What about Firewire?
Today Apple computers announced the new MacBook and MacBook Pro notebook computers. They took the best features from the MacBook Air, made dramatic changes to the graphics engine, gave the machine a new case, keyboard, and touchpad, and a very shiny new screen.
The primary difference between the previous generation of the MacBook and MacBook Pro was the graphics engine. The MacBook used the Intel GMA with shared memory, the Pro had a dedicated ATI engine. The new models use the NVidea engine, which is supposed to offer substantial performace over the Intel GMA, even with shared memory.
But perhaps the most startling change with these new models is the Firewire ports. The new MacBook has two USB 2.0 ports but no Firewire ports. The new MacBook also has the USB ports and a Firewire 800 port. While this might not affect most users, it presents some problems for us audio recording and producing folks.
All my audio interfaces are Firewire. Using Firewire offers more channels, lower latency, and better performance. I can also connect an external Firewire drive to the audio interface and have a very powerful portable studio. I use the black MacBook and have recorded sessions with no problems. However, if I were to acquire a new MacBook, my Firewire devices would be useless.
The MacBook Pro offers a Firewire 800, which is wonderful for connecting extremely fast external drives. But to connect my audio interface, which uses Firewire 400, I will need to use an adapter cable. While there should be no problems using the adapter, it does create the potential for problems. This model does offer an Express Card slot to add Firewire 400 ports, but these ports are not powered which means I will need use a power adapter for my audio interface. The MacBook offers no slots, so adding Firewire is not an option.
Why Apple would choose to eliminate the Firewire 400 ports which have been around since the first G4 Powerbooks arrived is a mystery. There are countless of users out there with Firewire audio interfaces so we will probably stick with our current MacBooks and wait for the next generation and hope that Apple brings back the Firewire connections.