Mac users - a question for you.

[civil]

Good People,

My gf who has been a Mac user for years recently plopped down $2000 on a new Macbook recently. Even though she had done exhaustive research one thing slipped by her: The fact that the new Macbooks don't have FireWire anymore. She just took it for granted that it would come with one, as I've come to find out many Mac users did. But Apple decided otherwise and now here she is with a brand new computer she bought to future-proof herself with that doesn't have the one thing she really needs. Most musicians and other creatives I know like FireWire because of it's two-way streaming speed, which for music, video editing, etc is crucial. A lot of her musical peripherals just became obsolete.

She's going to look into returning the beast (angry that she might have to upgrade to a Pro) but while she's doing that I thought I'd query the best computer minds I know to see if anyone knew of a solution she might be able to use in case Apple decides it was her fault for not reading the fine print. There are no USB > FireWire adapters (technically impossible, from what I understand) and it seems that USB/FireWire hubs are sketchy at best. Anyone else encounter this and come up with a good solution?

TIA.

[Chris_D]

Ah.. that sucks, especially if she has already has invested in a number of firewire peripherals. All I can say about that design decision is that I thought the latest USB 2 ports are meant to be equal to firewire in performance (better in some areas). So assuming the peripherals support USB then she should be OK.

Otherwise, how about trying one of these PCMIA firewire expansion cards to give herself a firewire slot?

http://www.firewire-1394.com/cards-firewire-laptop-notebook-cardbus.htm

[civil]

Thanks Chris. I did suggest those to her but as far as I can tell there are no expansion slots on the computer. From what I understand there are no USB connections on her peripherals. Anyway, I think USB is much slower when it comes to bi-directional transfer, no?

She's steamed about this. I think as much with herself as with Apple.

[frederec]

Thanks Chris. I did suggest those to her but as far as I can tell there are no expansion slots on the computer. From what I understand there are no USB connections on her peripherals. Anyway, I think USB is much slower when it comes to bi-directional transfer, no?

She's steamed about this. I think as much with herself as with Apple.

Looking at Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firewire#Comparison_to_USB), it says:

Although high-speed USB 2.0 nominally runs at a higher signaling rate (480 Mbit/s) than FireWire 400, data transfers over S400 FireWire interfaces generally outperform similar transfers over USB 2.0 interfaces. Typical USB PC-hosts rarely exceed sustained transfers of 280 Mbit/s, with 240 Mbit/s being more typical. This is likely due to USB's reliance on the host-processor to manage low-level USB protocol, whereas FireWire delegates the same tasks to the interface hardware. For example, the FireWire host interface supports memory-mapped devices, which allows high-level protocols to run without loading the host CPU with interrupts and buffer-copy operations.[4] Besides throughput, other differences are that it uses simpler bus networking, provides more power over the chain, more reliable data transfer, and uses fewer CPU resources.[24]

FireWire 800 is substantially faster than Hi-Speed USB, both in theory and in practice.

So it does sound like the best thing she could do to use the peripherals she's already got is trade up to a Pro. Or maybe hold out for the promised USB 3.0 and hope to get a good adapter out of that. She probably doesn't want an adapter, because if the transfer speeds are what matters, the bottleneck of the USB port would slow down anything she may need going fast.

Sorry about that.

[Chris_D]

Wow, sorry to hear that. I checked the mac book tech specs just then, and you're right, it really doesn't have shit. The only thing I can think of then is to try and exchange it for a mac book pro (more pricey!). It has both firewire and an expansion slot. If she explains the situation hopefully they will let her trade up. Even better, if she can just get her money back then she could try the second hand market for mac book pros. It might depend on which staff she can talk to on the day but I wish her luck.

p.s. I always wondered why my mac book pro was so bloody expensive (I mainly went for the pro for a bigger screen and more 3D power), now I guess I know one of the other reasons why.

[GigaFuzz]

Well shit. I was about to come charging in and say that they do come with a Firewire 800 port for which you can get an adapter to use an older Firewire 400 device with, then looked it up. Only the Macbook Pro has the Firewire port. :(

Silly Apple.

[civil]

Thanks guys. The ironic thing is that her previous, 5 year old G4 laptop had FireWire and they still sell the older Macbooks on the Apple site with FireWire. It was an obvious attempt at forcing lots of people to upgrade to a Pro.

Last night I almost got the heave ho when I took this opportunity to talk about how much I believe Apple is every bit as "evil" as Microsoft but with prettier packaging. She looked at me with murder in her eyes and said, "You're not helping." I went straight to bed!

[frederec]

If you're willing to go one generation back, you can get MacBook Pros at amazon for right around (or just under) $2000. They're still new, and you may want to make sure they've got everything you want, but they won't have the cost of the latest model.

I bought a relatively inexpensive Pro for my mother this way this past Christmas.

Edit: Apple is every bit as evil as those other companies. They just have a cooler image. But you never want to heap an "I told you so" on someone who's already pissed. That's begging for trouble.

[civil]

Edit: Apple is every bit as evil as those other companies. They just have a cooler image. But you never want to heap an "I told you so" on someone who's already pissed. That's begging for trouble.
And how. I think she started to warm up as she came to bed and was even warmer this morning. But man did she give me the sink eye.

Does anyone know if the upcoming USB 3.0 will be backwards compatible with USB 2.0? In theory I believe everything I read says it will, but that it will be limited by the bottlenecking (or lack thereof) of the device. If anything, I'd like to tell her that at least she'll be ready to go when USB 3.0 arrives.

[Dark Acre Jack]

Interesting observation here: I believe that even companies like Apple are still coming to grips with the idea that someone would buy a laptop and use it as their core workhorse.

I think the industry still believes that people do all of their heavy-lifting through desktop machines, and that only professionals (hence the "pro") would be doing data manipulation on laptops.

The MacBook isn't a pro-level device, nor is it advertised as one. /shrug

[civil]

I just got off the phone with my gf. She's got an appointment tonight at the...shudder...Genius Bar. Since it's less than a week old she's going to try and sweet talk them into letting her upgrade.

[OldJadedGamer]

Thanks guys. The ironic thing is that her previous, 5 year old G4 laptop had FireWire and they still sell the older Macbooks on the Apple site with FireWire. It was an obvious attempt at forcing lots of people to upgrade to a Pro.

Last night I almost got the heave ho when I took this opportunity to talk about how much I believe Apple is every bit as "evil" as Microsoft but with prettier packaging. She looked at me with murder in her eyes and said, "You're not helping." I went straight to bed!

My Macbook from a just over a year ago still has firewire on it so this must be a current model only thing. And actually, firewire wasn't supported as much by PC users so they held onto it as much as they could but had to succumb to the USB 2.0 brigade. Only Sony was a big supporter of Firewire and Firewire was actually standard on Macs well... well before USB 2.0 was.

Interesting thing to note is that the iPod hasn't been firewire compatible since the second generation iPod mini even though the very first iPod ever was firewire only.

[Psykoboy2]

I just got off the phone with my gf. She's got an appointment tonight at the...shudder...Genius Bar. Since it's less than a week old she's going to try and sweet talk them into letting her upgrade.

Well....what happened?!?!?

[Banacek]

Yet another horrible design decision Apple made with this new release cycle. Glossy only screens and batteries that can't be replaced are some of the other stupid things they've done. I'm so glad I was able to get a previous edition MBP when I got one.

[civil]

Oops! I guess I'm horrible with the follow through.

She did follow up with Apple, and the Genius Bar (who the fuck thought of that name) people told her that she might be able to get an upgrade, but because she had put some "custom" components in there they couldn't make the call. They gave her a card and a number to call.

After some more research and exhaustive talks with her brother (a Mac cultist like no other) she decided she didn't want to give Apple any more of her money. Time will tell if she made the right decision. I have also learned to shut up when it comes to Apple around her. Woo boy.