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Apple Backing Away From FireWire
farmdwg was one of several readers to submit stories about Apple backing away from FireWire. The latest generation of iPods no longer ship with FireWire cables, but instead use USB 2... although FireWire can still be purchased seperately.
I was just waiting for this to get posted.
Apple is not "backing away" from FireWire.
What's happening is that the iPod is shipping primarily to Windows PC owners. Many of whom, you know, don't have FireWire. And for the small minority who do, it's anyone's guess whether it's a 4-pin or 6-pin connector.
But they all have USB, and most, USB 2.0.
Apple also isn't shipping some iPods with a dock. Does that mean Apple is also "backing away" from the iPod dock?
What Apple is doing is a cost saving measure, plain and simple. ANYONE on any machine running Mac OS or Windows can use USB for syncing, and most of these customers have USB 2.0. including all recent Macs. And if you really want a FireWire cable, you can get one. I really don't see the problem. The iPod retail boxes are also now not platform-specific, as they were previously.
And far from "backing away" from FireWire, Apple is one of the primary members of the 1394 Trade Association, an Apple employee is the Chairman of the Board of the 1394 TA, an Apple employee has perennially been chair of the IEEE-1394 working group, Apple now allows free licensing of the "FireWire" name and logo for all 1394 products, and Apple is shipping 1394b (FireWire 800) on almost all of its products, save some of the "consumer" oriented products, and ALL Apple computers include FireWire. Many include both FireWire 400 (6-pin) and 800 (9-pin).
FireWire is FAR more robust than USB 2.0, and even FireWire 400 is faster in all benchmarks than USB 2.0. FireWire doesn't require a host as USB 2.0; all devices can be peers of one another. Additionally, the latest iterations of FireWire supports speeds up to 3.2 Gbps. There are wireless FireWire over 802.11x implementations planned. See the FireWire 800 Tech Brief for more information.
Additionally, all digital video cameras and decks, including new HDV cameras and decks, include FireWire as the primary - or only - connectivity. Further, starting 1 July 2005, all cable operators must provide a functional FireWire port on all HD digital set top boxes.
So no, Apple isn't "backing away" from FireWire. It's saving money on the new round of iPods by including a cable that 100% of its purchasers are guaranteed to be able to use, instead of a FireWire cable that the Mac users might be able to use, but the vast majority of PC users won't, and even if they HAVE FireWire, would have a 50/50 chance of being the wrong one. Not to mention that Apple got away from the iPod "for Mac" and iPod "for Windows" delineation and now ships them generically for both platforms.
Licensing?! Not only did Apple invent FireWire, they [finally] offered the name to the IEEE 1394 spec for free. There is no license fee.
It does require additional components, and I can't speak to the cost or battery consumption thereof. I doubt it adds more than $10 to the manufactured cost... probably less.
That what was all this school was for... to teach us how to solve our own problems. -- janeowit
Apple stops including a firewire cable stock in the box.
No change in iPods themselves or in functionality or in future functionality as far as anyone can tell. Apple knows most PC users throw the firewire cable in a drawer or leave it in the box.
If you want to use firewire and don't already have an extra cable you'll need to buy one. (Or hit up your PC using friend for their old one.)
Okay... I'm still not seeing the story here.
=tkk
Bill Gates - Creationist?!?
I see no real advantages to using firewire. "Firewire is faster" is a complete non-issue, since the hard drive(s) in the iPod(s) are not fast enough to keep up with either interface. Comparing the theoretical or real world speed of the two is just wasted breath. USB ports are more ubiquitous on most machines, especially since the product is 100% cross platform now. Even on my Macs, I have quite a few more USB ports than firewire ones, which means less swapping when I want to plug my camcorder, iPod, iSight, and hard drive in at the same time. And if it can charge just as well over USB, I could care less that it's not firewire.
My sig is blank, I typed this by hand.
You do realize that when transferring the 1's and 0's that compose the audio files you are downloading to your iPod that the method in which they are transmitted has no impact on the audio quality whatsoever, right?
I mean, you could stand on one hill, and I could stand on the other, and I could turn my flashlight on and off and send you the millions of 1's and 0's that compose the MP3, and when you typed them all into the computer the file would sound just as good.
Digital != Analog.
USB 2 has a max of 480Mbits/second. FireWire 400, fairly obviously, has a max of 400MB/s, and 800 has...800Mb/s. All in theory - in the real world, obviously varies according to device application.
I use USB 2.0 for transferring songs to the iPod at home and the firewire cable at work for recharging it. The A/C adapter plugs into the iPod only via the firewire cable.
get nemulator
They would have to maintain two SKU of every item (Firewire and USB) and at that point it would probably cost just as much to put both cables in each box.
Also, retailers probably wouldn't stock the Firewire version since there's less of a market need for it.
I'm sure if Apple thought it would sell, they would do it. As it is, Apple cables are $20 and aftermarket cables will probably be even cheaper.
I don't remember where I read the article, but back when USB2 was brand new, a comparison was done -- the end result was that speeds were comparable, although FireWire was slightly faster and required less CPU overhead (something about FireWire being handled by a separate card, but USB2 being partially CPU-driven).
My memory could be faulty, of course, so your takeaway should be this: not much speed difference.
I also like being able to daisy chain my external drives via FireWire, which you can't do with USB2. you can chain USB2 if each device has a hub built into it, however daisy chaining USB is stupid because it slows down every device on the line to use one of them.
Snowden and Manning are heroes.
I JUST bought an iPod Photo and it came with both cables.
Sigpilot : I'm in the pipe, 5 by 5.
Please. Anything by Ina Fried regarding Apple is always, and I mean always spun to slam Apple. Even positive articles end with a "but, so and so on a blog says." Seriously. Quotes from blog or forum authors on negative aspects of whatever decision Apple has made. In a "newspiece." Really.
But, don't take my word for it, just notice the next time Ina writes about Apple (or search on Google for previous articles). This really is the epitome of hack writing.
To wit: the "subheading" on the 2nd page of this article is "Who's a niche technology now, huh?" setting up the entire thing as some sort of vindication on the USB v. FireWire wars.
As others have noted, this is a business move to cut costs by not shipping a FW cable. That's it. No cable.
I truly believe Ina does this to draw eyes to CNet.
(also check out Ina's "breaking" news from Microsoft...ever couple of weeks there's an article with the tag "CNet has learned" that wraps a puff piece pushing some new MS technology. "Hi Ina? This is X from Microsoft. Here's a scoop. Oh, and here's the article you're supposed to write. Thanks and nice article on FireWire the other day!")
More likely, this is just because USB is more ubiquitous and it's cheaper to ship one cable than two.
Has Firewire Really caught on?
/. subscription, I would now be demanding a refund. This kind of crap should be unacceptable even for an amateur blog. I certainly wouldn't want to be responsible for funding it.
I mean is USB 2 good enough? Or do we need it?
Good enough for what? Firewire and USB are fundamentally different. Firewire isn't as ubiquitous as USB due mostly to marketing, but you won't find any digital video cameras with USB 2.0 ports instead of Firewire ports. Firewire isn't going anywhere, and neither is Apple backing away from it. Every Mac made in the last few years comes with at least one Firewire 400 port (powered 6-pin port, even on the little iBooks!) and new Macs also have Firewire 800, which blows USB 2.0 away speedwise almost as bad as Firewire 400 outstripped USB 1.1. Well, not quite, but it does kick ass.
Main point being, Apple would be totally insane to "back away" from Firewire in any way. This whole article is utter nonsense.
Firewire has a great many advantages in design, most of which I'm not qualified to describe, but one important thing to many of us is that Firewire drives are bootable on any Mac with a Firewire port. AFAIK you can't boot from USB devices on a Mac. Anyone doing DV work uses Firewire. It has more than enough bandwidth for even the fastest external hard drives. And that's just Firewire 400 (IEEE 1394a) not the new Firewire 800 (IEEE 1394b).
If you read the post carefully and don't even bother with the article, all it says is that you have to buy the $20 Firewire cable separately. In other words, the iPod still has Firewire built-in! Hello, McFly! This is merely to save costs since most of the buyers of iPods these days are PC users, most of which don't have Firewire, so the cables are being wasted if most of the users never use them. Now that (as another poster stated) the new iPods aren't platform-specific like previous versions, they can't do separate packaging for Windows users.
What's the big deal? If the iPod has a standard Firewire connector you don't even have to buy the cable from Apple. Get one from your local computer store or Newegg.com or Cyberguys.com and save a few bucks. Get one with a 4-pin connector to fit your PC laptop if it doesn't have a standard 6-pin connector. I would have to do this for my laptop.
I'm not too bright most days, but even I can state with certainty that this Slashdot article is pure, unadulterated F.U.D. Total bullshit. As we all know this isn't a real news site. If it were, any editor who let crap of this magnitude be posted on the front page would be looking for a new job.
I can also say this: If I had paid for a
What the hell?
This must seriously be a joke, right? First, to clarify, Firewire 400, which the iPod uses, runs at 400 megabits per second, not 800. Firewire 800 runs at 800 mbps. Secondly, USB2 runs at 480 megabits per second, not "840," so I just don't know where this came from. Aside from the fact that all these figures are theoretical maximums and not real-world performance, it's not particularly likely that ANYONE is going to notice the difference between 400 and 480; the real bottleneck is the iPod's hard drive, not the bus.
As for the maximum number of supported items...puhLEEZE. Who in the whole world would ever have more than 63 devices? I think if you have that many, you can afford to just buy a FireWire PCI card, eh?
Conclusion, you're an idiot.
Take off every sig. For great justice.
Wrong. Firewire is 400mbps, Firewire 2 is 800mbps, usb 2.0 is 480mbps. Dayton
Gone!
You're kind of looking at it the wrong way. You're thinking of FireWire and USB 2 as competing technologies, two interfaces that do the same thing. That's not really right.
USB 2 will never take the place of FireWire for video. I mean, it just can't. FireWire 400 can be used to transport either compressed or uncompressed standard-definition video reliably; USB 2 can't. FireWire 800 can be used for studio-quality compressed HD; USB 2 can't come close.
On the other hand, you'd never plug your keyboard into your FireWire port.
So don't think of them as equivalent. They're not. They're two totally different technologies that happen to overlap in small-scale desktop mass storage. That happens to be the niche that the iPod fits into, so that's why we're talking about it.
For iPod users, it probably doesn't matter whether they pick USB 2 or FireWire. But for all those other applications, there's a clear delineation between the two interfaces.
Firewire has a great many advantages in design, most of which I'm not qualified to describe, but one important thing to many of us is that Firewire drives are bootable on any Mac with a Firewire port. AFAIK you can't boot from USB devices on a Mac. Anyone doing DV work uses Firewire. It has more than enough bandwidth for even the fastest external hard drives. And that's just Firewire 400 (IEEE 1394a) not the new Firewire 800 (IEEE 1394b).
:)
A point of contention. Firewire 400 allows a maximum of 50 MBps but realistic throughput is around 30 MBps (LaCie has data on this). A 7200 rpm 3.5" IDE drive can r/w at around 80 MBps. That's why Firewire 800 is attractive to some.
However, that's not why DV people use firewire. They use it because it is the standard. Digital video is fixed at around 3.3 MBps, which USB 2.0 can handle, but USB is not the standard
You're right about booting though. I can even boot my Mac from a Firewire enclosure holding an NEC DVD+/-RW and Apple's install CD.
To be clear, the "5 million" figure is referenced in a document that is over 2 years old.
The "12 million" figure is from June, 2004 (source: 23:40 of WWDC keynote)
As of January 2005, the figure is now over 14 million. (Source: 5:20 of Macworld Expo San Francisco 2005 keynote)
No, it's not. SCSI stands for Small Computer Systems Interface. Why would you want 50-80 wires for a serial interface?
Karma: Incomprehensible (Mostly affected by posting at +5, reading at -1, and metamoderating everything unfair.)
I don't know if the messages are similar but both SCSI and IEEE1394 are register-based protocols; stuff something into a register, and tell the device what to do with it. The two have completely different cabling but both are designed from essentially the same standpoint. Plus, the slowest 1394 bus is 400Mbps. They are now up to 800Mbps in selling products and 1Gbps in test products. 800Mbps is 100MBps, which is pretty healthy. 1.6Gbps is supposed to be coming (200MBps) and 3.2Gbps (400MBps) over fiber is supposedly on the roadmap. That's actually faster than the fastest SCSI currently available...
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
I find it hard to believe that *not* including a Firewire cable really makes a big difference financially. I mean if you look around on the web, you can easily find Firewire cables for just a couple of bucks. If Apple is selling millions of iPods, and can therefore guarantee a supplier it will order millions of Firewire cables, it should be able to get them for just a dollar or so, or perhaps even less. I like the option of have two different packages--one with a Firewire cable, and the other with a USB2 cable. That way you pick what you want/need, and the "faithful" with old USB v1.1 Macs do not get screwed...
--codguy
Sorry, but it's already 'implemented'. The iPod still supports FireWire just like before.
The *ONLY* difference is that they are no longer shipping the FireWire *CABLE* by default. That's it. That's the only change.
It's *only* the iPod minis (and the Shuffle, which is USB-only anyway) that omit the firewire cable. All of the "regular" iPods, including the 20 gig model and both varieties of iPod photo, still come with firewire.
http://www.apple.com/ipod/specs.html/
I've always gotten a keyboard and mouse with my Macs. It's sort of a bone of contention, in fact. See the Macs only have one mouse button argument in any number of threads.