Tag: firewire

CNET News.com takes a look at Apple’s decision to move the iPod line from FireWire to USB 2.0. “FireWire is still Apple Computer’s baby, but the proud parent is cutting the cord. With the latest crop of iPods, Apple is no longer including a FireWire cable in the box. The music players will still work with FireWire, if a cord is purchased separately, but only a USB 2.0 cable comes with the device.

The 1394 Trade Association and Apple are providing FireWire product compliance testing at this year’s Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) in San Francisco, which starts on June 28. Companies that test their products are eligible to earn the FireWire and i.LINK 1394 Compliant logos. This service is being offered without cost to WWDC attendees and 1394 Trade Association members.

Apple on Thursday responded to concerns that Mac OS X 10.3 Panther disables external FireWire hard drives. “Apple has identified an issue with external FireWire hard drives using the Oxford 922 bridge chip-set with firmware version 1.02 that can result in the loss of data stored on the disk drive,” Apple said in a statement.

Several MacMinute readers note that the term “FireWire” has been added to the Oxford English Dictionary. The definition of FireWire reads: “noun [mass noun] trademark a standard high-performance serial bus for connecting devices to a personal computer.” A full list of the new words added to the dictionary can be found here (PDF). Apple invented the high-speed FireWire interface in the mid-90s. It is also known as the cross-platform industry standard IEEE 1394.