4 ms·

FireWire has been dead for years, it's time for an upgrade.

by an_account 10y ago

beat 10y ago
Firewire is very much alive in my house. Why is it "dead"? Why do I have to upgrade?
- bluejekyll 10y ago
  You don't have to upgrade. Don't upgrade... but if you do, there are adapters for you that will allow you to continue using your old gear.
  - beat 10y ago
    It's not just hardware. Apple has officially abandoned Firewire protocol maintenance. We're okay at the moment, but how many more MacOS upgrades will we have where Firewire still works? And I'm not an outlier case. There are a lot of audio professionals and semi-pros that depend on old Firewire interfaces. These were Apple's market for selling high-end laptops! This is basically just disregard for your oldest and frankly most profitable customers. If I didn't feel like a new MBP would actually be sacrificing functionality, I'd probably have upgraded already. Instead, I'm considering a platform switch. That's bad.
    - dkonofalski 10y ago
      They clearly are not Apple's most profitable customers if they're abandoning the tech. If they were Apple's most profitable customers, you'd see Firewire on everything.
      - dkonofalski 10y ago
        I should clarify that I meant that Apple is abandoning the tech, not the customers.
    - guitarbill 10y ago
      out of interest, which platform still has better firewire support? most windows laptops don't have them either. btw, as someone who didn't use firewire, i hated that port. waste of space, could have used an extra usb port instead. and it wasn't like there was a lot of gear that used it, unlike e.g. ethernet or vga which sometimes came in handy (i also loath vga).
      - srssays 10y ago
        In the beginning, USB1 was no competition for Firewire. 12Mbps vs 400Mbps. USB2 was more competitive, but Firewire stuck around due to its lower latency for audio applications.
    - threeseed 10y ago
      FireWire is a EOL technology at this point so why would they be continuing to work on the protocol ? And actually you aren't Apple's most profitable customer since you are still clamouring for old technologies. It's early adopters that upgrade every year that are the most valuable to Apple.
- threeseed 10y ago
  You could replace FireWire in that sentence with LaserDiscs, BetaMax etc. Fact is some technologies just don't take off enough to warrant long term support.

FireWire has been dead for years, it's time for an upgrade.

beat 10y ago

Firewire is very much alive in my house. Why is it "dead"? Why do I have to upgrade?

bluejekyll 10y ago
You don't have to upgrade. Don't upgrade... but if you do, there are adapters for you that will allow you to continue using your old gear.
- beat 10y ago
  It's not just hardware. Apple has officially abandoned Firewire protocol maintenance. We're okay at the moment, but how many more MacOS upgrades will we have where Firewire still works? And I'm not an outlier case. There are a lot of audio professionals and semi-pros that depend on old Firewire interfaces. These were Apple's market for selling high-end laptops! This is basically just disregard for your oldest and frankly most profitable customers. If I didn't feel like a new MBP would actually be sacrificing functionality, I'd probably have upgraded already. Instead, I'm considering a platform switch. That's bad.
  - dkonofalski 10y ago
    They clearly are not Apple's most profitable customers if they're abandoning the tech. If they were Apple's most profitable customers, you'd see Firewire on everything.
    - dkonofalski 10y ago
      I should clarify that I meant that Apple is abandoning the tech, not the customers.
  - guitarbill 10y ago
    out of interest, which platform still has better firewire support? most windows laptops don't have them either. btw, as someone who didn't use firewire, i hated that port. waste of space, could have used an extra usb port instead. and it wasn't like there was a lot of gear that used it, unlike e.g. ethernet or vga which sometimes came in handy (i also loath vga).
    - srssays 10y ago
      In the beginning, USB1 was no competition for Firewire. 12Mbps vs 400Mbps. USB2 was more competitive, but Firewire stuck around due to its lower latency for audio applications.
  - threeseed 10y ago
    FireWire is a EOL technology at this point so why would they be continuing to work on the protocol ? And actually you aren't Apple's most profitable customer since you are still clamouring for old technologies. It's early adopters that upgrade every year that are the most valuable to Apple.
threeseed 10y ago
You could replace FireWire in that sentence with LaserDiscs, BetaMax etc. Fact is some technologies just don't take off enough to warrant long term support.