Considering that the lack of FireWire ports could be considered the worst problem the new MacBook Pro and MacBook notebooks have, it's no surprise that Steve Jobs himself decided to answer user concerns. What really surprises me is the speed of his feedback - I hope others(we-know-who) will learn something from this! Now, let's see what Steve Jobs has to say about this matter, shall we?

Obviously, it wasn't a new keynote, but Steve Jobs "spoke" in an email, writing to a Mac user that changes in video camera technology made the need for FireWire to fade away. "Actually, all of the new HD camcorders of the past few years use USB 2" says the email signed simply "Steve," as a reply to the fan's email you can see in the image above.<-125x125 Button - right->

It is very interesting to see Apple kill its own invention, since they released the specification for FireWire back in late 80s, to see it become IEEE 1394 in 1995, supported by DEC, Texas Instruments, and Sony, and now they leave this part of the market for the competitors still offering FireWire with their laptops. If this is a good idea or not, I guess we'll see by the sales figures this Holiday season. Until then, it's only small talk.

Just to close this article properly, I think I'll have to ask you again(you didn't bother much to answer my questions lately, shame on you!) - do you think the new MacBook Pro is less appealing without FireWire? If you think so, please let us know what kind of FireWire devices do you regularly use, just for the record - I am really curious about that. That's all, folks! Steve Jobs has spoken, now it's your turn!

If there would be only one question you could directly ask Apple, as a company, or even if you could ask "his Steveness" for some information, what would you like to know? Speaking for myself, I could easily go for "why remove FireWire," but I won't. The engine that really pushed Apple through the first years of this decade and helped it grow so much is, without any doubt, the iPod. Now, Steve Wozniak says the iPod is getting closer to its final hour, and so my question would be - "iPod problems, Apple?"

Now, let me explain, it doesn't really matter I did it before. My opinion is that Apple's iPod hit the market with its innovations exactly when that was needed, but after a few well chosen moves, it stopped. For example, look at the new iPod Nano. An accelerometer? Was that really needed? Still no microSD slot, still rather short battery life, still lack of support for various audio formats popular within the audio enthusiasts community(APE, FLAC).

One thing is certain, and I have nothing bad to say about it - Apple's marketing division is brilliant! They managed to grab a huge market share <-336x280 Large Rectangle - right->without having the best product available, and even without offering the best price to features ratio, but this seems to lead to very interesting problems. If we look at the iPhone 3G problems, then I don't think there's any lawsuit going on, one that has been started by a competitor claiming that Apple is monopolizing the market, but when we talk about iPod problems...

...Apple just found themselves under fire once again, this time having to fight a Taiwanese media player manufacturer, namely Luxpro(never heard of it, by the way). They accuse Apple for controlling 80 percent of the music downloads through iTunes, which sells songs only playable on iPods, while forbidding its devices to play music purchased from other online sources.

Previously, Apple attacked Luxpro in 2005, demanding them to stop selling the "Super Shuffle" player, and that lawsuit was finally won by Luxpro, after changing the name of the device into "Super Tangent."

Now, Luxor says Apple leaves customers with "no choice but to purchase music from iTunes." Even more, Apple has "sought to monopolize the worldwide MP3 player market and crush legitimate, smaller competitors," at least according to Luxor. They have the market share numbers from the US to back their words, since 90 percent of the hard drive player market and 70 percent of the general market are being held by Apple.

Just my 5 cents - why in the world would a smart consumer pay for iTunes music and use an iPod, when he/she could get audio CDs for about the same price, even cheaper, turn them into MP3 files, and then easily play these tracks on any possible media player one could think of? There's the freedom of choice, there's Apple's marketing division(hail&kill!), and then there's the customer.

I see no monopoly issue here - as a potential buyer, anyone could check online and see if there's no better choice from Creative, Cowon, or even Luxor, to suit one's needs. Anyway, my past experience says a lot of people first buy, and then think about it, so Luxor should find some really smart people to take care of advertising its products properly...

It's so sad to see various technologies going into eternal oblivion before making any impact on the industry, but that's life. For example, who is still wondering what is AMR? Just for the record, also known as "audio/modem riser," this was an expansion slot found on Pentium III, Pentium 4 and Athlon motherboards, probably only used by 0.01 percent of those having such motherboards. Even I still have such a mainboard, in a computer that I keep for emergency situations, and I never used that slot. Now, what about FireWire?

No, I won't get into the details regarding what is FireWire, because there's something even more interesting to say - what's going to happen with it. Before moving on to tackle today's subject seriously, I have to make another confession - <-180x150 Small Rectangle - right->I have no idea if my AM2 mainboard has FireWire, and I couldn't care less about that. Of course, I could check the manufacturer's website and see if I have such a thing available, but... what for?

I guess Apple ended up facing the same question, when they decided what to remove from the new MacBook Pro and MacBook computers. Guess what? No more FireWire for Mac, of course! Don't ask yourselves why, after all Apple took away the optical drive from the MacBook Air and nobody died. I am sure this move could help some accessories manufacturers to come up with "USB to FireWire" adapters or something similar... or not, I am not working in the field, so I can't tell that for sure.

Since I mentioned the MacBook Air above, I should also add that the lack of FireWire is widely considered to be one of the biggest downsides Apple's thinnest notebook has, so the big question remains - if Apple decided to drop FireWire for Mac notebooks, why did they do it?

I can't really answer the question above, so maybe you can help me. First, they dropped iPod's FireWire support, in 2004, and now they are leaving no more FireWire for Mac notebooks. I only hope they won't do the same to the USB ports, because that would really be a tragedy!

Remember what I always say about the software inside any hardware device? Probably not, but since I don't like to repeat myself, let me put it this way - no matter how good your hardware may be, software updates can always squeeze a bit more out of it! Now, we already got the new MacBook Pro and the other goodies from Apple, but that's not all - a software update also came with the new Macs, as we're going to see right away...

Getting back to the hardware and software problem, here's what I usually do when I get a new piece of hardware - after unboxing it, I throw away the drivers & software CD or DVD that came with it(I have a collection of such discs), and then go online to get<-250x250 Square - right-> the latest drivers and software available. That's exactly what most people buying Macs will do, especially since the new MacBook and MacBook Pro may not arrive to their new owners until next month.

The software update 1.2 for MacBooks has 45 MB in size, and Apple wrote quite a description for it. Even if you're not a MacBook user, here's the interesting description - "This update contains software bug fixes for precision aluminum unibody enclosure MacBook and MacBook Pro notebook computers introduced in October 2008." Pretty interesting, don't you think? They put it like the body needs that software, and not the hardware inside it...

"The update improves compatibility with external displays and includes a variety of software fixes. This update is recommended for all users of these systems," concluded Apple the short description of this latest software update.

This is it, for now. I know that only a few chosen ones have the latest MacBooks already, so you should write down in your "to do" list "to update my precision aluminum unibody enclosure MacBook...as soon as I get it," don't you think?

Still curious about the new MacBook Pro? I bet you are, and so am I, so let's take a look at the new boys in Apple's camp, shall we? Today, we'll talk about the two new MacBook Pro laptops, the new MacBooks and, finally, the surprise of the month - the 24-inch LED Cinema Display. Ready or not, here we go...

...with the slightly redesigned MacBook Air. Basically, we're talking about the following changes:

- the new "brick" construction, gives us a case milled from a solid aluminum block, instead of a combination of aluminum and plastic pieces, as it was the case so far

- NVIDIA's new GeForce 9400M mainboard and graphics chipset allow up to 5X the video performance of the GMA X3100 video found in the previous model

- pricing on the new MacBook Air will be $1,800 for a version with the 1.6GHz CPU and 120GB disk drive, while $2,500 will give you a 1.86GHz CPU and 128GB solid-state drive

- expected to start shipping in November, preorders are taken through the Apple Store already

Ok, so this is the "new" MacBook Air, but what about the new MacBook Pro notebooks? Metal & glass, these are the keywords, my friends, but only these without the rest of the details wouldn't help much, so here we go... the new MacBook Pro features the following:

- a new construction process of the case, similar to the one mentioned above for the MacBook Air

- a new, multitouch glass trackpad, 39 percent larger than earlier ones and designed so that the entire pad works as a button

- glass is also being used for the LCD display

- all connections have been moved to one side, now including gigabit <-336x280 Large Rectangle - right->Ethernet, FireWire 800 and two USB ports, as well as an ExpressCard slot, while wireless receivers support Bluetooth and 802.11n Wi-Fi

- apart from the new SSD drive option, the new MacBook Pro features both 9400M and 9600M GT graphics chips by NVIDIA, which operate together in a hybrid SLI mode

- the two new models are both measuring 15.4 inches, and they come for $1,999 - packing a 2.4GHz Core 2 Duo, 2GB of DDR3 RAM, 256MB dedicated graphics memory, and a 250GB hard drive, while the $2,499 system has a 2.53GHz processor, 4GB of RAM, 512MB graphics memory and a 320GB hard drive

When talking about the new MacBook, things are just as I expected. We're talking about a new MacBook Pro, without the "pro" features, leaving us with only NVIDIA 9400M integrated graphics, 13.3 inch LCD, a metal body with all ports to a side, glass trackpad, LED screen backlighting and backlit keyboard. While the FireWire ports are completely missing, the options include up to 4GB of RAM, as well as a 320GB hard drive or a 128GB SSD.

The new MacBook notebooks available are the $1,299 one, which uses a 2GHz processor, 2GB of RAM and a 160GB hard drive, but leaves aside the backlit keyboard, while the $1,599 machine comes with everything loaded, a 2.4GHz CPU, and a 250GB hard drive.

Now, there was one more thing...oh, yeah, the 24 inch Cinema Display! If you ask me, I think every display larger than 21 inch should come with a wireless kit as a bonus, since I find it rather strange to sit on your chair facing a huge LCD, instead of lying on your bed with a wireless keyboard and mouse.

Anyway, here's the features list of the new display from Apple:

- a new mini-DisplayPort connection for attaching the latest MacBooks

- 1920x1200 pixels resolution, with 16.7 million colors

- iSight camera and microphone built in with stereo speakers, all fed via a single cable

- LED backlighting is used for better colors and energy savings

- the display is mercury-free

- USB connectivity, with a built-in 3-port USB 2.0 hub, as well as a MagSafe power connector

This beauty comes for $900, and will start shipping next month from the same online Apple Store I mentioned earlier. If you're not located in the US, you should ask your local Apple dealer...or wait.

These being said, I think we covered the new MacBook Pro, as well as the remaining goodies introduced by Apple yesterday. If you have anything to say about them, please go ahead and drop your comments below. Speaking for myself, I think this update of the MacBook line is much better and more interesting than the one they performed on the iPods, but this is just a thought...