New 13" MacBook Pro drops digital audio input for FireWire and SD
Most MacBook users are unlikely to ever employ the combination digital and analog audio input port, which has appeared on all Mac notebooks for years. Podcasters are likely to use a USB mic like the Blue Snowball instead.
However, lots of users are likely to want to use their iPhone or iPod touch combination headset/mic with their MacBook for video conferencing, and recent notebooks have added the additional pin required to support recording audio in addition to stereo headphone analog outputs and digital audio output.
Dropping the rarely used audio input jack helped enable Apple's engineers to include a new SD card slot for accommodating SD, mini SD and micro SD flash RAM cards from cameras and other devices. The new port also appears to supports the SDHC (Secure Digital High Capacity) standard, which allows card capacities up to 32GB.
Support for FireWire 800 is also new, signaling a return to the ubiquitous FireWire Target Mode feature that has long defined the Mac experience. While capable of speeds theoretically twice as fast as standard FireWire 400, the FW-800 specification uses a different plug to accommodate extra wires needed to support faster speeds with FW-800 devices. It is, however, backwardly compatible with FireWire 400 devices and only needs a simple FW-400 to FW-800 cable to work with existing FW-400 hard drives and other devices.
81 Comments
Wow, we must be on the same brainwave today!
I just tried to submit this story and it wouldn't go through:
(quoting myself here)
As you know, Apple is now offering a SD on it's new Mac laptop models.
Apple's tech specs on laptop hardware doesn't specify the speed or SD capacity of their new SD slot. (edit: SDHC at least)
This is a big development, and allows huge amounts of content to be easily transported in a small device.
CD and DVD's may be on their way out, and BlueRay may not even come to the Mac platform as a result.
So what? is that a scoop or what? So what do I win?
Let the whining begin.
I'd take a SD slot and firewire port anyday over a mic line in. Anyday.
Are you able to record in stereo with the other options? Or is it mono only? Just curious- no complaints.
Let the whining begin.
For what the lack of BlueRay?
Steve has said BlueRay is a "bag of hurt" so it looks like SD is going to be the "new thing"
2TB is huge amount and SD's small slim factor is ideal for very thin laptops and future iPhones.
So now we know.
Oh jesus, buy San Disk...but wait, SD isn't cheap...
oops
I don't buy the notion that Apple drops a port because they had to to add another port (in this case and many others). There are plenty of machines out there that have both ports and more - can we drop the charade of "but apple had no choice!"
If apple really wanted to keep both, they could have made it happen.
And the feature that defines the mac experience is really FireWire Target Mode? Really? Sure, it's cool, but it Defines the Experience?