Apple burns faithful for $1 per iPod

jeb1138

jeb1138

Carioca
http://www.macnewsworld.com/story/40902.html

Apple acknowledged that fact Wednesday by no longer including a FireWire cable with its new line of iPod digital media devices. ...consumers must now pay an additional US$19 for the cable.
...
"I'd say Apple is saving about a dollar by dropping the Firewire cable," IdaRose Sylvester, an analyst with the research firm IDC, told TMO. 'While that doesn't sound like a lot of money, it adds up to millions over time."
Click to expand...

Saving money and moving on to new technology is fine...but to burn millions of Mac fanatics with an extra $19 charge in order to save $1/iPod....seems a little harsh to me.

My TiBook 1GHz will force me to pay an extra $19 for any iPod now. Is my computer really that old?
 
Apple most likely dropped the Firewire cable due to the fact that they can now be charged through USB, and a lot of PCs don't come with Firewire.
 
Can't please all the people all the time :(

What would life be without complaints?
 
I think it's fine, as long as they include at least one cable.
I only use the firewire (I haven't touched the USB cable) because my iPod is the only firewire component I use, so it makes sense to use the port, saving space on my USB hubs (which are commonly used).

I assume firewire is faster than USB 2.0?

EDIT: Finished reading the article. FW 400 is slower than USB 2.0
 
USB 1.1 - 12 Mbps
USB 2.0 - 480 Mbps
FireWire 400 - 400 Mbps
FireWire 800 - 800 Mbps
 
USB 2.0 rarely reaches it's peak 480 Mbps, and from what I've heard and read, hard drives in FW enclosures perform better compared to hard drives in USB 2.0 enclosures even when the hard drive is of the same model.
 
USB2 Has a higher theoretical transfer rate, but this does not play out as you would expect for hard drives. First USB2 drives are not as good for sustained transfer. Secondly the USB disk driver for Mac leaves a bit to be desired.

http://www.barefeats.com/usb2.html

With a little googling I am sure you could come up with more. Regardless of OS or platform (Windows or Mac that is. Linux does not particularly like firewire drives.) Firewire consistently comes out ahead of USB2 on performance tests.
 
FireWire > USB2. It does kinda suck especially because FireWire is kind of Apple's thing. Do they still sell a windows version and a mac version? If so the windows version should have usb and Mac have firewire.
 
Firewire support on Win is 100% the pervue of the aftermarket. Redmond kinda shuns it internally. Gee, guess why ::)
 
chornbe said:
Firewire support on Win is 100% the pervue of the aftermarket. Redmond kinda shuns it internally. Gee, guess why ::)
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Not really true. Windows includes drivers for the more common chipsets in the default install and has had Firewire networking for a long time. If MS were shunning Firewire I hardly think they would go to the effort of implementing FW networking. It is not something most Windows users would know about or complain if it was missing.
 
Neither FireWire or USB 2.0 is going to show you a performance gain, one over the other, in a single iPod configuration. While USB 2.0 has a higher ceiling on transfer rates, FireWire will show increased performance when chaining together multiple devices for use.

Bottom line is, pertaining to the iPod, all of this is moot. :) Of course, with that said, I'm slightly dissapointed that Apple dropped the FireWire cable, but, if more people using iPods are using USB 2.0, credit Apple for being willing to move away from their own tech to appease the masses. As they said over and over at WWDC, they're not trying to re-invent the wheel. ;)
 
Apple dropped the price of the iPod by more than the cost of the cable. Anyone who wants the FW cable can just get the cable.

Kap
 
Giaguara said:
As if you guys didn't have a firewire cable home already?
Click to expand...
Well, a spare FireWire cord would be very handy, if the iPod used a standard FireWire cord -- but it doesn't. We'd all be out buying cheap-o $1.00 FireWire cords instead of paying Apple $20 if the iPods didn't have a proprietary connector on them.
 
ElDiabloConCaca said:
Well, a spare FireWire cord would be very handy, if the iPod used a standard FireWire cord -- but it doesn't. We'd all be out buying cheap-o $1.00 FireWire cords instead of paying Apple $20 if the iPods didn't have a proprietary connector on them.
Click to expand...
And it goes round and round ;) . AFAIK the proprietry connector was what allowed Apple to make the iPod compatible with both USB and FW in the first place.

Kap
 
Wait, ok, that logic just seems wrong for some reason to me... 'Apple just dropped the price by more than $19, so where do I get off complaining about having to pay $19 more than everyone else'...? Is that the gist of it? Somehow that logic doesn't make sense to me...
 
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