Apple invented Firewire. Knowing that fact, is it any easier to see why they put it on their iMacs?

Each iMac is capable of making HD movies. Every HD video camera has a Firewire connection. Do you see why there is Firewire ports on the iMacs yet?

Firewire 800 is on the high end iMacs. Sustained throughput on Firewire 800 is over twice as fast as USB 2 and you can daisy chain Firewire devices. Getting a clue yet?

"You pick which one you want to believe, or more notably, which ones you don't want to believe."

No, both figures are accurate. IDC pegs the Mac market share in the U.S. retail segment for all of 2006 at 6.3 percent, Gartner estimates the Mac worldwide market share in the second quarter of 2007 at 2.5 percent (1.517 million units out of 61 million PC sales). The Mac market share has always been higher in the United States, especially in the consumer segment. Apple has about 185 retail stores now, and the vast majority is located in the U.S. The claim that Apple’s retail market share has reached 21% is completely bogus, though. It is impossible to back up such a claim.

"The maker of the Jezus phone has put one of the connectors on the new iMac."

It’s not like this was new, the iMac includes FireWire ports since the iMac DV, which shipped in 1999. The iMac introduced this week includes two Firewire ports, one FireWire 400 port (1394a) as usual, and for the first time a FireWire 800 port (1394b) is available. It also includes USB 2.0 ports, 802.11n, Bluetooth 2.0… FireWire is standard on about every Mac, including notebooks, since 2000 or 2001. Apple ignored USB 2.0 for way too long but it slowly made its way to the Mac platform and the iPod. Most iPods are sold to Windows users, and FireWire can't compete head to head with USB 2.0 on the PC market, that's why Apple ditched FireWire from the iPod two years ago.

Yet, there is nothing wrong with including FireWire ports on the iMac. According to research firm In-Stat, the FireWire interface is headed for a slow decline but FireWire-equipped camcorders amounted to 77% of all camcorders shipped in 2006 (down from 85%). External FireWire hard drives and other devices are also widely available. Besides, In-Stats findings are disputed by a Digital Tech Consulting report.

Analysts cast doubt on '20 per cent' Mac market share claims
http://www.vnunet.com/vnunet/news/2196364/analysts-cast-doubt-per-cent

First FireWire iMac - October 1999
http://web.archive.org/web/20010213235529/www.apple.com/pr/library/1999/oct/05imac.html

First iMac with USB 2.0 alongside the usual FireWire ports - September 2003
http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2003/sep/08imac.html

First iPod with USB 2.0 alongside the usual FireWire port - April 2003
http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2003/apr/28ipod.html

Apple Introduces iPod nano, sans FireWire - September 2005
http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2005/sep/07ipodnano.html

FireWire ditched from the regular iPod - October 2005
http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2005/oct/12ipod.html

FireWire was accepted as an IEEE standard in 1995. Sony, Microsoft, JVC, Matsushita, etc, are all members of the 1394 Trade Association.

http://www.1394ta.org/About/
http://standards.ieee.org/micro/1394overview.html
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m3101/is_n4_v69/ai_18684855

IEEE 1394 Interface Headed For Slow Decline
http://www.instat.com/press.asp?ID=2038

Digital Tech Consulting Report Foresees 21 Percent Growth for 1394-Enabled Products
http://www.broadcastnewsroom.com/articles/viewarticle.jsp?id=166905

When video cameras lose Firewire, Firewire may go, at least on consumer machines. But until then, it is a safe bet it will be on all Apple desktop and laptop computers.

Apple has dropped Firewire from iPods, and doesn't feature on the iPhone. And the number of firewire ports on consumer machines is one. So Apple does adapt. But adapting away from one of its big selling points, easy dvd creation, would be suicide.

Anyone with half a brain knows that Firewire is vastly superior to USB 2.0 or SATA for that matter. If it had not been for the $1 per/port fee that the 1394 consortium charged, Firewire would have beat out USB as a standard and SATA would have been irrelevant.

USB like SATA cannot be daisy chained like Firewire (63 devices), meaning that PCs need 4, 6, 8 ports to support all of the devices users buy; the two Firewire port probably would have been cheaper. This adds bulk to PCs, especially laptops. USB and SATA also cannot provide meaningful bus power like Firewire can; enough to power an external 2.5" hard drive. Firewire can also support external booting while providing bus power to the drive.

Firewire is also faster, yes, even when you compare USB 2.0 (480mbps) to the slowest Firewire 400 (400 mbps) standard, since Firewire can simultaneously transfer data bi-directionally for up to 63 devices. Plus, unlike USB 2.0 Firewire does not consume CPU cycles to transfer data between devices.

Similar limitations apply to SATA making it nothing more than a faster USB port; affectionally I think of it as the modern parallel port. SATA isn't even a professional standard, it was actually developed as a consumer technology.

Sad to see another superior technology go down the tubes, just because Windows lemmings are retards.

wow jesus phone. I dont even own one and I find your article highly anti mac. If you did professional video you would not even care the least bit about usb aside from mice and keyboards