FireWire NOT INCLUDED in the new Apple laptops… AAARGHGH!
Thursday, October 16th, 2008(The following in response to a TUAW article on the disappearance of our beloved FireWire interface from the new notebooks announced the other day by Steve Jobs…)
I waited — for years — before buying my first Mac laptop, because although I really liked all the things I could co with SCSI, I understood the benefits of having a truly *intelligent* interface like FireWire; and so when the Pismo hit the streets, I finally put my life in hock and had one mailed to me.
(Never mind the fact that within a couple of years, the first all-white iBook had better specs, and cost more than a thousand dollars less… those monthly payments on my Apple Loan over the next four years didn’t hurt a bit.)
Target disk mode is indeed one of the most ‘Apple-like’ advantages of FireWire; but it is also what made shopping for a camcorder such a joy for Mac users — and is still the best reason for iMovie (which, by the way, we are still angry at Apple for since they actually REDUCED functionality in since previous versions in an obvious attempt to get users to upgrade to Final Cut Express).
What major Apple feature will be next to go?
- QuickTime? No, they already did that when the company started to charge $30 just for the capability to cut/copy/paste and export segments of video (which we used to be able to do with the free version).
- iMovie? No, but they have cut out the bulk of it’s editing tools that older versions included — likely in the hope that you will upgrade (not free) to Final Cut Express?
- Online services? No, they already did that when they told Apple customers that they could have a free .Mac email address for life, and then began charging $100/year for it.
- Modems? No, they already took that away with the last generation of MacBook/Pro/Air.
- Ethernet? No, that’s already gone from the Air; and probably won’t be present if Apple ever gets around to a subnotebook.
It’s nice that the new laptops are USB-bootable; but I haven’t seen Apple release a special version of the MacOS that is optimized for use this way (which isn’t a big deal, except that I know I will be out of license compliance every time I build one). So this isn’t advertised/recommended aggressively on their web site.
Now that there is no compelling reason to do video editting on a Mac laptop (that WAS iMovie until they castrated it, and then it WAS FireWire until they removed it), my next mobile workstation may turn out to run on Linux.
Damn — I’ll even have to change my domain. Again. Grrr.
