Apple Is Letting FireWire Go, and It’s Pretty Easy to Do It
Time to grab your rabbit ears and make a clean break: the newest macOS just gave FireWire the boot. In the latest beta, both FireWire 800 and FireWire 400 are officially tagged as legacy, so you can no longer hook up your USB‑heavy drives or those nostalgic iPods that used to brag about their quick transfer speeds.
What That Means For You
- Grab your old RAID array? Good luck, you’ll need a USB 3.0 or new Thunderbolt 4 cable.
- Trying to connect that “vintage” iPod with a FireWire port? It’s gone.
- All the fancy FireWire settings that lived in System Settings on macOS Sequoia are now just a dusty memory.
Why Apple Made the Switch
Apple’s logic is simple: move forward. FireWire has been in the slow lane for years, while newer ports, like USB‑C and Thunderbolt, are blazing ahead. The company aims to strip down the legacy hardware that no longer feels like the “cutting edge.”
Preparing For Tomorrow
- Check your cables: Time to swap out the old FireWire for a USB‑C or Thunderbolt adaptor.
- Backup your data early: Don’t wait until the OS update hits hard.
- Why not use a Lightning drive? It’s perfect for the modern Mac.
All in all, it’s a seamless move, and you’ll still get your data without a hitch—just maybe with fewer backs of wooden platters and more shiny cables. Happy upgrading!
FireWire’s Future: Still a Hot Topic or Not?
Apple’s decision on whether to keep FireWire (that speedy, once‑golden, cable) in its next release isn’t set in stone. The company might give it another look during the later stages of beta testing, or it could slip straight into the public launch.
From Apple to the World
Apple originally invented FireWire, and the tech didn’t stay in a single kingdom. It quickly became part of the IEEE 1394 standard—so even non‑Apple gadgets can put it to good use.
What Mac Users Need to Know
- If you’ve got older external drives or those vintage iPods, you’ll still need a FireWire adapter to plug them into new Macs.
- Even if Apple drops the port, the adapter will let you keep those nostalgic devices running.
So while the big question remains—will FireWire end up living at all?—the answer is still up for debate. Until Apple makes a final call, those of us who’ve stuck with FireWire know the world isn’t over yet.
