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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.
It makes more sense for PC's sure, but Firewire is ubiquitous on all macs from 1999 on. USB 2.0 is new..
Flexibility is a good thing.
OCO is Loco
They did not include a firewire cable. There is still a firewire connector.
This was a cost savings move and nothing more.
And it makes the front page of /.
Why do I come here anymore?
SteveM
.Its important that people not misinterpret this headline... because it can been so easily misinterpreted. Apple is NOT backing away from firewire.
They are simply making a very logical business decision for their iPod line. There are a number of people who may opt to not buy an iPod because they do not have firewire inputs on their machine. Apple has got around this by including adapter cables in the past, but because the bulk of their business goes to Windows users (many of whom don't have firewire)... the cables are an unneded expense now that the iPod can be powered through USB2.
Firewire is still very intregal to Apple... the same way Firewire has become very intregal to the industry at large.
Apple is including USB2 instead of firewire because most windows boxes have USB2 instead of IEEE1394, and when they do have IEEE1394, it tends to be the 4-pin mini version without the power supply. Most of the iPods are bought by windows users (there are a whole lot more of them), so Apple exchanged firewire for USB2. Mac folk aren't hurt because most Macs (and all recent ones) have USB2 on them as well.
It doesn't mean that Apple is "backing away" from Firewire, just that they've done some market research, and are responding to their customers. Don't expect the firewire port to go away any time soon...
Another brilliant move by Apple. They know there are far more PC users out there (mostly without FireWire) and Mac users are usually big spenders.
Why not?
I know people buying Macs just because of iLife.
And Mac's still don't amount to a significant percentage of the market.
Apple has realized that, at the right price, they can be a huge player. We all know it isn't in the best interest of the end-user, but if Apple switches from Firewire to USB for most, if not all of their infrastructure, they can attain lower price points. And that's what its all about.
More
I mean, they must be, since no longer include a dock with most of the iPods.
They also must be backing away from alternating current power, since they don't include an AC adapter with iPod mini any longer.
...
Last I checked, IEEE 1394 had less overhead than USB. What this means is that more of the transmission on IEEE 1394 is your data than some kind of header information, which translates to faster downloads to the device. Think of the cell tax when using ATM-based networks. It's a similar concept.
Besides, VHS may have won the home video tape wars, but that didn't make it better than Betamax.
OCO is Loco
If anything, the news here is that Apple is selling a significant share of iPods to a) PC owners and b) not just gadget-freak PC owners with new, fully tricked-out systems but run of the mill PC owners.
What I'm listening to now on Pandora...
It's very much in theory, as a lot of computers don't hit 400MB/s no matter what is used.
If corporations are people, aren't stockholders guilty of slavery?
It's all about what standard catches on and sticks... The only ppl that really use Firewire extensively are doing Digital Video. USB ships with every PC, 98 of every 100 computers is a PC... New laptops don't even have LPT or Serial ports. CDRW killed Zip drives, and DVD-RW will kill CDRW. (I can't wait until the DVD players in cars get cheap).
You're saying that Apple is backing off support of Firewire because they're not including _the cable_ by default in the box.
OK, think about that. Now think about this: A majority of the people buying iPods have Windows PCs. I'm going out on a limb and saying most PCs I've seen do not have Firewire by default. So why include a cable that most people aren't going to use when you can leave it out, save money by leaving it out AND get more money when people have to buy the cable seperately.
Simple economics. So for all you tin-foil hat wearers:
Removing the Firewire cable from the iPod package does not mean they're backing off support for Firewire.
Removing the ability for the iPods to connect via Firewire DOES mean they're backing off support for Firewire.
But the latter has not and probably will not happen. The FW cable being included was just legacy from when iPods were Mac-only since most Macs had FW for sometime and USB1.1 was inadequate for transfering GB to the iPod.
I just wasted your mod points! HA!
I am glad for this, as firewire is less common than USB 2. The sooner we all agree on a single standard the better.
Yeah, but why does it always have to be the one that does not work as well?
As mentioned in some posts already, they are simply trying to save money, and not just backing away from Firewire entirely. Most iPod users now are Windows users who don't have firewire.
My guess is they are trying to standardize on USB to cut costs.
USB 2.0 is good enough for simple file transfer for 3-8 MB music files and pictures. Syncing an iPod doesn't copy over all 40 GBs of music files at the same time from one device to the other. Firewire is better for high end device connectivity and that big ass multimedia some Mac users are famous for.
There is a problem though... they are leaving their older mac customers a little cold. Many older macs only have USB 1.0 but have firewire. Macs were unfortunately slow to adopt USB 2.0 compared to windows. Intel was trying to compete with the firewire speeds by getting USB up to a comparable transfer rate. Now in order to buy the same thing a 2 year old windows user can use, they have to buy an extra cable at extra expense.
It could be argued that the company that sells computers considered to be "second class" to the computing world is making second class users out of their Mac/iPod loyalists. Irony doesn't begin to describe it.
"All great wisdom is contained in .signature files"
One other thing to remember. Besides being a cost cutting measure, this encourages users to migrate their iPods and other peripherals over to USB2.0 ... which will free up their Firewire port (and bus) (ie. on Apple laptops, etc. which only have one firewire port) for use with user's hi-def DV cams.
... it is the "Year of DV"
...
After all
-S
**AA: a bunch of mindless jerks who'll be the first against the wall when the revolution comes
After reading your post (actually I couldn't get all the way through), all I can say is wow.
Here is a guy who has trained himself well on endless PC-vs-Mac flame wars and has now graduated himself to more esoteric and sophisticated mental masturbations such as USB-vs-Firewire flame fests. Try going outside occassionally, or attempting to speak to someone of the opposite sex.
By the way, everything you say merely confirms that Apple is, indeed, backing away from firewire. WHY they are doing it (saving money, reaching wider audience, etc) is hardly important. The point remains that they are in fact backing away.
A firewire chip isn't that expensive, I doubt the main chip is $5 in volume. I think the only reason firewire isn't built into all PC chipsets is politics. If Apple was really backing away from Firewire, I doubt the mini would have a port.
This is only a means of eliminating extra components in the iPod box so the iPod itself can be cheaper without cutting margins much. Also, Apple eliminated the AC charger block with several models, and it's not as if Apple is trying to make it harder to charge an iPod - many PCs sufficiently power their USB ports to charge an iPod.
Firewire definitely has a place and generally performs better than USB2 for external hard drives, but the iPod hard drive isn't a speed demon. Besides, even if there was a speed difference for iPod transfers, once the files are transferred the speed difference wouldn't be more than a few seconds to transfer a new album.
Firewire's not going anywhere. It's the only standard right now that handles consistent streaming of video from a camcorder or other video source, and it's a preferred way for connecting external hard drives.
Apple is making a business decision to remove one cable and sell it seperately. This won't affect their video products or the fact that a firewire port will continue to be included on every Mac.
It's good to use your head, but not as a battering ram.
> Besides, VHS may have won the home video tape wars, but that didn't make it better than Betamax.
Ah but it was, at least when it counted. Beta was too slow to respond to VHS, which among other things, had longer playing tapes at a time when people wanted exactly that. Beta caught up, but too late.
In the end this allows Apple to sell their products for less and get rid or redundancy. Honestly, how many non- geeks benefit from having the option of a Firewire connection?
The real question: Is Apple backing away from AC adaptors?
The toad can't burp - and for some reason can't fart either, so it swells up and eventually explodes. --Anonymous Coward
Sometimes you just have to realize when something just isn't worth implementing. For this specific application, it just makes more sense to go with USB over Firewire. USB 2 works, and there's not enough of a problem with performance to justify the extra cost of adding Firewire to it as well. I highly doubt, however, that we'll ever see Apple using USB as the primary transport method for devices where a stable and reliable data stream is integral to their operation. USB just isn't suited to that task. There are places where USB shines (higher accessibility) and there are places where Firewire shines (more stable and higher bandwidth). Apple has simply decided that extra stability and bandwidth isn't needed for this application.
I'll buy "backing away from Firewire" when we stop seeing Firewire ports on their desktops. Not until then.
This is my post. There are many others like it. If you don't like what you read here, go try one of the others.
Considering the fact that they lowered the price MORE than $20... you don't have a point.
Boy, I couldn't disagree more! USB is great for low-speed connections to peripherals. That's what it was designed for. But I don't want my external hard drive to have to contend with the mouse for bandwidth! I want a separate, high speed connection for storage, which is exactly what Firewire is designed for. Of course, I can't possibly permit either the mouse or the hard drive to affect my refresh rate, so I definitely want a separate, high bandwidth connection for my monitor. And my network connection is sometimes pretty fast, but has severe latency problems, compared to my keyboard, hard drive, or monitor, so I'd like a separate connection for the network.
So lets, see, my Mac has USB for the keyboard and mouse, Firewire for my external hard drives, a VGA port for the monitor and a 10/100/1000 ethernet port for network. Looks just about perfect! Oh, and guess what, my iPod will plug into either the USB or the Firewire ports, how convenient!
"We have nothing in common, your attitude annoys me, and your political views are appalling."
That benchmark suffers from the common tendancy of FireWire advocates to measure only large sustained throughput. A number of benchmarks, like this one show USB 2.0 at a signifigant advantage when doing smaller reads.
Both have their advantages, and their place. The differences are likely inconsequential for the common use case - i.e. load up a bunch of crap, add and change incrementally from there on in - and packaging the cable for the nigh ubiquitous technology in the box makes a lot of sense from a cost reduction standpoint.
...is FireWire used as the only standard on all digital and HDV camcorders, professional cameras, and decks and VTRs?
...is FireWire required on all digital HD set top boxes beginning 1 July 2005?
...do all these high end consumer, "prosumer", and professional AV and computing devices ship with FireWire?
FireWire is *far superior* to USB 2.0 - for the things that its used for. We're not talking about keyboards and mice and printers here. We're talking about a high-speed, peer-to-peer (unlike USB, which requires a host) serial connection standard that USB 2.0 simply can't touch for many tasks. Just because you see overlap between them and USB is used for normal desktop peripherals doesn't mean USB "won".
If FireWire lost anywhere, it wasn't in computing. It was in the AV world: there was a chance to have FireWire be the universal connection standard for all AV equipment.
Imagine a cable that not only carries video and audio, but isn't intended for "final output", and also can carry control information between devices, and every device is a peer: picture one, single FireWire cable running between each of your devices, essentially chained off of one another, and each device automatically recognizing any other devices available, and self-configuring to expose the correct settings and options for dealing with those device(s), being completely hot-pluggable and dynamic, and also working seamlessly with your computer.
Yes, that really was the promise of FireWire.
Much of the failure in that realm is due to two things:
- Apple's early insistence to charge $1/port on each device that used FireWire/IEEE-1394 ports, and the requirement to use Apple's old FireWire logo (which included an Apple logo) to use the name "FireWire", which is inarguably the name that would have taken the standard the farthest; now Apple allows free licensing of the FireWire name; and
- Content providers' deathly fear of ALL of your devices - including your computer and recording devices - being able to communicate with each other easily, seamlessly, and digitally
(And, no, NO OTHER CURRENT STANDARD, including HDMI or any USB standard, could do everything FireWire could have done. Oh well.)
Your mistake is thinking of USB and FireWire as competing standards. They really aren't (except in the area of desktop storage device connectivity - see this post for a concise summary). Yes, USB is everywhere. And uh, in case you didn't notice, you have Apple in large part to thank for that with the original iMac, in which Apple included it in 1997, eliminating legacy ports - and the floppy drive - thus creating a burgeoning USB peripheral market that helped the PC world make the transition much easier (that it STILL hasn't really made...)
Nice troll, though!
Ok, good.
Now that we've established that Apple is "backing away" from FireWire, docks, and AC power, we must also presume that they're "backing away" from keyboards and mice, as the Mac mini no longer ships with them! Clearly, they're also "backing away" from screens: just look at the iPod shuffle!
It couldn't possibly be a decision made to save money! It must be tacit acknowledgment that the standard "lost", and now they're "backing away" from it.
Right?
If Apple sells the same percentage of iPods to Mac/Win owners as the 3%/95% mac/win computer ownership, or even close to those percentages, then chances are Apple is shipping pretty white firewire cables that most users aren't ever unwrapping.
This is just a case of serving your market. New Macs support USB 2.0 and iPod buyers that don't have USB 2.0 can purchase the FireWire cable.
Yeah it stinks that the APPLE owners are the ones to get burned on this deal, but it doesn't make sense to offer a feature most of your users cannot make any use of when an alternative feature exists that most can.
I only came here to do two things; kick some ass, and drink some beer...looks like we're almost out of beer.
If they are backing of firewire....Why do they put Firewire 800 on their machines?
I am glad for this, as firewire is less common than USB 2. The sooner we all agree on a single standard the better.
Ack! If you don't know what you're talking about, please don't talk.
There are many areas in which USB does not compare to Firewire. This isn't a field where we want to get rid of one just because it's less common than the other. Might just as well say we should drop Linux and Macs in favor of a single Microsoft Windows standard, because Windows is much more popular. Go find me a DV camera that has a USB 2.0 port and no Firewire port. USB is good for peripherals like keyboards, mice and printers. Firewire is good for higher bandwidth applications like digital video production and fast external storage drives. The two are not really in conflict, and even if they were, dropping Firewire would be the wrong answer.
That's also why this article is complete and utter FUD, because Apple is doing no such thing. The iPod still has a Firewire port, they are just saving a few bucks and leaving out the Firewire cable because most of the iPod buyers at this point don't use it (since most PCs don't have Firewire). Slashdot should really be ashamed for letting this kind of krud get to their front page. Ha!
Most USB printers these days don't even come with a USB cable! Are printer manufacturers backing away from connecting their printers to computers? Get over it, folks.
1) the author of the article is idiot
2) the story submitter is idiot
3) slashdot editors are idiot
4) all of above
Unfortunately Apple decided to use USB 1.1 on their "budget" lines until very recently, so the majority of Mac users have 1.1 machines.
I wouldn't want to transfer tens of gigs of music to an iPod with USB 1.1. It can do about 1 mbyte/s, so that's about 3.6 gigs per hour... 5.7 hours for 20 gigs, 8.5 for 30, 16.1 for 60.
'Course, my collection is 11 gigs, the subset I listen to is about 6, and when I transfer stuff to my shuffle the biggest slowdown is from transcoding to AAC (lower quality, but also lower battery usage and smaller files). It doesn't even get close to USB 1.1 speeds.
I rarely criticize things I don't care about.
I take it you've never seen the iPod's FW cable? Both FW and USB cables that came with my 4G 20G clickwheel are equally thin and flexible (and yes, white ;-)).
BHard drive based iPod are too expensive to get to most people.
That's a silly statement, and I think you know it. Who is "most people?" If you average it out over the whole world, even the least expensive, $100 iPod shuffle costs something like a year's wages. Of course the iPod is too expensive for most people.
So you have to define your market. Who is the iPod for? It's for people who listen to a lot of music, and it's for people who already own computers. That puts it pretty squarely in the 25-44, $40,000-a-year-and-up demo.
And as we've seen, the iPod is not too expensive for those people. In fact, it's taken off like gangbusters.
Most likely because having multiple ends for the cable will confuse most people. It's much simpler for the end user to have a single cable with a single thing to plug into.
Remember, much of Apple's appeal is based on simplicity, and they're delivering it here.
D
This is my understanding of Firewire compaired to USB 2.0
USB 2.0 has a through put of 480 but this is Bursts
Firewire has a through put of 400 this is a constant speed
Firewire is like driving down the highway at 100 mph
USB 2.0 is like driving down the highway at all difference speeds you can get up to 120 mph and as slow as 60 mph
USB 2.0 is great for many things but not everything Video must get constant speeds of 100 or better which only firewire can give
Apple will never give up on Firewire on the higher end Macs you get Firewire 800 USB couldn't keep up This will be really helpful for HD video that will send hugh chucks of data nto you Mac
These people are dedicated Mac fans, spending the substantial sums you pay for Mac quality, but they can't bear to pay a little extra to get a firewire cable? Not only that, but if they have a previous iPod with a firewire cable, I'm sure they can continue to use that cable if they upgrade.
Not to mention the fact that it is still cheaper now even if you have to add $20 to your total than to buy the old iPod.
Currently: 60GB iPod + FireWire cable = $449 + $19 = $468
In the past: 60 GB iPod = $599
Even if you want a dock ($39), you still save money.
People loves to complain, taht is all. If Apple sells 60GB iPods for $100, there will be those who complain that Apple should sell them for $50.
Linux wasn't commercial last time I checked. A copy of Linux sold by RedHat is not commercial software? Time to check again, Rip Van Winkle..
This is all much ado about nothing. If iPods go the way of injet printers, they won't include any cable at all. Apple started out the iPod as a Value Meal package, but is now only selling it with small fries, because the market shows people are willing to supersize. The only reason Apple includes any kind of cable is for newbies who would sue if Apple advertised transferring files and didn't include the ten-buck-cable to facilitate it. You can bet the Bluetooth iPod won't come with any wires at all.
As for abandoning Firewire, that's silly. As far as I know, there's never been a Mac with FireWire that didn't also have USB. The two standards complement each other, one is fast and expensive, the other is slower and cheaper.
Apple isn't selling a FireWire keyboard or a FireWire mouse either (never has, probably never will). The fact that some Apple devices use FireWire, others use USB, and yet others use Bluetooth, doesn't mean Firewire is dead.
Sorry, Chicken Little, that was just an Apple, not the sky falling. Nothing to see here, everyone move along, go about your business...
Initially IDE was never supposed to supplant SCSI technology.
... Seen this drama unfold before, slightly different venue each time.
... but not in the way you think. SCSI vs. IDE, Beta vs. VHS, FireWire vs. USB. In each case, there was a very small sliver of overlap between two standards. One standard came to dominate in that sliver while the other didn't. You mistakenly conclude that means that the other standard went away. It didn't.
It didn't. Fibre channel did. And at that, it only replaced the physical layer. FC storage devices use SCSI protocols. Again, that's a case where there was very slight overlap between two technologies. IDE is only useful for host-to-internal-storage interfacing, and with a limit of two devices per bus it scales very poorly for other applications. SCSI wasn't targeted for that application.
Remember BetaMax and VHS?
Bad example. Betamax was a consumer format, just like VHS. They were functionally equivalent and targeted toward the same customers. Which is not the situation between USB and FireWire. A better example would be Beta and VHS. Unless you work in television, you probably don't know that Beta is still around. As a matter of fact, that's very nearly all anybody uses in TV for recording standard-definition video.
So we come to USB vs. Firewire.
You're absolutely right
You're right that this is a case of history repeating itself. You're confused about just what that means.
I would have to disagree like everyone else about mac backing away from FireWire. The reason they are more than likely just going to be shipping USB with the iPod, is because most of the people that are purchasing the iPod have PC's. As most of you PC users know, generally PC's dont come with FireWire. And all Mac users know that every Mac you buy comes with FireWire. So they just decided to not waste the money for the FireWire cable, when most people aren't even using it, because in order to use it on their PC, they would need to install a FireWire PCI card. Why waste the money when you already have USB? And why would Mac waste the money producing the FireWire cables, when they're not even being used? It saves them money (maybe only a few cents, but that few cents adds up). But as for removing FireWire ports from Macs, I don't ever see that happening.
And Mac's still don't amount to a significant percentage of the market.
1. Apple just had the highest-revenue, highest-net profit quarterly results in the history of the company. They have extraordinary cash flow, profitable margins, low debt, and have a cultural appeal (the "it" factor) that no other PC manufacturer in the world can claim... nor Microsoft.
2. Porsche, Lamborghini, Maybach Manufaktur, McLaren, Ferrari, Rolls Royce, Bentley, Aston Martin, Rolex, Vacheron Constantin, Patek Phillipe, Longines, Kate Spade, Miller & Kreisel, etc. each don't amount to a "significant percentage" of their respective markets... but I doubt their employees and executives are complaining.
Lastly... as for the actual allegation regarding firewire: Apple is introducing the H.264 codec with Quicktime 7, which will be a key technology in High Definition DVD authoring. They also pioneered the DVCPRO HD firewire protocol with Panasonic. Apple also is the first software manufacturer to provide HDV-spec support. HDV is the new MPEG-2 compressed HD format that will, of course, utilize firewire for transport to editing suites like Final Cut Express HD and Final Cut Pro HD.
I don't see Apple's executive management complaining about the extremely desirable status they've positioned the brand into, or the extraordinarily profitable economy of scale in which they comfortably reside, and it's clear that they aren't backing away from firewire... end of discussion.