Intel iBooks to drop FireWire support? | Applematters Forums

Intel iBooks to drop FireWire support?

Buzz Bumble Total Posts: 401 Joined 2005-09-16	Posted: 09 December 2005 01:29 AM From MacRumors ... New Apple Portables To Drop FireWire Support? Jason O’Grady of PowerPage.org claims that FireWire (IEEE 1394) will be completely missing from the rumored Intel iBooks. He also claims that the new Intel PowerBooks will lose FireWire 400 ports, and only retain a single FireWire 800 port to appease video professionals. Apple recently dropped Firewire support from the latest iPod (5G).

Chris Seibold Total Posts: 162 Joined 2003-11-07	Posted: 09 December 2005 02:00 AM If true all I can say is....ugh. I am tempted to rant like crazy but so far it is just a rumor. Though a single firewire port is no big deal no firewie ports on consumer models would be a major dissapointment.

PKIDelirium Total Posts: 63 Joined 2005-09-23	Posted: 09 December 2005 12:45 PM WTF? What about people who take video? Like me! I use an iBook, and if the new ones don’t have FireWire… I would have to start spending more $$$ on PowerBooks or a desktop for video use. Apple needs to understand that some people use laptops as their main systems.

MacNuggets Total Posts: 445 Joined 2005-09-15	Posted: 09 December 2005 01:41 PM They can’t just yank FireWire and make everyone go cold turkey. If they plan on dropping FW support, they need to gradually ween the hardware off of it. Keep a single FW port for a few generations of hardware. There is just too much legacy hardware out there to simply stop supporting it. Buying a new computer is one thing, but buying new external hard drives, video cameras, etc for compatibility is another. Granted, you would still be able to get FW cards, but cripes, FW has led USB in throughput since it was released.

Buzz Bumble Total Posts: 401 Joined 2005-09-16	Posted: 09 December 2005 08:42 PM Since when has what’s in the real world or “legacy hardware” ever stopped Apple doing whatever they please? They dropped floppy drives, SCSI, Newton, NUBUS, etc., etc., and memory types change with virtually every release ... plus all the hardware that had to be dumped simply because they weren’t compatible with Apple’s new Mac OS X. No doubt the same will happen with the Intel Macs since manufactures won’t bother updating the driver software and it’ll be incompatible with Rosetta’s “translation”.

Hadley Stern Total Posts: 251 Joined 2005-02-16	Posted: 12 December 2005 05:55 PM With iMovie being such a big product I can’t see how Apple could get away with dropping firewire on any of their computers. That said, since I haven’t been in the market for a DV cam lately are they starting to use USB 2.0 as well?

Chris Seibold Total Posts: 162 Joined 2003-11-07	Posted: 13 December 2005 10:40 PM actually some lower end canons, I am fairly sure, only come with USB 2 ports Scratch that, the low end cameras do come withFireWire connections, the ZR 200 also is USB certified (whatever that means)

BigMac Total Posts: 714 Joined 2005-08-15	Posted: 15 December 2005 03:08 PM What about people like me that still primarily use their 2nd Gen iPods. Firewire only people!