Apple has released its new range of laptops, and they look great. The black keyboard, reminiscent of the Air, and the black surround of the screen, echoing a motif started with the latest iMacs, really makes the new machines look classy. Particularly improved is the regular MacBook, which for the first time has an aluminium body. Speed increases in the MacBook are apparently fierce, making it a very desirable, yet reasonable machine. The only problem is, no firewire!

Apple, of course are famous for dropping support for what they see as “legacy” standards. They were first “floppy droppers”, getting rid of the 1.4MB disk to the dismay of many. Of course, history has shown they were right, albeit, a bit premature. And they have been right in this regard many times, whether it be SCSI, VGA or ADB, they killed them off before they could retire gracefully. No over 70’s medical card for defunct Apple formats then! (In-joke for the Irish there)

But firewire? A dead format? For one, DV (and HDV) relies on firewire, so video enthusiasts will be disappointed. Audio interfaces are also not USB-only affairs; I won’t even bother naming some of the manufacturers making firewire audio interfaces.

OK, this is supposed to be their entry-level machine, but seriously, there are plenty of entry-level firewire cameras and audio interfaces out there.

This seems like a bizarre decision by Apple, but if history is anything to go by, firewire is dead!

This entry was posted on Wednesday, October 15th, 2008 at 8:34 am and is filed under Macintosh, Music, Technology, Video. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.