Steve Jobs mad at complainers of no FireWire in Macbook

[richorlin]

incognegro wrote:

i'm not picking a fight, but why stand up for Apple, when this is clearly a problem for many people, dedicated customers and new customers alike?

I'm certainly not telling people what they should do. It's just that I've heard just about enough complaining regarding the lack of firewire on the Macbook, and it's not only just here. No amount of bitching is going to bring it back if Apple doesn't want it.
There are more important things in life to be concerned about. No one is forcing anyone to buy a laptop they don't want, but you know, as sure as you know anything, that Apple is going to sell a boatload of Macbooks.
So, all, if you can live without the firewire, then enjoy using the new Macbook, I know I will...if not, then move on to something else. Apple is not leaving you behind. You still have the option to buy a plastic Macbook with firewire. And keep in mind - we can't call it "the previous model" because it is still in their current product lineup.

And, by the way, this is not called a fight. It's a healthy discussion [LOL]

[vision63]

You don't really have a choice "but" to use firewire to import video from cameras that use tape. It's the only protocol that I know of that won't drop frames and it's the only interface that I have on my cameras. On the other hand, I think it's gonna die out eventually. It's easier to work with dv files than tape. That's only going to improve. Modern cameras are probably going to stick with files.

The MacBook is just moving towards that eventuality. Firewire is faster, but for all practical purposes, USB2 is plenty fast.

If you have cameras that use tape, the MacBook is no longer an option. You either get an old one or upgrade. I don't buy all of the drama about it not being there. I always wish people would get "as" riled up about the deteriorating quality of Apple's portable offerings in general. That's my opinion.

[Racer X]

richorlin wrote:
[quote=Paul F.]

And deleting features from the MacBook is going to entice new users... how, exactly?

Because new users never used firewire on a Mac before so they're not missing anything.
sure. tell that to a 16 year old that has never had sex. never had sex, so they obviously can't be missing it.......... YOU convince them of it and get back to me.....

[macphanatic]

incognegro wrote:
[quote=richorlin]

Because new users never used firewire on a Mac before so they're not missing anything.

Everyone should just get over it. If you don't like the fact that the new Macbooks are missing firewire, then don't buy one, or buy the previous model at a big discount. The majority of Mac users who absolutely need firewire for their pro video and audio equipment are probably already using a Macbook Pro.

#1: big, big assumption there.

#2: no, we should not. it's not like the floppy drive taken from the 1st iMac. you also make assumptions about Mac users who do Pro video.

i'm not picking a fight, but why stand up for Apple, when this is clearly a problem for many people, dedicated customers and new customers alike?
Many PC users have no idea what Firewire (or 1394) is or why they would want it. Those that do, don't see a need as they have used USB 2 for so long and probably don't have anything with Firewire ports.

I've experienced this first hand. Even with PC users that are technology savvy. They've bought into the USB 2 is as fast as firewire. They reluctantly added a firewire pci card when they realized that it was the only option to import from their dv camcorders.

I'm not defending Apple on this, as I believe that they should have put a Firewire port in the MB. I'm just not sure that the lack of a Firewire port is going to negatively impact their target audience.

I may wind up getting one. Firewire would be nice, but I have a Mac Pro for video editing and my current hardware is mostly USB 2 (or Firewire/USB 2) at this point so it doesn't really impact how I would use the MB.

[MacMagus]

> I've experienced this first hand. Even with PC users > that are technology savvy.

I've experienced the opposite.

A good friend of mine is a PC tech. He's recently purchased his third Mac. He often works from home, wandering around the house with his MacBook, remoting to his PC at work.

He watched me one night as I worked, casually swapping FW drives and repairing a drive in target mode and the techno-lust that it spawned sold him on Macs then and there.

[richorlin]

Maybe I'm missing something, but how does Firewire Target Disk mode help in diagnostics. What could be simpler than booting from an external USB drive and running disk utility on the problem drive, or Diskwarrior if you have it.

[deckeda]

Target Disk Mode and booting from an external drive (USB or FW) aren't the same thing.

It can be very helpful sometimes to be able to treat a sick Mac as a large external hard drive and poke around in it from within another machine. If you try to boot from an external drive you're still depending on the sick Mac's RAM and other hardware to be essentially whole, which it may not be. In such a case you also potentially threaten your external boot disk if bad hardware munges the OS on the external disk.

Target Disk mode has taken on added usefulness in recent years from Migration Assistant's appearance too, because Migration Assistant is all about transferring a huge chunk of data --- there is no better way to do that than to hook both computers up as if treating one of them as an external drive. Again, that's a real strength of FW.

[MacMagus]

richorlin wrote:
Maybe I'm missing something, but how does Firewire Target Disk mode help in diagnostics. What could be simpler than booting from an external USB drive and running disk utility on the problem drive, or Diskwarrior if you have it.

Booting from a USB drive does not provide the same utility at all. As was pointed out, if you do so, you're relying on the computer to be in perfect working order other than the boot drive and that's often not the case.

You'd also have to keep at least one spare boot/diagnostics drive on hand all the time and you'd have to be on top of all the latest OS updates to be able to boot the latest Macs.

(With the cables and power supply, that would double the weight of my kit since I'd still have to have either another hard drive or a laptop with FW to support PPC Macs.)

As for DiskWarrior... assuming that you have a version of the CD that can boot that Mac (a big assumption) and all other things being equal (which they're not), it still takes as much as 20 minutes to boot from a DW disc where target mode takes just a few seconds.

But even if it all works out great up until that point, all that it gets you is DiskWarrior. What do you do when DiskWarrior fails? What if DiskWarrior fixes the directory, but then the Mac still won't boot because of some other issue?

You have unfettered access to the contents of the boot drive in target mode, so you can easily (re)move and edit files from the GUI without enabling root. If the drive turns out to have major problems, you're immediately in a position to clone it or to copy important files before trying a dangerous repair or erasing the drive.

On top of that -- for some unexplained reason and only in the last decade or so -- the optical drives in Macs often get flaky when there are hard drive problems.

Target mode is not a panacea, but it's easily half the arsenal for the average Mac tech.



[Edit] Cut out some bad language.

[guitarist]

"You don't really have a choice "but" to use firewire to import video from cameras that use tape."

False. I have a new Sony HD Digital Video camera that uses tape exclusively, and has multiple connections, Firewire, HDMI, and USB.

[Speedy]

Firewire was dead the day USB2 came out. Every device maker was going to transition to USB2 in a matter of time.