One of the selling points for the recently updated Apple Cinema Display is that it also acts as a hub for additional devices with USB 2, Firewire, and Gigabit Ethernet ports. What if you want those ports but don’t need the monitor to go along with it? Belkin hopes to satisfy your need with its new Thunderbolt Express Dock it showed off recently at the Intel Development Forum.

To preface this article, yes it has been several months since Apple gave us the thumbs-down on FireWire by axing it from the latest round of MacBook updates (it survives on the MacBook Pro, but only in the less popular Firewire 800 form). Much has been said, though little has been done—although there is an online petition to bring FireWire back to the MacBook. But a conversation with a client and an Apple Genius at my local Apple store recently brought the issue back for a while, and it is worth sharing.

Ranier Brockerhoff gives an extensive analysis of the guts of the new Macbook, the changes Apple made, and why they made them (or at least, the apparent benefits of the changes they made). His conclusion? It was a choice between the Firewire 400 port and another (unpowered) USB 2.0 port, and Apple figured that more people wanted the latter. In the Macbook Pro, the 800 port was included because not only can it handle legacy peripherals through an adapter, the form factor is planned for use in the next two Firewire iterations.

One of the common complaints (especially from me) was the lack of a Target Disk Mode, making disc migration a pain. Brockerhoff brings up an interesting point: the new Macbook makes it easier for technicians to access and replace the hard drive.

One of the stranger signs of iPod ubiquity: two years ago when I bought a microwave oven, it came with a free gift. It was an AM/FM radio that also had an iPod dock. It’s been astonishingly useful gadget, both for music and as an iPod charger when I can’t find a USB cable.

No more. Connect my new iPod Touch this morning, I was greeted with a message that “Charging is not supported on this accessory.” A little bit of digging on the internet turned up the reason: newer iPods have lost the ability to charge via Firewire.

Apple reseller Small Dog Electronics details yet another example of the phasing out of Firewire.

Examples, frustration, and a lack of “green” after the break.

The next in my unintentional “Direct from Steve” series deals with the lack of Firewire on the new MacBooks, and what is arguably one of the most important and useful applications on the Mac, Migration Assistant.

I first wrote to Steve the following email:

I’m sure you are getting tons of these emails, but it is a very important issue for most Mac users. What is the alternative for Target Disk Mode now that a phase-out of FireWire has begun? I’m aware of the wireless Migration introduced with the MacBook Air, but that is absolutely no replacement for the speed of FireWire. Wireless speeds are far from approaching FireWire at a reasonable price. USB cannot support Target DIsk Mode. Migration Assistant, though often used only once, is one of the best parts of OS X, and I really hope it isn’t being removed as FireWire leaves the MacBooks, and presumably, other Macs on down the line.

And one of his secretaries or a mail rule wrote back, to say…

Well, that’s a kick in the pants. Apple giveth, and Apple taketh away. At today’s MacBook event, Apple announced (amongst other things) that the new MacBooks are finally getting an honest-to-goodness graphics card: the NVIDIA GeForce 9400M. But did they really have to remove FireWire capabilities to make room for the card? It’s true. Well, more »

Symwave, a semiconductor maker, has announced the FirePHY-1600, which doubles the speed of FireWire to 1.6 Gbps. Current FireWire 800 only manages 800 Mbps. FirePHY-1600 is fully backwards compatible with Firewire 400 and FireWire 800, and the speed increases are dramatic. According to Macworld, Symwave says that in under 5 seconds, you can transfer 1,000 more »

The IEEE 1394 Trade Association has announced that the next version of Firewire will climb to quadruple the speed of today’s FireWire, to 3.2 Gbps (Gigabits per Second), a transfer speed of 400 Megabytes per second. The new technology will use the same connectors as the current Firewire 800 (800 Mbps,100 Megabytes per second) standard, more »