Firewire Cable vs USB Cable?

iPod Touch and the current gen iPod can charge and sync through USB and Firewire can only charge your iPod. Older iPods eg, iPod Mini can charge and sync through both Firewire and USB.

Thank You,
Nick O







<Edited by Moderator>

For the differences in the specifications (yes, there are several types of FireWire connector), you may wish to do a quick search of your favorite search engine. You will find many articles at various levels of technical detail. One will, I am sure, be appropriate.

There was a time when all available iPods were FireWire based and could not even use USB. But as a relatively small percentage of PC users have one, keeping the iPod FW only would have hindered its availability to mac users and PC users savvy enough to install a card in their PC. Now, all current iPod models are USB only.

There are 2 main different FireWire cables: 400 and 800. 800 is twice as fast and square-shaped, while the 400 has shape that is a bit difficult to describe. Check the iMac images: you'll see them there under "Gallery."
They're superior to USB in every way excepting that only Macs (and, admittedly, a very few PCs) have them ... but for your iPod, to reiterate, you can only sync via USB. FireWire may give you a faster charge (more connections and more bandwidth), but not fast enough to justify the cost of buying a whole new cord set.