Apple burns faithful for $1 per iPod

fryke said:
They should do more BTO at the online store. So I could get a b/w 60 GB iPod with a Dock and only FW cabling. Or an iPod photo with a 20 GB drive without ANY cabling since I already have some. Etc. ...
Click to expand...

See, this is a great idea. Give the customer more options/customization. I absolutely agree.

They want to be the BMW of computers, and BMW allows you to pick and choose your car. It might cost Apple an extra $1/iPod do something like this, but in the end you would be getting only the accessories that you needed.
 
yeah but when have apple listened to opinion?

they release what ever the hell they want and we go WOOHOO! luv :)
 
[sarcasm] Yeah, I agree. We should never voice our opinions. We should just copy and paste Apple's marketing-speek into these threads instead. [/sarcasm]
 
It's been some time since I last posted something, and I'm happy we're still voicing our opinions.

BTW, I think Firewire was an exceptional technology 3 years ago, and that it is still superior to USB 2... BUT if Apple doesn't present soon a FW XXXX standard, faster than Firewire 800 and compatible with both the FW 800 and the FW 400 connector (the one everyone has) the technology is doomed to extinction. And I'm not thinking about sci-fi gizmos: I'm thinking of a simple adapter, like the USB to PS2 one.

I still try to figure why they decided to go on with a FW 800 connector which wasn't back-compatible....
 
i think probably the firewire "800" connector was required to get to high speeds. Don't forget, IEEE1394B is technically rated up to 3.2Gbps on different types of media. I think fiber has the best speed.. it can even run over Cat5!
 
dracolich said:
It's been some time since I last posted something, and I'm happy we're still voicing our opinions.

BTW, I think Firewire was an exceptional technology 3 years ago, and that it is still superior to USB 2... BUT if Apple doesn't present soon a FW XXXX standard, faster than Firewire 800 and compatible with both the FW 800 and the FW 400 connector (the one everyone has) the technology is doomed to extinction.
Click to expand...
I think this is overstating.

  • All Macs have FW ports in them
  • Digital video cameras still largely support FW
  • All iPods still support FW
  • The iSight is still a FW webcamera
  • Canon EOS-1Ds Mark II and other high end digital cameras support FW
  • etc
Plus,
  • What other technology can compare with FW 800?
  • Where is the need? (for even FW 800) - I think FW 400 and USB2 serve the needs of the vast majority of users
dracolich said:
And I'm not thinking about sci-fi gizmos: I'm thinking of a simple adapter, like the USB to PS2 one.
Click to expand...
I'm not sure what you're trying to say here.

dracolich said:
I still try to figure why they decided to go on with a FW 800 connector which wasn't back-compatible....
Click to expand...
So am I. In my mind this is the true Achilles heel of FW today.

Kap
 
Ceroc Addict said:
So am I. In my mind this is the true Achilles heel of FW today.
Click to expand...

Doesn't FW800 use more pins than FW400? I don't think it'd be easy to fit more pins on a FW400 connector if that's the case.

I believe the FW800 spec is backwards compatible but the connectors are not.
 
FW800 uses 9 pins(7 data and 2 power??). 400 uses 6 pins (4 data, 2 power).

there is always a "need" for better speed. think external RAID over FireWire. the faster the bus, the better performance. at full speed (FireWire @ 3.2Gbps) it will rival FibreChannel, Gigabit ethernet, etc.. (usb2 will be just like a toy again..)
 
Captain Code said:
Doesn't FW800 use more pins than FW400? I don't think it'd be easy to fit more pins on a FW400 connector if that's the case.

I believe the FW800 spec is backwards compatible but the connectors are not.
Click to expand...
But is there a reason it had to be this way?

i.e. USB2 managed compatibility with USB1.1 (incl. connectors), why couldn't FW 800?

Kap
 
i think it's just one of those things you have to accept. it isn't really a big issue. you can get converters and 9pin-6pin cables..
 
it isn't really a big issue. you can get converters and 9pin-6pin cables..
Click to expand...

Do you? Really? This is what I mean by saying that they need to introduce a simple adapter.

The reason is that most producers of FW equipment are now facing a serious problem: go for speed and target just the few FW800-equipped PCs or adopt an old technology and go for the greater number of FW400-equipped PCs?

Buyers (me) are also facing these hard decisions: my iBook doesn't have a FW800 port, and neither does my PC laptop at work. Both have a FW400 connector... but I'm not going to buy a FW400 external HD (spending a premium price over USB2) since I know there are FW800 drives around and that sooner or later laptops will have only a FW800 connector or that I'll move to a G% with a FW800 connector.
So I'll end up buying a cheap USB2 external drive, while I would have never considered that decision had Apple chosen a different path.
Multiply my decision per the number of potential FW buyiers and you see why Apple has to introduce a new FW fast.
 
um. most firewire enclosures are of three types:
USB2 only. FireWire400 + USB2. and lastly. FireWire400 +FireWire800. why not buy the 800 case, and then use a 6pin to 9pin cable and use it now. when you get a new laptop, it will be even faster!
 
As long as we're on the subject, I can offer my own real-life experience in deciding between USB 2.0 or FireWire.

We have a PC that performs network backups. Because tape drives suck, we decided to a use removable hard drive method. Addonics has a nifty hard drive enclosure called the Combo Hard Drive that can be used either internally in a special drive bay "cradle" (the hard drive enclosure slides in from the front) or externally via 1 of 4 interfaces:
• USB 2.0
• FireWire (not sure if it's 400 or 800... probably 400)
• SATA (yes - externally!)
• PCMCIA

Even though the PC guy I work with and I knew that FireWire was a superior technology (especially for hard drives), we went with USB 2.0. The only real reason was that more computers have USB 2.0 than they do FireWire ports. If his PC happened to have a FireWire port like some of the newer PCs around here, we might have gone with the FireWire interface instead. Convenience wins again!
 
ok.. um a few things.

if your network backups are a serious thing, i don't think "convenience" of having USB2 already would be an issue. a Firewire card is cheap, and/or a SATA card is cheap. and for the record. TAPE drives do not "suck". they do the job they are designed to do well. They are a safe form of backup. the world has accepted this, why can't you?
 
Pengu said:
ok.. um a few things.

if your network backups are a serious thing, i don't think "convenience" of having USB2 already would be an issue. a Firewire card is cheap, and/or a SATA card is cheap. and for the record. TAPE drives do not "suck". they do the job they are designed to do well. They are a safe form of backup. the world has accepted this, why can't you?
Click to expand...
Umm, how often do YOU have to clean your tape drive? We had to clean it A LOT. How often did YOUR tape drive die and have to get fixed? Maybe we just have bad luck or something. I dunno. I'm not a fan of tape drives, sorry.

And when it comes to backups, convenience is pretty important. That's why they make hard drive enclosures with a physical button on the drive that runs a backup. And when I said it was more convenient to go with USB, you had better believe it because installing a FireWire card just to have a more sustainable data transfer is not worth it.

And a clarification: We would only be using the external USB or FireWire in the rare event that our main backup PC with the cradle blows up or something. IF that happens, I would rather plug it into any PC with a USB port.

Do you still have a problem, Pengu? I can only assume that you thought we were using USB 2.0 as a main interface for the backups, which is not the case.
 
Tape drives are unreliable a lot of the time. There are many moving parts in a tape drive -- much more than in any hard drive or hard drive enclosure. The failure rate seems to be much higher for tape drives than for hard drives.

I can vouch for that -- we used an old DAT2 system for backups of a 12GB server (this was in the mid-90s, so 12GB was more than enough) and the tape drive needed cleaning at least twice a month with a special tape. It also failed twice, but was repaired/replaced by the manufacturer even 3 years from the date of purchase.

And on a side note, it doesn't matter if FireWire 400 ports are phased out of laptops or computers -- FireWire 800 is backward-compatible with FireWire 400 (via an adaptor) much like USB 2.0 is backward-compatible with USB 1.1. Even though USB doesn't require a cheap adaptor to be backward-compatible, big deal. You can safely use FireWire 800 devices on a FireWire 400 port, and vice-versa. The 400 won't speed up to 800 speeds, and the 800 will run at 400 speeds when connected this way, but it's true backward-compatibility.
 
fryke said:
They should do more BTO at the online store. So I could get a b/w 60 GB iPod with a Dock and only FW cabling. Or an iPod photo with a 20 GB drive without ANY cabling since I already have some. Etc. ...
Click to expand...


Exactly!
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top