USB 3.0 doubtless coming to the Mac; what's the future of FireWire?
TweetFollow Us on Twitter

USB 3.0 doubtless coming to the Mac; what's the future of FireWire?

I'll be very surprised if we don't see USB 3.0 on Macs by the second half of the year. And when that happens, it will be interesting to see what happens with FireWire.

According to the In-Stat research group more than three billion USB-enabled devices are currently being shipped. USB 3.0 is specified to transfer at five gigabits per second, or 10 times faster than USB 2.0. Plus, USB 3.0 products are backward-compatible with USB 2.0 devices and will interoperate with them, as well, so there's no reason for Apple not to include USB 3.0 on upcoming Macs.

As for FireWire, I'm not willing to bet on its inclusion in any Macs beyond the Mac Pro and 15-inch and 17-inch MacBook Pro. Although it could survive on the 27-inch iMac, which has to be considered, by any criteria, a prosumer machine, if not a professional machine. As for FireWire on the 13-inch MacBook Pro, the MacBook and the Mac mini, I wouldn't count on it since USB is more popular and cheaper.

Apple invented FireWire, but FireWire 400 has disappeared from the latest Macs -- though FireWire 800 connectivity has taken its place for the most part. If Apple does continue its FireWire support, it could move up to FireWire 3200. FW 3200 FireWire 3200 will use the same connectors as FireWire 800, but purportedly delivers at least four times the performance. It increases FireWire speed from 800 Mbps to 3.2 Gbps. You'll notice that, on paper, that's slower than USB 3.0, but FireWire also has advantages in areas such as power management.

FireWire 800 products today deliver 90 MB/second of sustainable throughput. With the anticipated three percent overhead, FireWire 3200 could deliver nearly 390 MB/second of usable data bandwidth, though a straight-forward 400 percent increase would be 360 MB/second. That's enough to drive full 1920 x 1200 HDTV signals at up to 50 fps.

Of course, there's no reason computers can't have both FireWire and USB 3.0 ports. Hopefully, that's what Apple has lined up for at least most of its upcoming Macs. But if, in time, USB 3.0 crushes FireWire -- and also eSATA -- don't be surprised.

 
AAPL
$494.00
Apple Inc.
+0.83
GOOG
$606.20
Google Inc.
-5.26
MSFT
$30.56
Microsoft Corpora
-0.21
MacNews Search:
Community Search:
See All

Five For Friday: Week of February 10
Another week of the year down and so we look back at five of the best apps and games of the past seven days. This time round, we have a healthy dose of education and knowledge, alongside a new way to create animations and some fun with droids. | Read more »
Protoxide: Death Race Review
Protoxide: Death Race Review By Dan Lee on February 10th, 2012 Our Rating: :: APOCALYPTICUniversal App - Designed for iPhone and iPad Battle and race futuristic craft in an alternate world   | Read more »
36 Million Temple Run Players Can’t Be W...
In a tweet this morning, Natalia Luckyanova, co-founder of Imangi Studios, the developers behind runaway hit Temple Run, let it be known that their game has hit 36 million downloads. Let’s pause for effect here. 36 million iOS devices (they’re working on getting to the Android platform furiously as we go to press) have this hot game downloaded to... | Read more »
AT&T Introduces U-verse for iPad wit...
U-verse has released an app for subscribers to their TV and high-speed internet service that brings both control of their receiver, along with access to on demand video. By downloading AT&T U-verse for iPad and logging in to the user’s AT&T U-verse account, the app’s functions become available. | Read more »
Jigsaw Mansion 2 Review
Jigsaw Mansion 2 Review By Rob Rich on February 10th, 2012 Our Rating: :: TOO EASYiPhone App - Designed for the iPhone, compatible with the iPad Jigsaw Mansion 2 is bound to make plenty of puzzle fans (as in puzzle-puzzles) happy, so long as they don’t mind having their hand held all the time.   | Read more »
FREEday 2/10/2012 – “None of us are FREE...
Shooting and strategy seem to be the two key themes in this weeks FREEday. I honestly didn’t plan it that way, it just sort of happened. Although I suppose it’s not that bad. They are two incredibly popular kinds of games for iOS devices these days. Then again, just about anything that lends itself to quick bursts of playtime do quite well for... | Read more »
Doodlecast Pro Review
Doodlecast Pro Review By Lisa Caplan on February 10th, 2012 Our Rating: :: SIMPLE BRILLIANCEiPad Only App - Designed for the iPad A simple recording tool with endless possibilities.   Developer: Zinc Roe Price: $3.99 Version: 1.1 App Reviewed on: iPad 2 | Read more »
Chillingo Introduces Two New Games: Digg...
Chillingo keeps digging through the App Store, with new games frequently bubbling up, and this week, their games are about both digging and bubbles! | Read more »
Caylus Review
Caylus Review By Rob Rich on February 10th, 2012 Our Rating: :: NO SIMPLE TASKUniversal App - Designed for iPhone and iPad Caylus has all the trappings of a deep iOS board game, assuming complexity isn’t a problem.   | Read more »
Decide Where To Eat With Hngry
On Twitter, it’s a dilemma that would be referred to as a ‘first world problem’ but it is sometimes difficult to decide which restaurant to go to for a meal. So many choices are out there and when it’s a decision that has to be made between many friends, things can get tricky. Enter Hngry, an app that may lack an ‘u’ but certainly doesn’t lack... | Read more »
See All
All contents are Copyright 1984-2010 by Xplain Corporation. All rights reserved. Theme designed by Icreon.