Jobs responds to outrage over MacBook's missing FireWire
In one of his characteristically terse email replies, Apple chief executive Steve Jobs has reportedly told one Mac user that changes in video camera technology have reduced the need for FireWire on his company's 13-inch MacBooks.
The one-line response to a fan complaining over the lack of FireWire on the new entry level aluminum MacBooks is blunt but also points out that technology has changed since the company began including FireWire with Macs in 1999. "Actually, all of the new HD camcorders of the past few years use USB 2," Jobs supposedly wrote in an email, a copy of which was posted to the popular Flickr image sharing website.
Jobs is likely not pleased about the current state of FireWire himself. Apple invented the standard in the late 80s as a hot pluggable replacement for SCSI, with a special emphasis on supporting media streaming with isochronous, real-time data transfers. The company then released the specification through a standards body to become IEEE 1394, where others including DEC, Texas Instruments, and Sony contributed to its development as well.
