MacBook users petition Apple for FireWire
Over 16,000 people have signed a petition, and the industry association tasked with building out and promoting the connection standard is up in arms. Can Steve Jobs and Apple afford to ignore such a groundswell of protest?
Our friends at the 1394 Trade Association report that Mac users have started a petition (FireWire ports in Apple consumer notebooks at PetitionOnline.com) to convince the company to re-instate 1394 connectivity in its mid-range portables.
I say mid-range because the plastic $999 MacBook still includes a single FireWire 400 port, whereas the new Aluminum “unibody” portables don’t—an obvious bone of content for more than a few users.
How contentious you might ask? Well, after I signed and appended a comment (“Put the fire back in my passion for the MacBook!”) to the petition, the number 16,529 was affixed to my missive to the mothership, indicating that more than a few people share the same or similar sentiments. According to petitioner 16,063, Philip Stavrinou:
Like many other mac users I have 3 external drives and a camcorder—all of which use firewire! I want a machine that makes my life easier not harder! I use the pro versions of your product line – but my family, all of whom use macs have consumer versions – this just makes it a whole lot harder to share equipment as well as making target disk mode unavailable for troubleshooting etc. I’m feeling left in the lurch…
Personnally, I’ve got a NewerTech v1.0 miniStack (rocks!), a generic external drive and an 8X SL DVD burner attached to my early 2008 MacBook.
Did you know?
Further to the goal of convincing Apple to put the fire back in its mid-range MacBooks, the 1394 Trade Association cites a number of facts about the connection standard that might surprise you:
“The feedback also points to the value that applications realize as users and designers continue to adopt the more powerful FireWire800 standard,†said James Snider, executive director of the 1394 Trade Association, adding that “There is every indication that Apple executives are paying attention to the FireWire discussion and want to address users’ concerns.”
Obviously, Apple’s removal of FireWire is unpopular with users and has gotten the 1394 Trade Association’s attention.
But, will Steve Jobs and Apple listen even though so many people are asking for FireWire’s return? That, of course, is the 800Mbps question…
What’s your take?
Related Posts:
