Forums | MacLife

Gatchaman wrote:

Hell, the original iBooks were a hit *because* they had all the bells and whistles like Firewire.

No, they didn't.

http://lowendmac.com/pb2/original-ibook-g3-300-mhz.html

The problem the original iBook and iMac had was that the fastest way to get data in or out of the machine was the Ethernet port. USB 2 solves that particular problem - although theoretically, gigabit ethernet is still faster.

Apple was all over the DVD burning revolution.  They got rid of all the proprietary connectors and basically pushed USB into the mainstream.  The direction of these new Macbooks is puzzling, unless they're supposed to be an overprices accessory for your overpriced iPhone that you can use to download music at Starbucks while you drink overpriced coffee.

The only "direction" here is dropping FireWire. At least that's the only thing I see missing from the last model of MBs. Most consumer laptops don't have Firewire either. But they sell just fine - the caveat being they're almost half the price of the new MacBook. If the FW-less MB were $999 or less, I would be totally okay with this. As it stands, I'm a little irked. But I think this is the same kind of move as dropping floppy disks or SCSI. Annoying, yes. A problem long term, no.

An eSATA port would have been a nice consolation price though.

I don't think Jobs needs to be fired, but I think he needs a reality check.  It's going to be really interesting to see what happens when the non fanboy (who does't read all these forums and user sites) goes out and buys a new Macbook, takes it home, and tries to plug in his HDV or miniDV camcorder.

The average non-fanboy's video camera is built into their cell phone. It's great that you have a camcorder and all, really - but this is a computer for the other 90% of us.

I don't agree that this is the same as when they dropped SCSI and floppy drives.  There were adapters for those things.  It sucked when the floppy drives were missing, but most people I know just bought a cheap USB floppy drive, problem solved.  With the new MacBooks there is NO OPTION.  There are no reasonable adapters or dongles to use firewire. 

If they had included a card slot, I'd probably have ordered one.  I think they should all have card slots anyway, and they should abandon the silly Consumer/Pro distinction, which has been pretty vague for a while now anyway.  Also, I don't see why screen size is inexorably linked to power with Apple.  They could easily have 3 low-to high-end 13.3" MacBooks and 3 low-to-high-end 15.4" models.

BTW, the real outrage is on the Apple Forums, where there are hundreds of angry posts in several different threads - and that doesn't include the ones that have been deleted.

Um Bat, DisplayPort was created by VESA, the same people that created the FDMI (Flat Display Mounting Interface). Apple has to license from VESA. They can't license technology that they themselves have licensed to other companies. Beyond that the IS NO DRM THERE, it simply new hardware capable of more bandwidth, period. It's the equivalent of a Dual Channel DVI plug in a Mini DVI sized package not simply some proprietary standard.

ScifiterX wrote:

Um Bat, DisplayPort was created by VESA, the same people that created the FDMI (Flat Display Mounting Interface). Apple has to license from VESA. They can't license technology that they themselves have licensed to other companies. Beyond that the IS NO DRM THERE, it simply new hardware capable of more bandwidth, period. It's the equivalent of a Dual Channel DVI plug in a Mini DVI sized package not simply some proprietary standard.

You are correct except for one thing. It has not yet been determined if the small form factor implementation of DisplayPort is a standard or an Apple-only implementation. I'm hoping that even if they did create it that they allow for it to be used by others. That may even be a requirement of the license with VESA. We have not found out this information yet though.

Based on Apple's history I say they might try trademarking the "Mini DisplayPort" moniker and license that.

ScifiterX wrote:

Based on Apple's history I say they might try trademarking the "Mini DisplayPort" moniker and license that.

1) That would be lame.
2) I'm pretty sure that would infringe on VESAs trademark.

frankly wrote:

dvpierce wrote:

The average non-fanboy's video camera is built into their cell phone. It's great that you have a camcorder and all, really - but this is a computer for the other 90% of us.

I agree with most of your post but don't you think that there are a significant number of parents that have video cameras?

Yeah, but a lot of peeps burn DVDs straight from their cameras. The spatial and temporal concepts required to do non linear video editing escape most people.

Apple has catered to that demographic with their "Magic DVD" wizards and so on.

I am very, very curious what steps Apple will take to implement better USB camcorder support.

Did anybody notice the news that the chipset in the new MacBooks is not an Intel chipset?

It's an nVidia chipset.

Interesting no?

http://apcmag.com/Content.aspx?id=3085

i.Link

Random User wrote:

Did anybody notice the news that the chipset in the new MacBooks is not an Intel chipset?

It's an nVidia chipset.

Interesting no?

http://apcmag.com/Content.aspx?id=3085

Actually there are technically 2 chipsets in the new style Macbooks & Macbook Air and three in the new style MacBook Pros but the nVidia one(s) in place of the Intel one. The Northbridge control manages both the RAM & video buses and currently all of Apple's Intel northbridge chips contain the X3100 graphics accelerator. It's graphics capabilities are turned off but it's video bus routing functions are kept active.

ScifiterX wrote:

i.Link

What about Lynx by TI? Lol

Any who ... Sony what involves the IEEE 1394 group. I was driven mainly by Apple but large contributions were made by TI, Sony DEC, IBM and STM.

So I am guessing they had the rights to license their 4 pinned implementation of IEEE 1394 as i.Link all they wanted.
-edit-
doh frank beat me to it.

Last edited by mrreet2001 (2008-10-16 2:17 pm)

um because sony help design firewire... APPL didn't really help VESA... "mini Displayport" is no different than  "mini-DVI" or "mini-VGA" Apple just took a big port and shrunk it down. I can't find anywhere that apple licensed "mini-DVI" or "mini-VGA" ... but you can find that they did please post linky.

Look I'm not claiming it's right or wrong. I'm not even saying it will happen. I'm just saying based on history and what we can find about who owns what, certain scenarios are more likely than others when it comes to Mini DisplayPort than others. The likelihood of Apple pulling trademark crap is greater than them pulling licensing crap in this case and given what we know even the trademark crap is unlikely (but not totally impossible).

Last edited by ScifiterX (2008-10-16 2:47 pm)