New Mac Laptops Today - bad news for MacBooks and ProTools?

[Chris Nelson]

Good Morning All;

As many of you probably already know, Apple is releasing a new line of Mac Book and Mac Book Pros this afternoon (macrumors.com).

It appears that the new MacBooks will NOT have a firewire port (for the first time). So, does this mean that the new MacBooks will essentially be useless for running Pro Tools? My understanding is that PT does not support USB drives and any sort of heavy sessions on the boot drive are a bad idea also.

Apple will continue to sell one "current" version of the MacBook with firewire, but I hate the idea of buying a new laptop that is already nearly a year old.

Spending an extra $1000 on a MBP seems a bit unncessary just to make it Pro Tools friendly. I imagine a lot of audio and video professionals will be dissapointed by Apple's decision to cut the firewire platform from their newest MBs.

Thoughts?

[RussUK]

It depends on what you think they are bringing out. I wouldn't trust rumours too much they are about 50% right on a good day.

There's a chance today's Mac is a sub £500 machine, if that is the case the likelihood of running PT on it is slim, with or without Firewire.

Secondly, as Apple invented Firewire, it seems unlikely that they will drop it without very good reason.

Best to wait and see what the truth is before we surmise about rumours.

* Rumours spelt correctly NOT as the site does

[rpb1966]

I agree Russ, I cant quite work out why Apple would decide to drop the firewire, considering they devised it in the first place, it would be like shooting themselves in the foot, and somehow I cannot see that happening.


Russ

[Chris Nelson]

I think the reason is simple. 4 years ago I had to choose between an IBook and a Powerbook. I saved $1000 and purchased a lovely IBook which has been working as my Pro Tools machine ever since. There wasn't significant functionality difference between the "pro" and standard product lines. Since Apple continues to create both products, I suspect they feel the need to further distinguish the two product lines (and the major price difference). Losing FW on the MacBook is a great way (unfortunately for us) to show off that difference.

The announcement is at 1pm EST today... and I think you'll find that the majority of the "rumor" sites have very accurate postings today. Many stores received electronic inventory updates last night and that information is likely dead on accurate.

I'm certainly hopeful that the MB will have firewire, but I'm sceptical at this point. So my question remains... will MBs be worthless as Pro Tools machines? If the internal drives are 7600 - could we start to enter a world where internal drives would be acceptable in Pro Tools machines?

[Transputer]

Major fail, no firewire on new macbooks, only FireWire 800 on the new macbook pro. Will be interesting to see how the pro-audio world responds

[Sounds Expensive]

I'm excited about this. Faster transfer rates means good things for audio. As long as computer manufacturers continue with 400, what's the point in audio interface manufacturers going to 800? This is great! Hopefully AI manufactures will now begin implementing 800 into their interfaces.

[Transputer]

No firewire on all new Macbooks is not a good thing - unless you can run your Pro Tools off a USB hard drive (yeah right !), Macbook Pro now required

[shanabit]

I think its GREAT, now all you PROTOOLS users will have a Macbook PRO so it will all sound PRO HAHHAHAH $700 FW card is what it amounts to.

Apple KNOWS that the Pro community NEEDS the FW in it( Especially theri LOGI PRO 8 users) so thats why they left it out so youll fork over another $700 thats a Mac Genius if Ive ever seen one

Its a good way to get more money from the DIGI users as well

I honestly would like to see FW800 take off myself

[Sounds Expensive]

What's the big deal? Get the older one just prior to the latest release, it's still cutting edge but has everything; and, they'll be cheaper because people always want the latest. It's not always best to stay cutting edge, especially in recording. Cutting edge and a rock solid DAW rarely can co-exist! Remember what happened, not too long ago, with PT and Leopard?

[darwiniandude]

Long time reader first time poster, blah blah...

The real issue possibly isn't FireWire, unfortunately. I say unfortunately as in my experience MacBook (non-pro) owners typically go Mbox rather than Mbox Pro or 003, and I've seen/had zero issues using current internal laptop drives rather than externals. I can run large sessions in Logic on my MacBook Air without issue, and that machine sports a 4200rpm iPod Hard Disk.

No, what may turn out to be the real killer for Pro Tools is motherboard chipset.

This critical system component is responsible for so much of the flakey issues often seen with budget PC laptops.

Both the new MacBook, AND new MacBook Pro no longer have an Intel chipset, it is nVidia. The new MacBook Air may even be the same.

We aren't talking graphics here, the chipset is responsible for passing all instructions between the Core2Duo CPU, ram, USB... In fact everything. It's like replacing a human heart and lungs with something else, but still keeping the same brain. (the CPU)

Until someone has done proper testing, be warned that the current portable Mac lineup announced today may well in fact be useless for ProTools, or recording in general.

On the other hand, it may just work spiffy, and I want one. :)