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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.
Backing away?
Certainly not. FireWire is still integral; it is the standard for communication with a DV camcorder; it is important to the function of iMovie. The iLife suite is a big draw. I know people buying Macs just because of iLife.
Arguments of which standard is better aside, USB 2.0 is more widely available. As the article states, "It's more cost efficient to ship with one cable rather than two, and USB is more broadly supported on both platforms." It's not Apple backing away, it's Apple making a business decision. If they later remove FireWire support from the device, then you can get upset.
Using USB in the Shuffle was key because the, as mentioned, USB 2.0 is more broadly supported, and the connector is built it. Using FireWire on the Shuffle would have prevented it from reaching its target audience.
Apple is trying to save money and drop prices at the same time. Sure it sucks for us FireWire users. I have several FireWire peripherals and will probably spend the extra $20 getting the FireWire cable when I get my next iPod (hopefully soon). But it's a luxury, because I have USB 2.0 anyway.
That what was all this school was for... to teach us how to solve our own problems. -- janeowit
...they fired the fire wire wire!
A programmer is a machine for converting coffee into code.
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.
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...
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
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?
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.
Apple *was* spending a lot of money licensing the FireWire name from...you know...that company that has the rights to the FireWire name.
pooptruck
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
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.
That tells it all. Apple is keeping FireWire, of course. The C|Net "oh my God, we're gonna DIE" headline aside, FireWire is still a very important technology for Apple, particularly because of their investment in FireWire for DV. The distinction is in how a more nuanced Apple is handling it. In the old days Apple would have kept FireWire cabling in the box simply because they felt FireWire was a better technology.
These days Apple has a much, much firmer grip on the realities of the consumer electronics and computer markets, and decisions like this bear that out. As Oculus Habent stated, it does suck for FireWire users, but it's not a terrible burden to bear to have to buy a FireWire cable. This is a case of Apple keeping costs down in an effort to stay one step ahead of the competition.
Read the EFF's Fair Use FAQ
You mean I didn't need that 8" thick diamond cable I bought for my digital optical transmissions? You can hear the diamonds! Hear them, I tell you!!!
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?
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 have to agree with you wholeheartedly.
/.
... I'm beginning to think this site is dead and we just don't know it yet.
This was a cost savings move and nothing more.
And it makes the front page of
Why do I come here anymore?
I'm starting to wonder the same thing. Slashdot has never been known for its "vetting" of stories, or even much editing of the captions, but the last few weeks it's become really terrible. Stories spinning the broadcast flag and attempted banning of digital HDTV VCR-like hardware as "piracy prevention", pro-ms stories rearing their heads more and more in what is (or was) supposed to be a free software/opensource news and discussion forum, and an ever increasing number of flat-out misleading headlines that misrepresent TFAs, and links to TFAs that are flagrant products of MPAA/RIAA shills
Anyone know of any decent competitors out there?
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
Doesn't that make me awesome? I am an authority. It only came with firewire. I din't know what firewire was until I got an iPod. It was pretty fast. I liked the color. It was white like the iPod.
One time I left the wire at a friend's house. Long story, don't ask. It involved making a CD. And then I couldn't use the firewire. I had a conversation on the phone and gave a bunch of reasons why I needed the firewire. My friend thought his house was going to catch on fire and he got very scared.
Long story? NO it is very short. But the key thing is that USB is a bit easier to find at Circuit City. It takes longer to say. Maybe Fire wire can be shortened to FI WI.
Anyway. I love animals. I want to get a iPod Photo so I can keep pictures of deer on it. Does it take USB or FI WI?
THanks you president Washington.
I JUST bought an iPod Photo and it came with both cables.
Sigpilot : I'm in the pipe, 5 by 5.
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 guess you can't boot of the iPod anymore. I know you are not supposed to but it was a nice feature. Or is it still possible with USB2?
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"
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.
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.
I would bet money there are more Windows iPod users now then Mac. PCs, for the most part, do not have and do not come with firewire. USB is far more common.
Plus they get the 19.99 from people who want firewire cables.
Geez...
this made out to be a big freaking deal.... it's not
now microsoft selling products to protect you from their insecure products... that's disturbing
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
"We, as dedicated users and supporter of your hardware and software are completely dismayed at your recent decision to discontinue standard FireWire support for the iPod music player line," the petition states, going on to note that "It is very unfortunate that you have left your faithful out in the dark on this one."
"Completely dismayed??" Seriously? Not only do these people apparently have no lives such that the discontinuing of standard firewire support would leave them completely dismayed, but APPLE ISN'T EVEN DISCONTINUING FIREWIRE SUPPORT! They're just not including a cable in the box.
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.
Now, I do think it would be nice if Apple gave an option between USB and Firewire, but this is really NOT a big deal.
Thinkin' Lincoln - a web comic of presidential proportions
With firewire at 800mbps and USB2 at 840mbps, why use firewire at all?
Do you plan on housing more than the max supported items on one USB channel (127 devices)?
Firewire supports only 63 devices...
SO why support a loosing standard?
--E--
As for USB v FireWire, don't judge "better" in terms of how elegantly engineered each product is. There are obvious parallels to Betamax v VHS. The difference in performance is generally not significant for most people. USB is in markets FireWire isn't interested in, such as low bandwidth applications like keyboards, mice, printers etc, (though to be fair USB has little penetration in the DV market). USB is cheaper. USB has become standard on PCs, largely because it started as a replacement for existing functionality that most people used: the PS/2, serial and parallel ports, while FireWire replaces external SCSI - something comparitively few people use. IMHO, FireWire is just hanging on, right on the edge of being relegated to being solely used in the niche market of DV. It's use in set top boxes might be it's saviour.
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
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.
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.
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!
Actually, you're completely wrong.
Mac OS X is actually the number one shipping UNIX/UNIX-like OS in the world, surpassing Linux and all commercial UNIXes.
Yes, surpassing Linux.
No, not just on the desktop.
Yes, even servers.
(Okay, maybe not on embedded devices, but definitely in computers/servers/workstations. By far.)
Apple, in unit shipments, is the largest vendor of UNIX systems in the world. They may not be used in the same fashion, but Apple completely eclipses "unix/solaris/linux/bsd" in shipped units, in fact ridiculously so.
"With the release of Mac OS X, Apple became the largest vendor of Unix in the world"
"There are over 5 million Mac OS X users, including scientists, animators, developers, and system administrators, making Apple the largest vendor of UNIX-based systems."
A lot more...
This has been common knowledge for a couple of years now.
And to repeat. THIS INCLUDES SERVERS. There are now over 12 million Mac OS X systems in use (source: 23:40 of WWDC keynote). This by far eclipses shipments by all other UNIX/UNIX-like system vendors. Apple is the single largest vendor of UNIX-based systems in the world, bar none.
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.
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.
If they are backing of firewire....Why do they put Firewire 800 on their machines?
Wow, you used Mbits/second, MB/s, and Mb/s all in the same post to mean the same thing.
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!
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)
A really low user ID, and that makes me cool.
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
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
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 ;-)).
BIt'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/
"...and his portable Mac is a tool to edit and manage photos."
There's nothing wrong with that, computers are primarily supposed to be tools to get things done. These days the tinkering aspect is fairly minor part of personal computing - the 70's are long gone (ahh, mis-spent youth: the thrill of new technologies like LEDs and the 4000 series CMOS logic family, hand wiring bit-shift registers...sigh...). But your blanket statement "they suck" (and your explanation why) shows that you could learn from your teacher's approach: use the tool that's does the job you want. For example, would you recommend a PC to a non-geek classmate on the basis that YOU know how to fix spyware, viruses, etc, or would you suggest they get a Mac because THEY won't NEED to fix those problems?*
"I like to get under the hood and tweak the system, and I find that hard to do on the Mac."
Which is probably one reason your school uses Macs: fewer "experts" to "optimize" the performance (try running a lab sometime...argh!). But seriously, if you really want to tinker with Macs, might I suggest you go to VersionTracker and pick up Clix (100KB; tiny!), which is a GUI wrapper for a few thousand terminal commands, each with a description so you aren't guessing what it does. I think you'll be pleasantly surprised just how easily configurable OS X is if you are prepared to...well, tinker. And if hardware floats your boat, you couldn't ask for a more tinker-worthy case than the G3/G4 tower form. Plus, you get the added excitement of finding compatible peripherals or chipset-compatible drivers...I've hacked drivers for Ethernet and USB cards, and the odd 802.11b adaptor in both OS 9 and X. Fun!
I'm not trying to convince you to ditch the PC in favour of Macs or that one is superior to the other, what I'm saying is if you're at day one when it comes to the OS you're in the position where you can enjoy discovering it's capabilities; remember how much fun that was the first time round? Go nuts, the worst that will happen is learning, and that's never a bad thing.
*I suppose that comment, though true, classifies me as a fanboy. Which reminds me of an anecdote: a couple of years ago, a collegue spent hours trying to convince me that Windows 98 was the most stable version of Windows ever, because "you only have to re-install it every six months". I tried telling him that my idea of stable was "you only have to re-START every six months", but he simply didn't believe it was possible. The pain, the pain...
Blank until
Know what's fun? Holding your cool the umpteenth time someone on campus with a legacy Mac spots an old parallel printer lying around and thinks "Ooh! Free Printer!" and plugs it into the SCSI port...
"Win treats sysadmins better than users. Mac treats users better than sysadmins. Linux treats everyone like sysadmins."
Actually, it's interesting this is brought up - because not too long ago, I recall reading a number of messages on Apple's own message forums from users encountering problems with their iPod syncing properly on Macs via firewire.
After much testing and speculation, folks seemed to pretty much determine it was a problem caused by Apple's iSight firewire camera combined with an iPod on the firewire interface. Apparently, the iSight, when turned on, consumes the majority of the bandwidth on the firewire 400 bus. Trying to xfer large amounts of data to an iPod while it's on can lead to crashes/freezes.
This is probably made even worse when people have an external firewire drive attached and use it as part of this equation.
Considering how often Mac users opt for an iSight camera to go with their system, this seems like an issue worth addressing. I almost wonder if Apple thought about this one too - and figured a migration of iPods to USB might be an easy work-around?
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.
Back in 1997, Firewire was going to be the connector everywhere in PCs, in and out. IDE, SCSI, external -all 1394b. Even laptop docks
But then apple demanded $1 per port, which would mean $5-$10 per PC, plus something for every peripheral.
The result: USB2.0. That's right: USB2 came into existence primarily because of Apple's pricing strategy for 1394 ports.
So it is kind of ironic that they are not shipping firewire on ipods to better serve the PC market. If they hadnt got greedy, there might not be a USB2.
USB2 was Intel's bus of choice from the get-go. They pushed the standard hard to chipset/mobo manufacturers. Why? Firewire controllers have much more integrated logic, aleviating much of the io overhead from the CPU. USB controllers rely on the CPU to a much greater extent to sheperd the data to and fro. Which standard do you think a CPU maker would promote?
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.