Why Was FireWire Discontinued? Here's What Happened To Apple's USB Alternative

For a moment in the late 1990s and early 2000s, the future looked uncertain for the Universal Serial Bus (USB). At the time, it was IEEE 1394 (better known by the Apple trademark FireWire) that offered all the best stuff: lightning-fast transfer speeds, power delivery, and multiple transfer modes that would adjust the load between them to maximize network bandwidth. Firewire was born in the late '80s as Apple's answer to slower, older technologies like ADB (Apple Desktop Bus). Apple engineers envisioned a single cable that could deliver high-speed data and power along with the precise timing that multimedia production workflows demanded. By the time IEEE 1394 was ratified  as a standard in 1995, FireWire offered two-way 400 Mbps transfer speeds, daisy-chaining of up to 63 hot-swappable devices, and an integrated microcontroller to manage CPU load.

Engineered through a rare collaboration between tech giants Apple, Sony, and IBM, FireWire at first generated a loyal following among the digital media production community. But despite its clear technical advantages, FireWire started to disappear from cameras, computers, and audio interfaces before the format really even had a chance to catch on. FireWire's flameout was a perfect storm of company politics, bad timing, and technological competition that ultimately led to the format's discontinuation.

Apple began developing FireWire in the 1980s and first used it in 1999 model computers. Around that same time, Sony dropped FireWire into its new lineup of digital video camcorders, helping cement FireWire as a media production industry favorite. Even the first iPod model owed its existence to FireWire: at the time, USB couldn't deliver enough power or data for the Apple MP3 player to work efficiently. FireWire seemed destined to become a universal standard, but cracks had already started to form. From the outset, FireWire was more expensive to implement than USB because of the additional controller chips and bulkier cables and connectors it required. USB was much cheaper and simpler, and those factors become more important as a technology is scaled up.

Apple made things worse in 1999 when it began charging a $1 per port licensing fee to FireWIre device users. This drove manufacturers away from the format and back to the fee-free USB standard. Intel had initially backed FireWire, but the company pulled its support and shifted to USB 2.0 in light of the new FireWire fees and USB 2.0's 480 Mbps top transfer speed. Intel chipsets were the backbone of the PC industry at the time; so once the processor giant backed out, the PC market more or less abandoned FireWire entirely. USB quickly became the industry default thanks in part to Intel's move, and the latest generations of USB technology support much faster transfer speeds than FireWire ever did.

Once the PC industry had moved on, FireWire was restricted to Apple computers and specialized equipment like audio interfaces, cameras, and external hard drives. Apple tried to salvage the format by doubling its speed with FireWire 800 in 2003, but the USB wave was too strong to beat back by then.The final blow came when Apple moved the iPod from FireWire to USB. When the MacBook Air launched in 2008 without a FireWire port, the writing was on the wall. 

The last FireWire-equipped Mac was made in 2012, and the new choice was Thunderbolt: an updated, Intel-backed standard co-developed by Apple that offered even higher performance. Today, FireWire survives only as a legacy technology. Adapters are still sold for niche users needing to connect older devices, but USB-C and Thunderbolt effectively dominate the landscape. Ironically, USB has evolved to incorporate many of FireWire's original strengths — like faster speeds, power delivery, and full-duplex data transfer — all without the licensing baggage and brand siloing that ultimately doomed FireWire.