Again, you do not get it. Without Target Disk Mode you cannot repair. Full stop. Or else open the case, place the disk elsewhere for Target Disk Mode, waste your time, break something and increase repair costs. How can people be so BLIND!!!??? It just costs 20 cents to implement Firewire!
APPLE: NO FIREWIRE, NO PURCHASE. The decision is yours.
That's amazing. I guess no Apple machine before FW, was repairable either.
Quite a few PC laptops don't have any media slot that can be used for FW. Some do. More and more lower cost PCs can't be upgraded any more than most of Apple's.
I have certainly not looked at all models (I have not looked at vendors I would never buy from and that includes Dell, HP and Toshiba), so this could be right. But among the ones I have looked at in the 1200-1600 USD range (which I do not really consider low cost) I did not see a single one (other than really expensive sub-notebooks below 12") missing that feature.
And seeing that others can add a slew of useful features (and obviously some doubtful ones) to 12" devices being lighter and smaller than the MacBook (like in the mentioned Lenovo X200) or even smoke the MBP in connectivity and performance (like the W500) and still maintain the highest level of support almost all around the world and make profits, while Apple has to screw us on every single accessory and cannot even match that service outside the US... was quite an eye opener. In this regard I was quite happy about the keynote. A company that is arrogant and off-ground enough to invite the press to present nothing else than an improved manufacturing process (that did not even result in more competitive pricing), less features on every single item (except for the MBA which had none to start with) and a glossy 24" display that will not work with any existing Apple computer, is not the company that was leading the computer business with innovations for some years. All they have presented was "less for more".
Here's what will happen. You will accept it. You are Mac users; that's what you do, The alternative would, for one thing, mean admitting you were taken for a ride and you are not really the kind of people who are happy doing that.
Jobs is moving the platform back to a closed ecosytem the like of which the IT industry has only seen once before ... and Jobs was in charge of it back then too. The difference is that he has an incompetent Microsoft and clever marketing on his side, which is why he will succeed.
Take the Apple ads for instance. They are used to reinforce your sense of superiority so that when Apple pulls stuff like this, you won't actually do very much about it (apart from a little bit of online whining). Because what would be the alternative? Moving to Windows? But that would mean you'd be like the boring fat bloke with the specs. No, you'll stay right where you are and you'll take what you're given.
The Firewire thing is the right move I'm afraid. It is a shame, but Intel undercut Apple on the licensing charges (and at the time, Apple had no choice but to try to make some money from it) and so USB won out. They have no choice but to phase it out, which is precisely what they've been doing and if you could all just step out from the Apple church for the moment, you will see that they have been doing it in precisely the right order; working from the consumer devices, up to the professional level.
The mistake they have made is charging more and giving less. I'm not sure that this is the correct economic environment for something like that, but time will tell.
And of course, once Apple has tapped the fanboys who will buy shiny new Cupertino kit at any price, then the prices will come down to reasonable levels (and any kinks will have been ironed out too). So please, stop saying they're too expensive! The sooner the gullible ones have done their thing, then the sooner the rest of you can dive in at lower prices!
From what the more sensible people are saying, the real problem is not the removal of Firewire, but the lack of anything that comes close to replacing it. USB doesn't cut it. Also the folk who say stupid stuff like
'Just buy a Macbook Pro, ya whiney cheapskate'.
Have completely missed the point. Given the amount of money that Mac folk are willing to splash out on stuff, then I really don't think money is the issue; the problem is the size of the machine.
Apple could probably save itself a ton of grief if they just built a Macbook Pro in a 13.3" chassis. Decent graphics card, charge a premium (y'know ... cause it's small) and the problem's solved. They could continue phasing out Firewire from the bottom end.
I'm just happy my old 12" PBG4 is still going strong!
perhaps jobs (or whoever it is) will soon respond to the outrage over the lack of matte screen options.... firewire aside, these new laptops and their glass screens are an absolute disaster for any visual arts pros or other creative professionals.
Have completely missed the point. Given the amount of money that Mac folk are willing to splash out on stuff, then I really don't think money is the issue; the problem is the size of the machine.
Apple could probably save itself a ton of grief if they just built a Macbook Pro in a 13.3" chassis. Decent graphics card, charge a premium (y'know ... cause it's small) and the problem's solved. They could continue phasing out Firewire from the bottom end.
EXACTLY! (Though I'd rather they didn't charge too much of a premium.)
To me it's ok to show one's snob-attitude by using Apple products (This is would some university studies revealed).
But there are also people out there who just use Apple because it's easier and more comfortable to get things done with theses machines. These people need all CURRENT standard connectivity, as well as matte displays. That's a fact, and no whining of people loving old school equipment.
But it's as like Apple says:
New design. New features. New technologies.
All engineered to standards THAT DON'T EVEN EXIST, YET.
It's a safe bet that, in two or three years, the next generation of MacBook Pros will not include FireWire. Neither will the next generation of iMacs. Even the Mac Pros will eventually give up FireWire.
Even if Apple were to continue including FireWire on every Mac, within a few years Apple would be the only company producing FireWire products. My only surprise here is that Apple are phasing FireWire out slowly, rather than dropping it like a hot potato -- as they have done with other technologies in the past.
perhaps jobs (or whoever it is) will soon respond to the outrage over the lack of matte screen options.... firewire aside, these new laptops and their glass screens are an absolute disaster for any visual arts pros or other creative professionals.
It's a nonissue because it can be easily fixed with a screen overlays like the ones available for the iPhone.
Quote:
Originally Posted by melgross
Quite a few PC laptops don't have any media slot that can be used for FW. Some do. More and more lower cost PCs can't be upgraded any more than most of Apple's.
I defy you to show me one full sized (as in non-netbook*) PC notebook that does not have either a Cardbus or ExpressCard slot. I sold cheap laptops working at Staples during grad school and even the $200 special we had last black friday had full expansion capabilities. EVERY full sized notebook, from the tiny 10" Sony Vaio TT to the insane Alienware notebooks have these expansion slots, sometimes both.
*By netbook, I mean the class of computers that usually run Linux or Windows XP have super low powered CPUs and usually have small flash drives with 8-10" screens.
Quote:
Originally Posted by melgross
That's amazing. I guess no Apple machine before FW, was repairable either.
You are aware that before Firewire, target disk mode was implemented using SCSI, right?
My only surprise here is that Apple are phasing FireWire out slowly, rather than dropping it like a hot potato -- as they have done with other technologies in the past.
They do that because of the massive complains. Remember when they axed the FW800 on the MBP? That was their first attempt of phasing it out. It didn't work.
The lesson here is simple: Don't invest in NEW firewire products anymore. It's a warning shot... You can still get two laptops that support your old devices, but don't expect to be able to do so in two years.
This is really the most painless way of doing this. Nobody really depends on Firewire. Everything that uses it can be replaced by USB 2.0. It's just a temporary inconvenience like the Intel transition. (I mourn Firewire, too, but don't mind switching to a future-proof industry standard in the long run.)
It's a safe bet that, in two or three years, the next generation of MacBook Pros will not include FireWire. Neither will the next generation of iMacs. Even the Mac Pros will eventually give up FireWire.
Even if Apple were to continue including FireWire on every Mac, within a few years Apple would be the only company producing FireWire products. My only surprise here is that Apple are phasing FireWire out slowly, rather than dropping it like a hot potato -- as they have done with other technologies in the past.
That will be the day that hell freezes over. Tell that to Digidesign and M-Audio, Mackie and other Pro Audio equipment manufacturers that use firewire. My gripe is I would've liked to see 2 firewire ports on the Pro model. USB is still not as reliable as firewire. I've had my share of problems with it. Hey I have one of the last iPods that had firewire as well as USB2. Guess what when I use the USB to sync it to my Mac it some times drops out and screws up. I use firewire to sync it up it NEVER screws up. I guess it'll take USB3 to come close. But by then who will care about Apple by then. Because Windows 7 will be out too. I bet Steve Ballmer is having a good laugh at what's going on.
All that thread about Firewire is essentially emotional. Let's face and state the logical and physical fact: the space on the mother board.
As I noted before, and if you look closely, you will see that 90 % of the logic board is used up for power supply. Nowdays, CPU and chipset require multiple voltage sources, most of them adaptative so they can optimize for power. They work with very low voltages, typically for CPUs under 1 V, but since they still consume 30 W or so, that means being able to source more than 30 A — which is more than my home mains supply can.
Now, those voltages are stepped down from the battery own voltage. This is done using switch-mode DC-DC converters that use both a FET as a chopper and inductors/capacitors to filter out the ripples. The problem is that the more current you suck, the bigger those discretes must be. That's physical laws, Maxwell equations, Ohm law: a good power supply takes a minimum of space, and that minimum increases with current demand. And supplying high current requires a minimum of resistance, which means bigger wires, traces and discretes.
When that necessary space is taken into account, where to put the Firewire logic?
The most obvious response, and the most space-saving, is "inside the chipset". Alas, the nVidia chipset Apple has chosen DOES NOT support FireWire. This is no exception: no chipset I know does. They all have multiple USB 2 lines, but no FireWire. It has therefore to be implemented in an external chip. Given the speed of the interface, that chip has to be located as close as possible to the connector. Then, you have to route a full PCI bus from the chipset to the FireWire chip. Who has already routed logic boards? I have. I can tell you it's a pain, especially when space is so small.
Anyhow, there is simply no space available, contrarily to the 15" MBP which benefits from a larger logic board. Apple just kept whatever interfaces were built in the chipset: Gigabit Ethernet, USB, DDR3 support, DisplayPort, SATA (I wonder how the 802.11n and Bluetooth cards are accessed. Through a dedicated USB 2 link maybe?). They could not afford the increase of space Firewire support would have required, and there was no space to add a connector anyway: think they already had to develop their own mini-DisplayPort to save up space.
The loss of FireWire is unavoidable when you consider this simple facts. It is a logical consequency of the overall mechanical design: they have reclaimed the space they allocated to FireWire before. You can't have your cake and eat it.
I think that the future is certainly not firewire-based real-time capturing so I can understand the forward-thinking approach. If you shoot 3 hours of HDV footage, it's a pain to have to wait 3 hours to import it so you can edit it. Ideally, it would capture while shooting and then you just have a data transfer to deal with. Even at the laptop write speed of 20MB/s, a 60GB file should go over in 50-60 minutes, almost 1/3rd the speed of a real-time capture.
Hard drive or DVD-based camcorders aren't always as reliable as tape-based camcorders though and real-time USB captures can drop frames.
The biggest problem that a lack of firewire brings is for people who already own good, possibly expensive firewire-only camcorders because there is no solution. Apple are essentially requiring you to buy a new camcorder. Buying all new hardware or software due to an Apple design decision isn't exactly a new experience but it's not any more pleasant.
At the very least, why didn't they put on an extra USB port?
1. Perhaps you were just unaware of the benefits of Firewire.
2. Correlating "serious" with spending more money is fallacious.
3. We know this
4. Wow. Gestapo style "if you don't like it shut up" nice.
You guys are acting as if it's just consumers who are jaded about Apple hardware (that isn't a phone or mp3 player). The Press is getting tired of Apple "special" events only to walk out bored. When they walk in and get the Jobs Spin they know they've been had.
These laptops are BORING
Actually, you are beginning to sound boring.
But then, you appear to know even more than Steve Jobs.
This was a typical Prince McLean Apple shill article attempting to rationalize Apple's bad decisions. He is like an Apple version of Thurott, only worse. Here's what wrong-
He says there are numerous alternatives to Target Disk Mode- then neglects to mention they don't work if the Target computer isn't bootable, which is where TDM really comes in handy.
Actually, removing a non-bootable drive and attaching it via a USB bridge does work. What workaround are you having problems with?
Quote:
He talks about how FW isn't important in hard drives with the emergence of eSATA. Too bad not a single Mac includes eSATA ports.
Actually the article states, not what Mac users like, but the realities of the larger PC industry. Without FireWire adoption throughout the PC industry, there's no critical mass of adoption to bring component costs down. At some point, reality trumps idealism. Nobody is arguing that the lack of FireWire is a good thing, but describing a rational view as heresy because you have an emotional attachment to FireWire isn't really useful.
Quote:
Then he says it was because of a lack of space (total BS) and as a neccessary cost cutting measure. They raised the price $200 but can't afford the extra dollar or two it would add to their cost? Apple can surely make up for it with all the $30 Display Port adapters they're forcing people with external monitors to buy.
By your logic, adding a half dozen other ports would only cost an extra $12! I vote for Fibre Channel, USB 3.0, FW3200, eSATA, magic beans, and rainbows! And here's my $12. Where's my custom laptop?
Quote:
Others have detailed the "All new cameras have USB2" fallacy and not being a video guy I won't go over it myself. But being an audio guy I can say that audio interfaces and other audio gear overwhelming use FW exclusively especially the ones over $200. Now I can hear the response, "So get a MBP!" Now those with trust funds or those living in their parent's basements might not understand that $2000 for a computer is not a trivial expense even for people making decent money. Just because people are doing serious audio or video work doesn't mean they're raking in the big bucks, especially in today's economy.
So "today's economy" is the rationale for demanding that Apple support technologies rejected by the mass market, and instead jack up the price to to cover something most new buyers don't care about? Perhaps you have that backwards.
Quote:
In Apple's view, you're either Suzy Homemaker who uses a computer to check her Myspace page, build iTunes playlists, and transfer pics of her kids soccer games or you're an in demand professional with a personal assistant, a six figure budget and a view of the skyline from your office. There are TONS of us in between that.
Actually Apple's MacBook customers are mostly students and former PC users, neither of whom are likely to pay more for FireWire.
All that thread about Firewire is essentially emotional. Let's face and state the logical and physical fact: the space on the mother board.
As I noted before, and if you look closely, you will see that 90 % of the logic board is used up for power supply. Nowdays, CPU and chipset require multiple voltage sources, most of them adaptative so they can optimize for power. They work with very low voltages, typically for CPUs under 1 V, but since they still consume 30 W or so, that means being able to source more than 30 A ? which is more than my home mains supply can.
Now, those voltages are stepped down from the battery own voltage. This is done using switch-mode DC-DC converters that use both a FET as a chopper and inductors/capacitors to filter out the ripples. The problem is that the more current you suck, the bigger those discretes must be. That's physical laws, Maxwell equations, Ohm law: a good power supply takes a minimum of space, and that minimum increases with current demand. And supplying high current requires a minimum of resistance, which means bigger wires, traces and discretes.
When that necessary space is taken into account, where to put the Firewire logic?
The most obvious response, and the most space-saving, is "inside the chipset". Alas, the nVidia chipset Apple has chosen DOES NOT support FireWire. This is no exception: no chipset I know does. They all have multiple USB 2 lines, but no FireWire. It has therefore to be implemented in an external chip. Given the speed of the interface, that chip has to be located as close as possible to the connector. Then, you have to route a full PCI bus from the chipset to the FireWire chip. Who has already routed logic boards? I have. I can tell you it's a pain, especially when space is so small.
Anyhow, there is simply no space available, contrarily to the 15" MBP which benefits from a larger logic board. Apple just kept whatever interfaces were built in the chipset: Gigabit Ethernet, USB, DDR3 support, DisplayPort, SATA (I wonder how the 802.11n and Bluetooth cards are accessed. Through a dedicated USB 2 link maybe?). They could not afford the increase of space Firewire support would have required, and there was no space to add a connector anyway: think they already had to develop their own mini-DisplayPort to save up space.
The loss of FireWire is unavoidable when you consider this simple facts. It is a logical consequency of the overall mechanical design: they have reclaimed the space they allocated to FireWire before. You can't have your cake and eat it.
Thank you, EauVive. Very informative.
I suspected that there were technical reasons as well as Business reasons for dropping FireWire from the new MacBooks.
Some of the comments here are almost "terroristic" in their tenor, rather than simply emotional.
The biggest problem that a lack of firewire brings is for people who already own good, possibly expensive firewire-only camcorders because there is no solution. Apple are essentially requiring you to buy a new camcorder. Buying all new hardware or software due to an Apple design decision isn't exactly a new experience but it's not any more pleasant.
At the very least, why didn't they put on an extra USB port?
Is it not possible to transfer data from a camcorder to a dual-interfaced USB/FireWire disk? I mean, do the camcorders always act as slaves, or can they also be masters and transfer to an external peripheral?
As for the extra USB port, the same question returns: where to put it?
Someone wondered why they did not sacrifice the Gigabit Ethernet port for a USB to Ethernet adapter. But that's a joke: the USB throughput is a fraction only of what a GigaEthernet port can achieve...
Well I have used Apple products for 8 years now and the ONLY thing that I have used with Firewire
is iSight nothing else. Everything else is all USB 2: 2 HD, scanner, printer, camcorder, digi camera, multi mem card reader, iPod Touch. So to be honest I won't miss Firewire that much because I just don't use it very much beside my iSight. So I feel Job has made a good decision but he could of put another USB port to replace the Firewire port though.
If you are using FW800 then you aren't using a MacBook, so your point on this is moot since MacBook has never had a FW800 port.
My point was to show that USB is slower than FW400 and 800. It doesn't matter which one you use. Even if I was using FW400 with TimeMachine, I still wouldn't be able to imagine using USB to back up. Therefore my point is not moot just because I happen to own an MacBook Pro.
Anyhow, there is simply no space available, contrarily to the 15" MBP which benefits from a larger logic board.
I heard this argument with the first MacBook Pro in 2006. "There's no room for another port!". Guess what? The next version had it. They MADE room. Are you seriously saying that Sony can find room for a firewire controller and everything else this computer has on the TINY 11", 2lb VAIO TT (complete with Bluray burner), but Apple can't? Spare me.
Comments
Again, you do not get it. Without Target Disk Mode you cannot repair. Full stop. Or else open the case, place the disk elsewhere for Target Disk Mode, waste your time, break something and increase repair costs. How can people be so BLIND!!!??? It just costs 20 cents to implement Firewire!
APPLE: NO FIREWIRE, NO PURCHASE. The decision is yours.
That's amazing. I guess no Apple machine before FW, was repairable either.
The first B/W's and everything that came before.
Talk about being blind.
Quite a few PC laptops don't have any media slot that can be used for FW. Some do. More and more lower cost PCs can't be upgraded any more than most of Apple's.
I have certainly not looked at all models (I have not looked at vendors I would never buy from and that includes Dell, HP and Toshiba), so this could be right. But among the ones I have looked at in the 1200-1600 USD range (which I do not really consider low cost) I did not see a single one (other than really expensive sub-notebooks below 12") missing that feature.
And seeing that others can add a slew of useful features (and obviously some doubtful ones) to 12" devices being lighter and smaller than the MacBook (like in the mentioned Lenovo X200) or even smoke the MBP in connectivity and performance (like the W500) and still maintain the highest level of support almost all around the world and make profits, while Apple has to screw us on every single accessory and cannot even match that service outside the US... was quite an eye opener. In this regard I was quite happy about the keynote. A company that is arrogant and off-ground enough to invite the press to present nothing else than an improved manufacturing process (that did not even result in more competitive pricing), less features on every single item (except for the MBA which had none to start with) and a glossy 24" display that will not work with any existing Apple computer, is not the company that was leading the computer business with innovations for some years. All they have presented was "less for more".
Here's what will happen. You will accept it. You are Mac users; that's what you do, The alternative would, for one thing, mean admitting you were taken for a ride and you are not really the kind of people who are happy doing that.
Jobs is moving the platform back to a closed ecosytem the like of which the IT industry has only seen once before ... and Jobs was in charge of it back then too. The difference is that he has an incompetent Microsoft and clever marketing on his side, which is why he will succeed.
Take the Apple ads for instance. They are used to reinforce your sense of superiority so that when Apple pulls stuff like this, you won't actually do very much about it (apart from a little bit of online whining). Because what would be the alternative? Moving to Windows? But that would mean you'd be like the boring fat bloke with the specs. No, you'll stay right where you are and you'll take what you're given.
The Firewire thing is the right move I'm afraid. It is a shame, but Intel undercut Apple on the licensing charges (and at the time, Apple had no choice but to try to make some money from it) and so USB won out. They have no choice but to phase it out, which is precisely what they've been doing and if you could all just step out from the Apple church for the moment, you will see that they have been doing it in precisely the right order; working from the consumer devices, up to the professional level.
The mistake they have made is charging more and giving less. I'm not sure that this is the correct economic environment for something like that, but time will tell.
And of course, once Apple has tapped the fanboys who will buy shiny new Cupertino kit at any price, then the prices will come down to reasonable levels (and any kinks will have been ironed out too). So please, stop saying they're too expensive! The sooner the gullible ones have done their thing, then the sooner the rest of you can dive in at lower prices!
From what the more sensible people are saying, the real problem is not the removal of Firewire, but the lack of anything that comes close to replacing it. USB doesn't cut it. Also the folk who say stupid stuff like
'Just buy a Macbook Pro, ya whiney cheapskate'.
Have completely missed the point. Given the amount of money that Mac folk are willing to splash out on stuff, then I really don't think money is the issue; the problem is the size of the machine.
Apple could probably save itself a ton of grief if they just built a Macbook Pro in a 13.3" chassis. Decent graphics card, charge a premium (y'know ... cause it's small) and the problem's solved. They could continue phasing out Firewire from the bottom end.
I'm just happy my old 12" PBG4 is still going strong!
Also the folk who say stupid stuff like
'Just buy a Macbook Pro, ya whiney cheapskate'.
Have completely missed the point. Given the amount of money that Mac folk are willing to splash out on stuff, then I really don't think money is the issue; the problem is the size of the machine.
Apple could probably save itself a ton of grief if they just built a Macbook Pro in a 13.3" chassis. Decent graphics card, charge a premium (y'know ... cause it's small) and the problem's solved. They could continue phasing out Firewire from the bottom end.
EXACTLY! (Though I'd rather they didn't charge too much of a premium.)
But there are also people out there who just use Apple because it's easier and more comfortable to get things done with theses machines. These people need all CURRENT standard connectivity, as well as matte displays. That's a fact, and no whining of people loving old school equipment.
But it's as like Apple says:
New design. New features. New technologies.
All engineered to standards THAT DON'T EVEN EXIST, YET.
Even if Apple were to continue including FireWire on every Mac, within a few years Apple would be the only company producing FireWire products. My only surprise here is that Apple are phasing FireWire out slowly, rather than dropping it like a hot potato -- as they have done with other technologies in the past.
perhaps jobs (or whoever it is) will soon respond to the outrage over the lack of matte screen options.... firewire aside, these new laptops and their glass screens are an absolute disaster for any visual arts pros or other creative professionals.
It's a nonissue because it can be easily fixed with a screen overlays like the ones available for the iPhone.
Quite a few PC laptops don't have any media slot that can be used for FW. Some do. More and more lower cost PCs can't be upgraded any more than most of Apple's.
I defy you to show me one full sized (as in non-netbook*) PC notebook that does not have either a Cardbus or ExpressCard slot. I sold cheap laptops working at Staples during grad school and even the $200 special we had last black friday had full expansion capabilities. EVERY full sized notebook, from the tiny 10" Sony Vaio TT to the insane Alienware notebooks have these expansion slots, sometimes both.
*By netbook, I mean the class of computers that usually run Linux or Windows XP have super low powered CPUs and usually have small flash drives with 8-10" screens.
That's amazing. I guess no Apple machine before FW, was repairable either.
You are aware that before Firewire, target disk mode was implemented using SCSI, right?
My only surprise here is that Apple are phasing FireWire out slowly, rather than dropping it like a hot potato -- as they have done with other technologies in the past.
They do that because of the massive complains. Remember when they axed the FW800 on the MBP? That was their first attempt of phasing it out. It didn't work.
The lesson here is simple: Don't invest in NEW firewire products anymore. It's a warning shot... You can still get two laptops that support your old devices, but don't expect to be able to do so in two years.
This is really the most painless way of doing this. Nobody really depends on Firewire. Everything that uses it can be replaced by USB 2.0. It's just a temporary inconvenience like the Intel transition. (I mourn Firewire, too, but don't mind switching to a future-proof industry standard in the long run.)
Now Steve, let's hear about the glossy screens.
It's a safe bet that, in two or three years, the next generation of MacBook Pros will not include FireWire. Neither will the next generation of iMacs. Even the Mac Pros will eventually give up FireWire.
Even if Apple were to continue including FireWire on every Mac, within a few years Apple would be the only company producing FireWire products. My only surprise here is that Apple are phasing FireWire out slowly, rather than dropping it like a hot potato -- as they have done with other technologies in the past.
That will be the day that hell freezes over. Tell that to Digidesign and M-Audio, Mackie and other Pro Audio equipment manufacturers that use firewire. My gripe is I would've liked to see 2 firewire ports on the Pro model. USB is still not as reliable as firewire. I've had my share of problems with it. Hey I have one of the last iPods that had firewire as well as USB2. Guess what when I use the USB to sync it to my Mac it some times drops out and screws up. I use firewire to sync it up it NEVER screws up. I guess it'll take USB3 to come close. But by then who will care about Apple by then. Because Windows 7 will be out too. I bet Steve Ballmer is having a good laugh at what's going on.
As I noted before, and if you look closely, you will see that 90 % of the logic board is used up for power supply. Nowdays, CPU and chipset require multiple voltage sources, most of them adaptative so they can optimize for power. They work with very low voltages, typically for CPUs under 1 V, but since they still consume 30 W or so, that means being able to source more than 30 A — which is more than my home mains supply can.
Now, those voltages are stepped down from the battery own voltage. This is done using switch-mode DC-DC converters that use both a FET as a chopper and inductors/capacitors to filter out the ripples. The problem is that the more current you suck, the bigger those discretes must be. That's physical laws, Maxwell equations, Ohm law: a good power supply takes a minimum of space, and that minimum increases with current demand. And supplying high current requires a minimum of resistance, which means bigger wires, traces and discretes.
When that necessary space is taken into account, where to put the Firewire logic?
The most obvious response, and the most space-saving, is "inside the chipset". Alas, the nVidia chipset Apple has chosen DOES NOT support FireWire. This is no exception: no chipset I know does. They all have multiple USB 2 lines, but no FireWire. It has therefore to be implemented in an external chip. Given the speed of the interface, that chip has to be located as close as possible to the connector. Then, you have to route a full PCI bus from the chipset to the FireWire chip. Who has already routed logic boards? I have. I can tell you it's a pain, especially when space is so small.
Anyhow, there is simply no space available, contrarily to the 15" MBP which benefits from a larger logic board. Apple just kept whatever interfaces were built in the chipset: Gigabit Ethernet, USB, DDR3 support, DisplayPort, SATA (I wonder how the 802.11n and Bluetooth cards are accessed. Through a dedicated USB 2 link maybe?). They could not afford the increase of space Firewire support would have required, and there was no space to add a connector anyway: think they already had to develop their own mini-DisplayPort to save up space.
The loss of FireWire is unavoidable when you consider this simple facts. It is a logical consequency of the overall mechanical design: they have reclaimed the space they allocated to FireWire before. You can't have your cake and eat it.
Hard drive or DVD-based camcorders aren't always as reliable as tape-based camcorders though and real-time USB captures can drop frames.
The biggest problem that a lack of firewire brings is for people who already own good, possibly expensive firewire-only camcorders because there is no solution. Apple are essentially requiring you to buy a new camcorder. Buying all new hardware or software due to an Apple design decision isn't exactly a new experience but it's not any more pleasant.
At the very least, why didn't they put on an extra USB port?
1. Perhaps you were just unaware of the benefits of Firewire.
2. Correlating "serious" with spending more money is fallacious.
3. We know this
4. Wow. Gestapo style "if you don't like it shut up" nice.
You guys are acting as if it's just consumers who are jaded about Apple hardware (that isn't a phone or mp3 player). The Press is getting tired of Apple "special" events only to walk out bored. When they walk in and get the Jobs Spin they know they've been had.
These laptops are BORING
Actually, you are beginning to sound boring.
But then, you appear to know even more than Steve Jobs.
John
This was a typical Prince McLean Apple shill article attempting to rationalize Apple's bad decisions. He is like an Apple version of Thurott, only worse. Here's what wrong-
He says there are numerous alternatives to Target Disk Mode- then neglects to mention they don't work if the Target computer isn't bootable, which is where TDM really comes in handy.
Actually, removing a non-bootable drive and attaching it via a USB bridge does work. What workaround are you having problems with?
He talks about how FW isn't important in hard drives with the emergence of eSATA. Too bad not a single Mac includes eSATA ports.
Actually the article states, not what Mac users like, but the realities of the larger PC industry. Without FireWire adoption throughout the PC industry, there's no critical mass of adoption to bring component costs down. At some point, reality trumps idealism. Nobody is arguing that the lack of FireWire is a good thing, but describing a rational view as heresy because you have an emotional attachment to FireWire isn't really useful.
Then he says it was because of a lack of space (total BS) and as a neccessary cost cutting measure. They raised the price $200 but can't afford the extra dollar or two it would add to their cost? Apple can surely make up for it with all the $30 Display Port adapters they're forcing people with external monitors to buy.
By your logic, adding a half dozen other ports would only cost an extra $12! I vote for Fibre Channel, USB 3.0, FW3200, eSATA, magic beans, and rainbows! And here's my $12. Where's my custom laptop?
Others have detailed the "All new cameras have USB2" fallacy and not being a video guy I won't go over it myself. But being an audio guy I can say that audio interfaces and other audio gear overwhelming use FW exclusively especially the ones over $200. Now I can hear the response, "So get a MBP!" Now those with trust funds or those living in their parent's basements might not understand that $2000 for a computer is not a trivial expense even for people making decent money. Just because people are doing serious audio or video work doesn't mean they're raking in the big bucks, especially in today's economy.
So "today's economy" is the rationale for demanding that Apple support technologies rejected by the mass market, and instead jack up the price to to cover something most new buyers don't care about? Perhaps you have that backwards.
In Apple's view, you're either Suzy Homemaker who uses a computer to check her Myspace page, build iTunes playlists, and transfer pics of her kids soccer games or you're an in demand professional with a personal assistant, a six figure budget and a view of the skyline from your office. There are TONS of us in between that.
Actually Apple's MacBook customers are mostly students and former PC users, neither of whom are likely to pay more for FireWire.
All that thread about Firewire is essentially emotional. Let's face and state the logical and physical fact: the space on the mother board.
As I noted before, and if you look closely, you will see that 90 % of the logic board is used up for power supply. Nowdays, CPU and chipset require multiple voltage sources, most of them adaptative so they can optimize for power. They work with very low voltages, typically for CPUs under 1 V, but since they still consume 30 W or so, that means being able to source more than 30 A ? which is more than my home mains supply can.
Now, those voltages are stepped down from the battery own voltage. This is done using switch-mode DC-DC converters that use both a FET as a chopper and inductors/capacitors to filter out the ripples. The problem is that the more current you suck, the bigger those discretes must be. That's physical laws, Maxwell equations, Ohm law: a good power supply takes a minimum of space, and that minimum increases with current demand. And supplying high current requires a minimum of resistance, which means bigger wires, traces and discretes.
When that necessary space is taken into account, where to put the Firewire logic?
The most obvious response, and the most space-saving, is "inside the chipset". Alas, the nVidia chipset Apple has chosen DOES NOT support FireWire. This is no exception: no chipset I know does. They all have multiple USB 2 lines, but no FireWire. It has therefore to be implemented in an external chip. Given the speed of the interface, that chip has to be located as close as possible to the connector. Then, you have to route a full PCI bus from the chipset to the FireWire chip. Who has already routed logic boards? I have. I can tell you it's a pain, especially when space is so small.
Anyhow, there is simply no space available, contrarily to the 15" MBP which benefits from a larger logic board. Apple just kept whatever interfaces were built in the chipset: Gigabit Ethernet, USB, DDR3 support, DisplayPort, SATA (I wonder how the 802.11n and Bluetooth cards are accessed. Through a dedicated USB 2 link maybe?). They could not afford the increase of space Firewire support would have required, and there was no space to add a connector anyway: think they already had to develop their own mini-DisplayPort to save up space.
The loss of FireWire is unavoidable when you consider this simple facts. It is a logical consequency of the overall mechanical design: they have reclaimed the space they allocated to FireWire before. You can't have your cake and eat it.
Thank you, EauVive. Very informative.
I suspected that there were technical reasons as well as Business reasons for dropping FireWire from the new MacBooks.
Some of the comments here are almost "terroristic" in their tenor, rather than simply emotional.
John
The biggest problem that a lack of firewire brings is for people who already own good, possibly expensive firewire-only camcorders because there is no solution. Apple are essentially requiring you to buy a new camcorder. Buying all new hardware or software due to an Apple design decision isn't exactly a new experience but it's not any more pleasant.
At the very least, why didn't they put on an extra USB port?
Is it not possible to transfer data from a camcorder to a dual-interfaced USB/FireWire disk? I mean, do the camcorders always act as slaves, or can they also be masters and transfer to an external peripheral?
As for the extra USB port, the same question returns: where to put it?
Someone wondered why they did not sacrifice the Gigabit Ethernet port for a USB to Ethernet adapter. But that's a joke: the USB throughput is a fraction only of what a GigaEthernet port can achieve...
is iSight nothing else. Everything else is all USB 2: 2 HD, scanner, printer, camcorder, digi camera, multi mem card reader, iPod Touch. So to be honest I won't miss Firewire that much because I just don't use it very much beside my iSight. So I feel Job has made a good decision but he could of put another USB port to replace the Firewire port though.
You can connect two Macs with an Ethernet cable (buy a CAT 5e or 6), and it works quickly.
You mean direct connection through the Ethernet ports without a router in between?
If you are using FW800 then you aren't using a MacBook, so your point on this is moot since MacBook has never had a FW800 port.
My point was to show that USB is slower than FW400 and 800. It doesn't matter which one you use. Even if I was using FW400 with TimeMachine, I still wouldn't be able to imagine using USB to back up. Therefore my point is not moot just because I happen to own an MacBook Pro.
Anyhow, there is simply no space available, contrarily to the 15" MBP which benefits from a larger logic board.
I heard this argument with the first MacBook Pro in 2006. "There's no room for another port!". Guess what? The next version had it. They MADE room. Are you seriously saying that Sony can find room for a firewire controller and everything else this computer has on the TINY 11", 2lb VAIO TT (complete with Bluray burner), but Apple can't? Spare me.