[FROM 2003:] What's the deal with USB 2.0?

Thinksecret reports of new iPods to sport USB2!!!
They claim "for windoze compatibility"... but I doubt Apple will release a feature just for the windoze world!
 
FYI:

Accelerate Your Mac! notes that some Power Mac's contain USB 2.0 controller chips, leading to speculation that the next revision to Apple's Pro desktop line may feature the high-speed connection alongside FireWire.

"I have discovered the NEC PD720101 chipset while checking out the new PowerMac MDD 1.25 Dual motherboard. This chipset is a USB 2.0 chipset where the earlier PowerMac models only had the wirings for USB 2.0 while the new models (new PowerMacs) now have the USB 2.0 chipset (already on the motherboard) thus if we can only get the driver it seems that we will be able to use it (USB 2.0) right away," writes an Accelerate Your Mac! contributer.
 
Well this was one reason I waited on buying me eMac because I had a few devices that had USB 2.0 that supported both Mac and Windows because I knew I would go Mac sooner so didn't want to waste money. Now they offer their higher end PowerMacs with USB 2.0 but I didn't need that extra power but I needed that extra money. So I got my eMac about a little over one week ago from Compusa. Its their current model at the apple store right now and it says it has two firewire 400 ports and three USB 2.0 ports and two USB 1.1 ports and those ports are indeed USB 2.0 because my portable hard drive and DVD Burner just fly and I've used these two devices using USB 1.1 and lets just say I hated it and would remember if my new eMac ran them that slow.

Look at the specs section under "PORTS" and you will see it.

http://www.apple.com/emac/specs.html

So the newer eMacs now have USB 2.0 ports and they run at USB 2.0 because I have this model so its not a typo. By the way I love this little machine. Everything about this machine is great except one thing. Their apple keyboard that came with it just kept on double typing everything so that forced me to go out and buy the Logitech Wireless Elite keyboard and mouse combo earlier than I wanted but I don't regret it at all and I have contacted Apple about this problem as well but they don't know about it but besides this issue this is a very nice computer. I would have got the superdrive model but my external firewire DVD burner had a copy of toast with it so I didn't need iDVD even though its a great problem. I use it to create the files and use toast to burn them so its a nice trade-off. iDVD is great for making the DVD not burning it so that is what I use it for.

Oh and by the way I'm a new member as of today so hello to you all.
 
binaryDigit said:
<<SNIP>> One of the things that made it more powerful was the fact that each device had to have a fair level of smarts. IDE on the other hand put much more of the smarts into the controller allowing for dumber but cheaper devices. <<SNIP>>
Click to expand...

Bzzt Wrong!
SCSI was faster and more powerful simply because the Single Controller could control IO on all 8 simple Devices.
IDE was more widely adapted, because it was less complex in simple applications.

A Computer Novice could set the Jumper to Master, Slave or CableSelect and think they were a 1337 Hardware Expert.
Adding those extra Jumper settings, expecting the poor Morons to count to Eight in Binary [000, 001, 010, 011, 100 101, 110, 111], and then make sure the end Devices were Terminated Correctly was too much for thier Tiny Minds to Comprehend.

Manufacturing one SCSI Hard-drive is cheaper than manufacturing one IDE Hard-drive, but manufacturing 1million IDE harddrives and selling them all is cheaper than manufacturing 500 thousand SCSI harddrives and only selling half of them.

Back on Topic;
I personally encourage all my Windows-using Friends to either get a Firewire PCI Card or PCMCIA Card so I can make an Ad-Hoc Network, or share files from my Firewire Harddrive.

There are enough Firewire DV Cameras out there in Circulation that Firewire will still be popular; people aren't gonna replace thier $1000 DV Cam with a $1000 USB2 Firewire Cam, when they can buy a $25 Firewire400 Card.
 
That's true, but the sad thing is that FireWire just didn't take off as USB-2 did (in the Windows world), and now that we have USB-2, too, Mac users are often going to automatically choose the 'cheaper' model (i.e. the USB-2 only model) instead of a FW or even Combo model.

USB-2 makes perfect sense for devices like printers, scanners, CD-R/DVD-R drives, as they're fast enough and easy and cheap to connect. FireWire always seems to take one more step in the consumer's mind - and the fact that PC users would often have to buy a FW-card before even THINKING about using a FW-device is too hard a step for many.

And the thought that USB is ubiquitous makes even ME think about compatibility. I've just bought an external harddrive (see sig) and paid more for the Combo model, because I don't want to EVER come to an office without being able to 'just connect' that harddrive. It's an important tool for me. So: I _had_ to have USB-2 on that device. Sure enough, I connect it to my PB via FW...
 
My Fujitsu-Siemens has a "firewire" port built in (the smaller looking job). But the predominant ports are USB.
 
fryke said:
And the thought that USB is ubiquitous makes even ME think about compatibility. I've just bought an external harddrive (see sig) and paid more for the Combo model, because I don't want to EVER come to an office without being able to 'just connect' that harddrive.
Click to expand...

And that is it in a nut shell. I don't want to shell out $ for a peripheral and corner myself into a standard. For example I paid $100AUS more for a USB/USB2, Firewire400/800 external drive. I could have saved money by purchasing a single port standard...

I know Firewire is the best standard but hey, 'VHS' beat 'BETA' and you tell me what was superior. Price always wins.....oh and backing by companies.
 
(Keep in mind that the older answers to this thread are more than a year old...) Afaik, ALL current Apple computers have USB-2.
 
Ye! all current macs support usb 2 so in they end we habe the choice - I must admit i think its taken apple too long to bring support for ipods and usb2 on MACS (currently part of 10.3.4 - I *think*) they adopted usb some time ago and I think the ipod should have been mac-usb 2 compatible right away! when 10.3.4 comes out theres going to have to be alot of changing small print etc on ipod and ipod accesories pages. most state (after the mention usb2 at all) that this is for "windose pc's only" I'm glad to see that mac so compatible most noe have firewire 400 and 800 and USB 2 (as well as usb 1.1 - if you count the keyboard ports)
 
Actually I tried my brothers Archos GMini120 music player just for fun and it worked with my emac at USB 2.0 speeds. Doesn't even need drivers at all. Just plug this baby in and the desktop has a new hard drive icon labeled Jukebox and just drag and drop and this player works with iTunes but I haven't tried DRMed AAC files but the player shows up within iTunes.
 
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