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Microdrive Technology Rebounds Thanks to iPod Mini
An anonymous reader writes "A few years ago Richard Menta over at MP3 Newswire did a lengthy review on the IBM Microdrive and declared it would significantly alter the MP3 portable market if IBM did one thing - drop the price. That never happened and it prompted Menta last year to declare the iPod's more cost effective Toshiba drive made it moot and he put the Microdrive on his 2002 MP3 loser list. Since then the drive technology was acquired by Hitachi who convinced to Apple to use it for the iPod Mini. The Mini's recent success prompted Menta to revisit his previous write-off. Interesting view of the up and down travils of any technology and how each change can have dramatic effect on its success and failure."
Actually they were taking the hard drives out of the Muvo2 not the ipod mini.
The seller more likely obtained it from a Creative MuVo, as the Hitachi drive in the iPod is missing some aspect of the standard IDE controller used in most CompactFlash cards and drives.
Professional photographers tend to use either:
;-)
512MB Lexar CFs, or
1GB MicroDrives.
(Or film.
Larger flash cards offer drastically diminishing return, making it harder to carry around ten or twenty of them.
MicroDrive users tend to be either desperate for storage or more careful with their cameras (as they aren't as shock-proof). (You won't see many pho/journs with a MicroDrive.)
For the existing MicroDrive users, this 4GB "hack" is a huge boon - given that many current cameras write 10-20MB photographs (in RAW format), the ability to take more than fifty photos between card changes is a bit of a nicety. This likely won't impact current flash card users, though, as the 4GBs are just as damage-prone as the 1GBs.
I know someone who used a 1 gig microdrive as storage for their Toshiba PocketPC. Reduced the battery life by 50% if you used the disc much, and it got very hot. The big storage capacity was nice, but it wasn't a very effective tradeoff. Bigger CF cards are probably a better solution for most people unless the 4+ gig drives use a lot less power.
" ... Apple at or near a loss, for whatever strange reason. ..."
Hitachi is making money off the drives they sell to Apple, in the quantities Apple is buying. It's called manufacturing.
The "part" you bought cost more in single, packaged, retail distribution channels just like any other part does; it's called retail.
Wanna buy a new car? Buy it in single parts, forget about the labour (we'll assume it's free) and you will have spent who-knows how many times more than a showroom example when you're done.
Want to manufacture cars? Buy it in quantity parts, factor in the labor, and it will still be cheaper than your one-off.
The wholesaler's markup on parts (let alone the retail markup) is about the same as a new car dealer's gross markup. Apple isn't even paying a wholesaler, but you did.
Unlike the original iPod (where Hitachi gave Apple a 1-year exclusive to the 5GB & later larger HDs, from spring 2001 to spring 2002, so that other manufacturers couldn't buy it initially and all prices were lower 1 year later than Apple paid at first in quantity) you can actually buy a 4GB drive retail; pretty much simultaneously with the introduction of the iPod mini.
So, instead of Apple paying down the cost to ramp up production by itself, like it did with the original iPod's drive, you just paid for some of it. By the way, thanks from all of us.
Technical analysis of the original iPod (reports cost thousands, I saw them at work) reveal Apple is pricing the iPod twice as low as normal manufacturing practice in electronics (parts cost is just over 50% of retail, compared to the 20~25% typical in consumer electronics); perhaps you're just a victim of Apple pricing lower than the norm in the industry. (I know it sounds crazy, but that's what the data reveals).