I doubt Apple would do this for the simple reason that Firewire is used by almost all DV cameras in the market to date. Seeming the iBook has iMovie & Apple want to sell more FCPs I dont think this rumor has any merit unless Apple's planning to offer a subnotebook that'll compete in the sub $999 range

I don't think we'll see this happen because when's the last time you saw a DV camcorder that could feed a computer a true DV signal through USB2? Sure, most have USB ports now, but those are for web streaming and don't give you the true DV format. If Apple were to remove the Firewire ports from the iBook, that would mean all the DV camcorder manufacturers would have to start using USB 2 as the DV connection, and it would mean really making a lot of new owners mad.

That's the stupidest thing I ever heard. He probably heard there would not be a FW 400 port, and assumed it wasn't being replaced by a FW 800 port.

FW adoption is increasing in the industry, and Macs need it for target disk mode and booting from an external disk. There's no way it would be dropped.

Are you kidding me? Apple dropped firewire support from the iPod because it was cheaper to drop it, and because it was unnecessary, as every computer sold in the past 4 years is equipped with USB2 ports. USB2 has become the standard for those kinds of peripherals, but not for digital video. Apple will NOT drop firewire from any of their computers any time soon- if ever (assuming firewire 3, etc will be backwords compatible). Firewire is necessary for digital video, which Apple is still pushing as a major selling point for their computers. To think they might drop firewire is just plain idiotic.

I won't say never, cuz Apple pulls some jacka$$ manuevers sometimes, but I don't think they will ditch firewire anytime soon. That move would kill iLife (iMovie especially) since there are almost no DV cams out there with USB2 for video transfer. I won't say never... but I will say HIGHLY unlikely.

C'mon don't you think they wouldn't change for something better. Apple is for most people there new monster has a portable. I'm sure MAC wants to keep this growing, like I read ealier the'll be some sort of FW800.

Apple will rule !!!!
Aca

Either this guy doesn't know what he talks about or Jobs completely lost his mind. while making iPod USB appeals to PC users. there is no single benefit dropping firewires from laptops (save $10 cost?) and will only piss off vast majority mac users who are still absorbing the shock of the intel switch. If this does happen, my next laptop will not be a mac but a tablet PC.