even pre-formatting their disks for mac.
The new 'policy' by Apple to exclude FW on its machines (I think the MacBook is just the start) throws a spanner into the works in this growing area.
My guess is that if there were no market for firewire drives on the mac then Iomega, Western Digital, Seagate and Fujitsu etc wouldn't be producing firewire drives (and much less targetting them at mac users). Note that I didn't include companies like LaCie in that list who have a tradition of offering firewire support.
Yes, those same drives offer USB2.0 (which, btw, also gives USB a leg up on stats) but my guess is that most mac users prefer the firewire port over the USB2.0 port on those disks.
I think a lot of the blame is placed on Apple for this move but I actually reckon Intel has a part in this. They wrote the spec for USB3. This is one thing that's becoming increasingly obvious the more that computer hardware is progressing.
Take all the components that go into a computer and think of what parts we can do without. The only companies we really can't make a computer without are the CPU manufacturers, mainly Intel and AMD, and Intel have a large majority. We need the parts from the other manufacturers but they are independently expendable.
Other companies like Nvidia were recently angered by the fact that Intel were in control of the USB3 spec because they couldn't add support without it and they were claiming Intel were doing it deliberately to get their chipsets done first.
Now consider where else Intel are going with Larrabee and SSD. Their SSD drives are the fastest you can get now and their intention for Larrabee will be to have the fastest graphics chips.
If they have the fastest storage, they control the USB3 spec, they have the best graphics and they control the CPU, very soon we may have one company who calls all the shots and it's not Apple.
We all know how hard Apple pushed firewire. The fact that it is so prolific today, more so in specialized domains shows that they did their part to push it forward.
Perhaps it was Intel who pushed for a firewire drop and a move to their own USB3 leading to a jump to Nvidia chipsets. If Intel dropped support from their future chipsets, Apple wouldn't be worse off switching to Nvidia but would criticize Intel for doing so and also gain a lot in terms of integrated graphics performance.
This doesn't prevent Apple keeping firewire but clearly they see where the industry is going and sometimes they just have to go along with the flow too. Apple were backing UDI at one point not displayport and now displayport is on Apple devices. They clearly don't like Blu-Ray right now but the industry has decided that it's the format we're going with so Apple will eventually just have to suck it up.
Even if these decisions are made without Apple's approval, it's very hard for them to say things like 'we don't like this but we're going with it' because that removes the element of their control. They are not in control of everything but the illusion that they are gives them the air of being industry leaders and not followers and they need to maintain this.
When people question why Apple do something, Steve has little choice but to justify it. No apologies, no excuses, no weaknesses. It's the same reason they get rid of complaints on the Apple forums without public acknowledgments of issues. Mindshare is a very important thing that keeps Apple alive and many other brands.
The fact (and nobody can deny it is a fact) doesn't mean much at all.
What fact is this? You didn't quote any previous message. BTW, facts aren't necessarily correct, to be a fact something has to be considered indisputable, but you only need a group of people with a like mind to find something indisputable. There is a long history of things we thought were facts which turned out to be false. That is a fact!
Quote:
We know that USB operates at both the very low data rate and high data rate. Firewire doesn't, and never has operated at the low end. It's perfectly obvious the number of USB devices dwarfs the number of firewire devices. Firewire mice and keyboards, USB BlueTooth dongles etc have never existed as firewire products.
This low and high data rate is odd without quantification. FW400 is the low end of FW and bests USB's current high high for sustained speeds. I don't get the reason for this paragraph as promotes USB as a viable, low cost solution.
Quote:
The new 'policy' by Apple to exclude FW on its machines (I think the MacBook is just the start) throws a spanner into the works in this growing area.
This really isn't a new policy. Apple has been removing FW support from it's devices slowly over several years. They have also offered more USB ports than FW ports on almost all their machines.
I only find model using MacTracker that they had 2xFW400 and 2xUSB1.0. That was their very first PowerBook Pismo released in February 2000. That was the very last G3 PB. When they released the G4 Powerbook less than a year later they had brought the number of FW ports down to one while maintaining two USB1.0 ports.
It's never been more popular than FireWire on Macs or otherwise or they would have included more support for it.
Quote:
My guess is that if there were no market for firewire drives on the mac then Iomega, Western Digital, Seagate and Fujitsu etc wouldn't be producing firewire drives (and much less targetting them at mac users). Note that I didn't include companies like LaCie in that list who have a tradition of offering firewire support.
It's not about not having 'a' market, but having a large enough market to be worth maintaining. FW400 on the MB is an obvious dead-end for the future of Apple.
Quote:
Yes, those same drives offer USB2.0 (which, btw, also gives USB a leg up on stats) but my guess is that most mac users prefer the firewire port over the USB2.0 port on those disks.
I don't prefer FW on those drives after having Time Machine backup issues and iMac startup issues when using FW on those machines, yet USB2.0 works fine. Doesn't the fact that you can buy plenty of inexpensive external HDDs with only USB2.0 on them, but have to spend considerably more for FW access, which also comes with USB2.0, tell you something about FW vs. USB in the consumer market?
What fact is this? You didn't quote any previous message.
I thought it better not to quote as I was responding to the post immediately before mine. I couldn't see the point of having the same line quoted 4cm from the original message.
Quote:
I don't prefer FW on those drives after having Time Machine backup issues and iMac startup issues when using FW on those machines, yet USB2.0 works fine. Doesn't the fact that you can buy plenty of inexpensive external HDDs with only USB2.0 on them, but have to spend considerably more for FW access, which also comes with USB2.0, tell you something about FW vs. USB in the consumer market?
I've never had to spend considerably more for such a drive. A bit more would be more precise (around 30 euros last time I checked this week and I think that drive had FW800). USB is cheaper but slower (much slower if you are using FW800) but I prefer to have options open to me. I wouldn't mind paying a bit more for a quad interface drive but they seem to be a little expensive right now.
The fact (and nobody can deny it is a fact) doesn't mean much at all.
My guess is that if there were no market for firewire drives on the mac then Iomega, Western Digital, Seagate and Fujitsu etc wouldn't be producing firewire drives (and much less targetting them at mac users). Note that I didn't include companies like LaCie in that list who have a tradition of offering firewire support.
One simply only has to look at the fact that their are many peripherals that FW has never been used for. Currently most all of the devices that made primary use of FW are moving to USB.
These hard drives you mention offer multiple ports: USB, FW, and eSATA. Their are no hard drives that are FW only. Their is a growing market for hard drives that are USB only and are cheaper for the same amount of storage.
Comments
yes sherlock - but a decline in only one area of the overall market why don't you pick just one brand and use that to extrapolate a worldwide trend... oh wait you did !
Because Macs represent a significant portion of FW's computer market penetration since every mac had gone out with a FW port. No longer. So the millions of MacBooks that will sell in FY09 will not add to the projected growth of 0.2% total units shipped but instead represent an unaccounted decline in that projection.
so you used only part of the research (the camcorder part) research which had overall conclusions stating that FW was not in decline... but might end up in decline over 2 years in the future which you used to go and predict the absolute death of firewire an interface which the same manufacturer you have been using to predict it's death - has just put on it's current flagship offering and no, one single model of one manufacturer's product line - which still uses that interface in it's latest products will not be enough to topple an interface technology which reaches far beyond personal computers (much less notebooks)
The research said that growth was going to be miniscule with decline beginning in 6 months (mid 2009) not 2 years. Note that growth of units shipped was expected to continue until 2011 (if you count 0.2% growth) but in terms of market share it was expected to decline this coming year.
You can argue that it was no surprise that Apple would drop FW on the MB since it abandoned FW on it's iPods but I don't think that those guys were quite this prescient to have predicted dropping FW on the MB in 2008.
if you're not too scared of being swamped by marketing people
have a look at the 1394 website and see what other uses it has...
oh wait what's that on the front page?
Sony's flagship video camera ?
gee those guys are idiots - they're just about to release a camera with firewire on it - dang at least it's only at pre-order stage they should have consulted vinea first.... pfff sony's obviously going to hit the dust pretty soon
Yes, as others have pointed out...a pro grade camera...at $3,199.99. I think those users can afford a MBP which will continue to have FW for this rev.
As far as the impact of the Macbook to FW's future...it's rather telling that right under that picture of Sony's new camera are two notes about Mac. How odd they don't talk about how to turn your PC into a DVR under Vista/XP instead given that the Mac still has far less market share than Windows.
but at the same time people are arguing that
- apple only represents a small portion of the consumer market (i think the words were "microsoft dominates the market")
Actually Mac represents a sizable portion of the consumer market...21% in the US, 10% world wide.
However, Windows does dominate the market.
- that the release of one single model of apple notebook computer (despite the "lack of domination" point) is indicative for the entire market
Given that Mac has 21% of the US consumer market share and Macs all shipped with FW until recently you can easily draw the conclusion that macs represents a very large part of the 33% total computer market penetration for FW and an even higher percentage of the FW market penetration in the consumer computer market.
- any sound arguments indicating that FW might have a technological edge over current or near future tech is labelled 'marketing'
No, any marketing materials are labeled marketing.
- statistically firewire is still in growth mode (from the same report used to highlight the decline of firewire as a percentage of all camcorders)
0.2% growth without taking into account the loss of the MB.
- USB3 is nowhere to be seen for the forseeable future
2009 is unforseeable future?
- camcorder and other peripheral manufacturers do not base their product sales or choice of technology on the smallest of markets
The consumer market is far larger than the pro market. Of course, the pro market is very profitable in comparison.
- apple has not managed to increase speed or general CPU performance on it's latest MB
Incorrect with respect to power usage and thermal characteristics to get that CPU performance.
- heat is a major issue in notebooks, and intel obviously see this as an important constraint to be overcome to continue increasing CPU load
Which is why the new chips are better than the old ones.
so where does all this leave us ?
- firewire is nowhere near dead (even people who don't like it better hope it isn't - there isn't a proven replacement either now or in the foreseeable future)
Except for the fact that it is dying because it has largely been replaced.
- firewire is still being deliberately chosen by (big) manufacturers, some of whom are deliberately aiming their products at the lower end of the market
Except that this is an untrue statement when you can see that 9 out of 10 of the most popular camcorders on Amazon are FWless. That consumer camcorders are now largely going both tapeless and FWless.
- increasing CPU load is a problem, not just based on silicon costs, but heat, space and battery power constraints
Except it isn't and it has been shown that good USB implementations represent relatively low CPU usage...even in comparison to FW.
- one cannot draw marketwide conclusions based on the release of one model of notebook computer from one small (albeit our favourite) manufacturer
Except when that one model of notebook computer represents a significant portion of FW computer sales.
it leaves us with the idea apple is still a small player in the pc market (albiet a growing player - which could be good), who has issued one notebook in their line without firewire, most probably for the reasons SJ himself said - that the consumer market is going low end (using video as an unfortunate example - having just totally upgraded the video features of the MB to well beyond the needs of the market he was talking about)
Except that the video graphics processing that was upgraded has ZERO to do with the video tape capability removed. And it is by no means beyond the needs of the market but now adequate where it was inadequate before.
it's your call as to whether this was a good move
It was an awesome move. The new GPU is great...well...great in comparison to the Intel GMAs anyway.
either way I find no decent arguments to state that FW is either dead or dying, or being adequately replaced by another tech in the realm it has always been - which includes (but is not limited to) middle to upper class computers and peripherals...strangely the same demographic which has the funds to purchase a $1300 entry level notebook
Only because you refuse to look beyond the pain in your own small niche of audio production to look at the much greater benefit to the consumer user as a whole. Their ability to play WoW on the MB trumps your ability to do audio or video work on the MB to Apple.
Get over it.
dons flame proof suit
ok so let's summarizzzzzze...people here are arguing that:
- firewire is dead
- camcorders are moving towards USB
- firewire is a technology which is in decline
- firewire can easily be replaced by USB2 since CPU power has increased dramatically
- the majority of camcorders are USB (!?)
- the majority of audio peripherals are USB (!?)
- the fact that Apple left it off one notebook model is a sure sign for the whole market (!?)
- USB 3 will replace firewire
- Esata replaces firewire
- GigE will replace firewire
- USB3 replaces firewire
- USB2 replaces firewire (!!?)
- firewire will replace firewire (just seeing if you're awake)
- they don't (personally) need firewire (my favourite)
- battery power is a constraint
but at the same time people are arguing that
- apple only represents a small portion of the consumer market (i think the words were "microsoft dominates the market")
- the consumer market does not buy expensive equipment (eg camcorders over $750 are on the high side apparently)
- that the release of one single model of apple notebook computer (despite the "lack of domination" point) is indicative for the entire market
- that with future technologies (USB3) while attempting to transfer more date at 10x the current rate, we'll be fine in terms of CPU and heat release rates.
- any sound arguments indicating that FW might have a technological edge over current or near future tech is labelled 'marketing'
- any arguments that FW architecture might not be able to be replaced are met with guarantees of future CPU power over non-proven connection methods
yet what we also see/know is that:
- firewire is still the choice of professionals (audio and visual)
- firewire is still used on the latest release of the current Apple flagship notebooks
(anyone's call as to whether the 15" alu is the flagship - either way there's not doubt that the 17" alu will carry FW)
- firewire is still used on the latest middle to upper releases of all the top camcorder companies
(where USB is strangely absent and interestingly the choice of tech seems independent of pc CPU 'advances' - odd)
- statistically firewire is still in growth mode (from the same report used to highlight the decline of firewire as a percentage of all camcorders)
- the price of the alu MB has increased significantly over the last model and is now well into the "expensive for a notebook" range
(yes, around double that of what people count as expensive for a camcorder - different uses but hey put it in the thinking pot and let it stew for a while)
- USB3 is nowhere to be seen for the forseeable future
- there is no other current equivalent technology which can replace FW for power, hot-swap, speed and architecture features
- in the majority of the tech market there is a burgeoning lower class of items, which will naturally skew statistics (unless you examine those statistics properly)
- camcorder and other peripheral manufacturers do not base their product sales or choice of technology on the smallest of markets
- apple has not managed to increase speed or general CPU performance on it's latest MB
- heat is a major issue in notebooks, and intel obviously see this as an important constraint to be overcome to continue increasing CPU load
- host controlled tech (USB) gives us no realistic alternative as to how they are going to increase the speed 10 fold without creating more problems than they solve
- USB3 is no guarantee of its advertised speed, any more than USB2 was a guarantee of its advertised speed.
so where does all this leave us ?
- firewire is nowhere near dead (even people who don't like it better hope it isn't - there isn't a proven replacement either now or in the foreseeable future)
- firewire is still being deliberately chosen by (big) manufacturers, some of whom are deliberately aiming their products at the lower end of the market
- firewire cannot be currently replaced (even if we wanted to - and some people obviously do - no idea why)
- increasing CPU load is a problem, not just based on silicon costs, but heat, space and battery power constraints
- one cannot draw marketwide conclusions based on the release of one model of notebook computer from one small (albeit our favourite) manufacturer
- one cannot draw conclusions based on the swelling super low price market any more than Steve takes any notice of the sub $500 notebook market
it leaves us with the idea apple is still a small player in the pc market (albiet a growing player - which could be good), who has issued one notebook in their line without firewire, most probably for the reasons SJ himself said - that the consumer market is going low end (using video as an unfortunate example - having just totally upgraded the video features of the MB to well beyond the needs of the market he was talking about)
all this would be fine... except that at the same time as removing features to make it entry level, apple have increased the price way beyond what most people in that low end market can afford
it's your call as to whether this was a good move
either way I find no decent arguments to state that FW is either dead or dying, or being adequately replaced by another tech in the realm it has always been - which includes (but is not limited to) middle to upper class computers and peripherals
...strangely the same demographic which has the funds to purchase a $1300 entry level notebook
That really wasn't too bad of a sum up, though you have moved some of the arguments to where they weren't intended to be moved.
But the one thing that you missed on is that when everything is advancing at say, a 20% rate, and another is advancing at say, a 5% rate, the that 5% is a decline in marketshare. In order to understand this, you have to understand that.
Right now, the numbers we've been seeing, show that Apple sells 20% of all computers at retail, and 66% of all computers over $1,000, in the USA. The Macbook has been given numbers as high as 16% of laptop sales in the USA, so that's not an inconsiderable number, and is up from 12% last year, same time.
While figures are much lower around the world, that's expected, as Apple has less presence there, though that, and the marketshare are both rising.
As is said in the industry, Apple has an influence far outsized to its sales, and always has. Where Apple goes, the rest of the industry follows. It may take a year or even three, in some cases where cost go higher in doing it, but it does happen. In this case, costs would go down.
Even if USB 3 would cost a bit more than FW to include, why would manufacturers want to include both, when USB is ubiquitous? They won't.
You are the only one who thinks USB 3 wn't be seen for the forseeable future. We see in in a year, possibly earlier, possibly a bit later, but here.
Around the end of 2009, all the new, and revised standards will be here. It will be interesting to see which gain share, and which decline.
Because Macs represent a significant portion of FW's computer market penetration since every mac had gone out with a FW port. No longer.
As far as the impact of the Macbook to FW's future...it's rather telling that right under that picture of Sony's new camera are two notes about Mac. How odd they don't talk about how to turn your PC into a DVR under Vista/XP instead given that the Mac still has far less market share than Windows.
what's telling about quoting mac on the front page... we all know mac is good, in many cases better than PC.
i concur on the placement of this model in the scheme of things - it's certainly not consumer market camera... but then of course Sony in all their wisdom would not put a dying interface on their expensive flagship model. That would makes no sense at all.
if you follow those links you'll find some stats:
Isn’t FireWire just used for DV cameras, whereas USB can be used for a
wide range of peripherals?
There are millions of devices shipped each year with FireWire:
• 11 million Desktop PCs (which is roughly 10% of total PC market) are shipped annually with FireWire.
• 36 million Laptop PCs shipped annually have FireWire
• 6 million external storage devices have a FireWire interface
• 14 million Digital Camcorders have FireWire
how many macs does apple sell per year? at around 2.6 million per quarter that's only 10million per year (if we're being generous since the 2.6 is based on Apple's best quarter to date) - which is less than 25% of the firewire equipped PCs sold annually
i think someone might be overestimating the impact of removing FW from one single model of Apple notebook...
oh sorry, this must be marketing data
i think someone might be overestimating the impact of removing FW from one single model of Apple notebook...
oh sorry, this must be marketing data
No, it's your misreading of the market.
Their ability to play WoW on the MB trumps your ability to do audio or video work on the MB to Apple.
Get over it.
Vinea if you could please combine this line on Apple MB being about WoW
to your best line so far (which is "i only need USB2") ??
it doesn't get much better than this...
brilliant
That really wasn't too bad of a sum up, though you have moved some of the arguments to where they weren't intended to be moved.
But the one thing that you missed on is that when everything is advancing at say, a 20% rate, and another is advancing at say, a 5% rate, the that 5% is a decline in marketshare. In order to understand this, you have to understand that.
errrr it depends around which segment of the market you draw the box.
simplified it's a Venn diagram with one circle (high end) getting bigger and the other
circle getting bigger faster (low end at 20%) - there is some overlap of course
since the entire PC market is growing (both circles) I'm not sure where you get your assumption that the low end is eating the high end?
and a decline in overall marketshare (the high end market as a % of both markets) is only important for.... errrr no one.
As I said, FW was always aimed at the middle to upper market which is precisely where Apple prices its products - and SJ just stated that he doesn't care about the low end of the market as a general Apple philosophy.
errrr it depends around which segment of the market you draw the box.
simplified it's a Venn diagram with one circle (high end) getting bigger and the other
circle getting bigger faster (low end at 20%) - there is some overlap of course
since the entire PC market is growing (both circles) I'm not sure where you get your assumption that the low end is eating the high end?
and a decline in overall marketshare (the high end market as a % of both markets) is only important for.... errrr no one.
As I said, FW was always aimed at the middle to upper market which is precisely where Apple prices its products - and SJ just stated that he doesn't care about the low end of the market as a general Apple philosophy.
Marketshare declines can start anywhere. The then tend to move to other areas.
Whether it starts at the high end, or at the low end doesn't matter long term.
What's been interesting the past three or four years, is that the professional markets have been adapting consumer technologies as they've been getting better. If fact, when FW first invaded the very high end, several years before, it was derided hotly, as it was, and is, a poor cousin to the interfaces used there, but has found some limited use.
That was one of the first technologies from the consumer camcorder market that moved upscale.
But most newer interface technologies are being developed with industrial, professional, and consumer interests in mind.
While it looked for a while that one interface might take over, it's now being thought that for best performance, that can't work, at least, not yet. I expect that someday, we will possibly have one interface for everything, except, possibly, for very specialized purposes. But that day may not come for at least another ten, and possibly, twenty years.
what's telling about quoting mac on the front page... we all know mac is good, in many cases better than PC.
What it tells you is that the Mac represents a significant FW base.
i concur on the placement of this model in the scheme of things - it's certainly not consumer market camera... but then of course Sony in all their wisdom would not put a dying interface on their expensive flagship model. That would makes no sense at all.
Sony persisted with beta for a long time and beta persisted as a pro format for a long time. No one has said that the pro market would abandon FW as quickly or as much as the consumer market...especially any tape based unit.
If you look at the Sony HDD and flash models they no longer have iLink (Firewire) but USB2.
That's their flagship "prosumer" model actually. Not quite pro level. Yes, the pro models still have iLink and yes, they are still tape based.
if you follow those links you'll find some stats:
how many macs does apple sell per year? at around 2.6 million per quarter that's only 10million per year (if we're being generous since the 2.6 is based on Apple's best quarter to date) - which is less than 25% of the firewire equipped PCs sold annually
Well, if Mel's number is correct up to 16% of the laptop sales just went poof for FW. But hey, lets just call it 10% of firewire notebook shipments...3.3M (about a third of the 10M total mac shipments). So instead of 33M laptops going out with FW a year it's now 29.7M.
So 67M total devices dropped to 63.7M. If the 0.2% expected growth held true, FW just suffered a significant loss (5%) because now we're not talking miniscule growth but real total unit decline in FY2009 and not in FY2011.
Probably the biggest hit it has taken since Apple stopped shipping iPods with FW.
i think someone might be overestimating the impact of removing FW from one single model of Apple notebook...
oh sorry, this must be marketing data
I find the 14M firewire camcorders shipped an interesting number. I wonder what the total market size is. I'm not willing to pay $4500 for a market report to find out though.
As far as overestimating...FW just took a 5% hit on total units shipped by losing one product.
Vinea if you could please combine this line on Apple MB being about WoW
to your best line so far (which is "i only need USB2") ??
it doesn't get much better than this...
brilliant
Yes, for the MB market: gamers > audio pros
Amazing isn't it? That there are more college kids than audio pros? Who would have thought that?
if you follow those links you'll find some stats:
There are millions of devices shipped each year with FireWire:
• 11 million Desktop PCs (which is roughly 10% of total PC market) are shipped annually with FireWire.
• 36 million Laptop PCs shipped annually have FireWire
• 6 million external storage devices have a FireWire interface
• 14 million Digital Camcorders have FireWire
The stats for the number of USB devices in use would absolutely dwarf these FW stats.
Yes, for the MB market: gamers > audio pros
Amazing isn't it? That there are more college kids than audio pros? Who would have thought that?
As for college kids, this is just one of numerous articles that say the same thing.
http://www.macworld.com/article/1349.../highered.html
The stats for the number of USB devices in use would absolutely dwarf these FW stats.
Those stats also tell me that most PCs shipped with Firewire have never had a FW device plugged into them.
The stats for the number of USB devices in use would absolutely dwarf these FW stats.
And the stats for the number of PCs absolutely dwarfs Mac stats. It's a fact but I wouldn't read too much into it.
And the stats for the number of PCs absolutely dwarfs Mac stats. It's a fact but I wouldn't read too much into it.
I'm not sure of the point you are attempting to make. What does the number of Mac vs PC have to do with the number of FW vs USB devices?
We know that USB operates at both the very low data rate and high data rate. Firewire doesn't, and never has operated at the low end. It's perfectly obvious the number of USB devices dwarfs the number of firewire devices. Firewire mice and keyboards, USB BlueTooth dongles etc have never existed as firewire products.
Remarkably firewire has done very well on the Mac (even without taking into account the PC world). Apple has put more and more ports on the market over the years and more and more mainstream disk manufacturers are not only catering to this market but some of them are even pre-formatting their disks for mac.
The new 'policy' by Apple to exclude FW on its machines (I think the MacBook is just the start) throws a spanner into the works in this growing area.
My guess is that if there were no market for firewire drives on the mac then Iomega, Western Digital, Seagate and Fujitsu etc wouldn't be producing firewire drives (and much less targetting them at mac users). Note that I didn't include companies like LaCie in that list who have a tradition of offering firewire support.
Yes, those same drives offer USB2.0 (which, btw, also gives USB a leg up on stats) but my guess is that most mac users prefer the firewire port over the USB2.0 port on those disks.
Take all the components that go into a computer and think of what parts we can do without. The only companies we really can't make a computer without are the CPU manufacturers, mainly Intel and AMD, and Intel have a large majority. We need the parts from the other manufacturers but they are independently expendable.
Other companies like Nvidia were recently angered by the fact that Intel were in control of the USB3 spec because they couldn't add support without it and they were claiming Intel were doing it deliberately to get their chipsets done first.
Now consider where else Intel are going with Larrabee and SSD. Their SSD drives are the fastest you can get now and their intention for Larrabee will be to have the fastest graphics chips.
If they have the fastest storage, they control the USB3 spec, they have the best graphics and they control the CPU, very soon we may have one company who calls all the shots and it's not Apple.
We all know how hard Apple pushed firewire. The fact that it is so prolific today, more so in specialized domains shows that they did their part to push it forward.
Perhaps it was Intel who pushed for a firewire drop and a move to their own USB3 leading to a jump to Nvidia chipsets. If Intel dropped support from their future chipsets, Apple wouldn't be worse off switching to Nvidia but would criticize Intel for doing so and also gain a lot in terms of integrated graphics performance.
This doesn't prevent Apple keeping firewire but clearly they see where the industry is going and sometimes they just have to go along with the flow too. Apple were backing UDI at one point not displayport and now displayport is on Apple devices. They clearly don't like Blu-Ray right now but the industry has decided that it's the format we're going with so Apple will eventually just have to suck it up.
Even if these decisions are made without Apple's approval, it's very hard for them to say things like 'we don't like this but we're going with it' because that removes the element of their control. They are not in control of everything but the illusion that they are gives them the air of being industry leaders and not followers and they need to maintain this.
When people question why Apple do something, Steve has little choice but to justify it. No apologies, no excuses, no weaknesses. It's the same reason they get rid of complaints on the Apple forums without public acknowledgments of issues. Mindshare is a very important thing that keeps Apple alive and many other brands.
The fact (and nobody can deny it is a fact) doesn't mean much at all.
What fact is this? You didn't quote any previous message. BTW, facts aren't necessarily correct, to be a fact something has to be considered indisputable, but you only need a group of people with a like mind to find something indisputable. There is a long history of things we thought were facts which turned out to be false. That is a fact!
We know that USB operates at both the very low data rate and high data rate. Firewire doesn't, and never has operated at the low end. It's perfectly obvious the number of USB devices dwarfs the number of firewire devices. Firewire mice and keyboards, USB BlueTooth dongles etc have never existed as firewire products.
This low and high data rate is odd without quantification. FW400 is the low end of FW and bests USB's current high high for sustained speeds. I don't get the reason for this paragraph as promotes USB as a viable, low cost solution.
The new 'policy' by Apple to exclude FW on its machines (I think the MacBook is just the start) throws a spanner into the works in this growing area.
This really isn't a new policy. Apple has been removing FW support from it's devices slowly over several years. They have also offered more USB ports than FW ports on almost all their machines.
I only find model using MacTracker that they had 2xFW400 and 2xUSB1.0. That was their very first PowerBook Pismo released in February 2000. That was the very last G3 PB. When they released the G4 Powerbook less than a year later they had brought the number of FW ports down to one while maintaining two USB1.0 ports.
It's never been more popular than FireWire on Macs or otherwise or they would have included more support for it.
My guess is that if there were no market for firewire drives on the mac then Iomega, Western Digital, Seagate and Fujitsu etc wouldn't be producing firewire drives (and much less targetting them at mac users). Note that I didn't include companies like LaCie in that list who have a tradition of offering firewire support.
It's not about not having 'a' market, but having a large enough market to be worth maintaining. FW400 on the MB is an obvious dead-end for the future of Apple.
Yes, those same drives offer USB2.0 (which, btw, also gives USB a leg up on stats) but my guess is that most mac users prefer the firewire port over the USB2.0 port on those disks.
I don't prefer FW on those drives after having Time Machine backup issues and iMac startup issues when using FW on those machines, yet USB2.0 works fine. Doesn't the fact that you can buy plenty of inexpensive external HDDs with only USB2.0 on them, but have to spend considerably more for FW access, which also comes with USB2.0, tell you something about FW vs. USB in the consumer market?
What fact is this? You didn't quote any previous message.
I thought it better not to quote as I was responding to the post immediately before mine. I couldn't see the point of having the same line quoted 4cm from the original message.
I don't prefer FW on those drives after having Time Machine backup issues and iMac startup issues when using FW on those machines, yet USB2.0 works fine. Doesn't the fact that you can buy plenty of inexpensive external HDDs with only USB2.0 on them, but have to spend considerably more for FW access, which also comes with USB2.0, tell you something about FW vs. USB in the consumer market?
I've never had to spend considerably more for such a drive. A bit more would be more precise (around 30 euros last time I checked this week and I think that drive had FW800). USB is cheaper but slower (much slower if you are using FW800) but I prefer to have options open to me. I wouldn't mind paying a bit more for a quad interface drive but they seem to be a little expensive right now.
The fact (and nobody can deny it is a fact) doesn't mean much at all.
My guess is that if there were no market for firewire drives on the mac then Iomega, Western Digital, Seagate and Fujitsu etc wouldn't be producing firewire drives (and much less targetting them at mac users). Note that I didn't include companies like LaCie in that list who have a tradition of offering firewire support.
One simply only has to look at the fact that their are many peripherals that FW has never been used for. Currently most all of the devices that made primary use of FW are moving to USB.
These hard drives you mention offer multiple ports: USB, FW, and eSATA. Their are no hard drives that are FW only. Their is a growing market for hard drives that are USB only and are cheaper for the same amount of storage.