[Sailor133]

No firewire will prevent me from buying a new MacBook. I was ready to buy my daughter a new computer to replace her 12" PowerBook but without firewire she lost. She uses firewire drives for backup all the time. The MacBookPro is just too large a footprint for her. Guess we will have to update that old 12" PowerBook.

[montgomery_burns]

Can someone explain Apple's constant obsession with making proprietary display connectors: "Mini" VGA, "Mini" DVI, "Micro" DVI, and now "Mini" DisplayPort?

[rickcarl]

User replaceable battery, hard drive and RAM?



Just read Snell's first look and got my answer. Waiting now for the tech performance report.
Message was edited by: rickcarl

[RamaFan]

Color me wrong but I'm not especially sad that Fire Wire did not make it.
Mainly cause I never have used it for anything. That said if you have to
replace your peripherals because of it then that is a deal-breaker.
I am a little disappointed with the deign styling. It thought they would
be a bit sleeker. What's up with the 'recessed' keyboard trench? Couldn’t
they make that transition a bit smoother? It know it's for the screen but
gee...

The biggest thing for me, however, is that we didn't see any sort of
big processer jump in specs. Not even a little one, which is weird to me.
I know that's offset by the whole new super video card and all that but I'd
expect a couple of hundred megahertz.

On top of that there was no real significant price drop of any sort.
And let's not call a cow a chicken just cause they changed it's color and added
a beak. $999 IS NOT a sub $1000.00 price point; at least once you add
taxes. And $899 for a monitor? It better be made of gold and dance on my
desk for that much. I can buy a really nice 32" HDTV for that much
and hook it up to my Mac; might even be able to find an engineer friend who can
come up with a way to do it wirelessly.

Ah well the march goes on and the geeks lament what could have been.
Not a bad 'overhaul' per-say just a bit disappointing with all the buildup in
my head.

[Steve_S]

hayesk said:

No Firewire on the MacBook - only on the Pro model. That's a deal-breaker for me.

Wow, what a dumb move.... It's a shame that every time Apple takes two steps forward, they end up taking one step back. The aluminum across the line was a good move. The nVidia graphics was a good move. Going with Intel graphics was stupid to begin with. Dropping Firewire is just brain dead. How many people are using Firewire for backup solutions? What about video? USB is okay, but it's not a substitute. If there at least was a generic Express 34 card slot, those who need Firewire could at least do it that way.

[rwmoore]

More importantly for me is target disk mode. I don't know how many times I've revived a sick Mac by booting in target disk mode and running utilities (or just getting files off of it) when nothing else seemed to work. No target disk mode, no sale!!

I do agree with the other arguments for firewire. I only use firewire for external drives!

[MichaelBelisle]

tony_d said:

will iMovie work with USB video cameras?

Yes. According to the supported camera list, tapeless devices that have both FireWire and USB must only be connected with USB. But it appears that you're SOL if you have a FireWire-only tape camera.

[mikew2008]

I have a CD2 2.0GHz macbook. I was ready to order a new MacBook TODAY! No firewire is a deal breaker. I don't need the larger size (and cost ) of a MacBook Pro.
I can't afford to replace my current FW camcorder and HDs.

[tatilsever]

Macs have got target disk mode via USB2 since the switch to intel. With Leopard and the new hard drives, USB2 is only about 10-15% slower than Firewire400. If your only use for Firewire is backups or target disk mode, this is clearly not a dealbreakerl. I have edited video on PCs with USB2 external drives and Adobe Premier a few years ago, so they are fast enough.

However, this still leaves many good camcorders and audio recording equipment without an abvious way to connect. One of the attractions of Macs are the availability of features that are not on the front page, but very useful nonetheless. Firewire was one of them, mainly for cameras. That they are 6-pin firewire ports wee even better, so that I could use bus powered firewire disks. I did not see any adapters or converters by quick Googling that use ethernet or USB ports to connect to Firewire cameras.

[Keakealani]

I can imagine getting rid of the FireWire capabilities on the MacBook is going to garner a lot of complaints... but otherwise, I quite like these updates...

[montgomery_burns]

wbrock0011 said:

I agree, no firewire is just stupid...why do they keep hobbling this machine...they finally fix the graphics issue but then they get rid of firewire!!!!!

During the Apple notebook presentation, Steve Jobs played a video in which Jonathan Ive says: "I love the way that we don't reserve our very best ideas for the very highest end products. All of our very best ideas, all our innovation, we bring to the most popular Mac that we make."

Perhaps that explains why the new MacBook has no Firewire.

[mr.steevo]

Hi,

No Firewire?

I am not going to buy a $2149 Macbook Pro so I can use my Protools firewire interface. I don't need a snazzy graphics card to hook up my firewire gear, nor do I need a 15" screen. What I need is a small portable laptop that allows me to use Protools.

The plan was to replace my aging 12" iBook with an aluminum Macbook for in the field recording and get an iMac for home use. I am not going to spend an extra grand on a laptop so I can have one firewire port, but I will buy a PC laptop with firewire and simply not allow it to go online. ALL decent recording interfaces use FireWire, and none of them need the power of the Macbook Pro to operate them. That $1000 difference I cannot justify.

I can't believe I have to buy a PC to get an affordable firewire port. Why are you making this so damn difficult Apple?

s.

[Jarmo]

I am not going to buy a $2149 Macbook Pro so I can use my Protools firewire interface

Well by the low end macbook then? It's got the firewire and a faster processor than the one in the $1299 one.

Better yet, buy a high end plastic macbook while the stocks in stores last. Around here, the prices went down last night, making a high end plastic an ideal match for you. Faster, cheaper and with firewire. What do you need the glossy screen or upgraded graphics for?

I readily agree dropping firewire is a bad move, in a long range of idiotic moves by Apple. It's what they think product differentiation is all about. Not making the best product you can, but instead crippling the low end somehow, in order to get more high end sales. I've bought a gaming PC for that reason, but this is not the same thing yet.

Firewire macbooks are available, cheaply, at least for now.

[mr.steevo]

Hi Jarmo,

I have a problem with the plasticMacbooks. The casing falls apart. I've watched my sisters Macbook flake on all corners even after having Apple fix the problem. Her classmates seem to have the same problem. This is why I was waiting for an aluminum laptop.



http://discussions.a...ssageID=3409154



At this point the iBook is still chugging along so I will keep it, but Apple has lost my next notebook purchase. I just hope they don't do the same thing to the next iMac.



s.