From: Milton Aupperle <milton@outcastsoft.com>

Date: October 25, 2008 10:57:48 AM MDT

To: Astro_IIDC@yahoogroups.com

Subject: Re: [Astro_IIDC] Re: Bring Back FireWire Petitions

Hi Tim;

The petition isn't as important as sending Apple Feedback

http://www.apple.com/feedback/macbook.html

that you will not buy a Mac Laptops because it doesn't have FireWire, and then following through with that threat.

Steve and Marketing ignore petitions- always have, always will - they simply don't care. I remember when they said OpenGL does not "threaten" QD3D's existence and 4 months later Steve (it's known as being "Steved")  laid off the entire QD3D team and dumped it on the waste pile that is QuickTime. A petition with several hundred thousand names was sent to Steve, and he ignored it. That fiasco cost me about $100,000 in development time (for our now "Steve'd" Mac only GIS software), and even today OpenGL is still only a play back routine and has no retained modes, which QD3D had in abundance.

The only thing Steve will have to listen too is you saying no and only purchase Macs with FireWire., which hurts there bottom line and drives product features. You can also make it a point of telling them I bought this because it has FireWire.

And basically if you don't, this will be the end of Astro IIDC. I have been talking to some USB Camera companies and none of them are interested in doing all the work necessary to gain 3 to 5% market share (world wide), if that. So you'll be switching to Windows for capture and will also be processing it on Windows too because the AVI formats used are not generally supported by QuickTime. I hope you like Vista.

TTYL..

Milton J. Aupperle

On 25-Oct-08, at 8:00 AM, Tim wrote:

I sent a complain in yesterday.  The madness!  ;oD

I have a 17" Macbook Pro for work.  I asked for the glossy screen.  I

actually like it a lot - but then my office window faces north, so

glare is seldom a problem.

All my other macs, both at work and home, have matte screens, though.

-Tim.