
How useless is FireWire assist in macOS Tahoe 26? As useless because the iPod, so far as the Mac is anxious, which is no less than just a little unhappy. Stephen Hackett checked.
In basic 512 Pixels trend, he’s conjured collectively an actual world demonstration utilizing a battle-tested FireWire 800 cable-connected drive, two Thunderbolt adapters together with a Thunderbolt 2 to three dongle, and a Mac. Woof.

The outcome? A drive that accurately appeared as a number of volumes on macOS Sequoia simply appears like an adapter to nowhere on macOS Tahoe. macOS deprecation defeated FireWire earlier than bit rot might take its toll on the drive.
On one hand, nobody ought to actually belief a FireWire drive to work in 2025. However, dropping FireWire assist for no obvious acquire past simplicity makes the Mac just a bit much less succesful.
If somebody had been to bump into an previous FireWire drive crammed with lengthy misplaced household images from one other era, the Mac ought to have the ability to see these images. Hopefully there’s a suitable Mac in the identical discovery.
It’s much more unlucky {that a} Mac operating macOS Sequoia can nonetheless interface with the unique iPod (utilizing yet one more dongle than Stephen’s instance: a FireWire 400 to 800 adapter), however the identical Mac operating macOS Tahoe can’t. Simply feels unsuitable on precept.
I’m not shedding sleep over FireWire assist being eliminated, but it surely does make me just a little unhappy.
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