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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."
to become an overnight success.
Is it: ..was acquired by Hitachi who convinced Apple to use it for the iPod Mini.
or
was acquired by Hitachi who was convinced by Apple to use it for the iPod Mini.
Editors should be clearing this up, rather than adding 11 more submissions to the 'Games' catagory. C'mon Timothy - stop playing UT2004 for just a second.
MicroDrive won't be successful as a storage because nobody really needs to carry that much data around. When iPod comes in, it changed the use of such device, and people do have needs to carry that much of music around.
Similar to Acer's latest monsterous laptop, which is so heavy and short of battery life. Most people said it is too heavy and short-life to be carried around, but in reality this laptop is not designed for you to carry around and use it in pubs, cafe or buses, instead it is for people to move from point A to point B, and station it on a desk again. This immediately changes its intended use and market.
I hardly think that a significant percentage of the 100k+ iPMinis were purchased for that reason.
The Mini isn't a bad deal in any way for people who want one that is mini -- and the size DOES make a difference to plenty of people. 4G is still a hell of a lot of music, for "typical" people and/or those willing to prune what they put on the iPod to songs they'll ever actually listen to.
I highly doubt Hitachi is selling them at a loss -- Apple is buying with at least 100k unit volume commitments. I bet they haven't even sold 100k total to retail channels! I am sure, however, they wish they'd protected against this, to keep the margins on standalone retail sales high.
"Hitachi is clearly selling these drives to Apple at or near a loss, for whatever strange reason."
It's unlikely that they'd do this for a product that was almost guaranteed to sell in large volumes. It's probably the other way around - they're making a small profit on the iPod sales and a really big profit on the drives they sell seperately.
In this day and age, where computers are so widely used, and our data integrity is vital, we still rely on data storage methods that use moving parts. Nothing lasts forever, but magnetic media always has a nasty habit of failing much sooner, mainly because it still relies on a system vulnerable to friction. Now microdrive technology is rebounding? When is this dinosaur going to die!? Then again, maybe that's the reason it's still around. If it didn't fail, we wouldn't have to buy a new one.
Plus, you've got to assume that they're making a profit on these things. Even if someone is just buying the ipod to take it apart, it's still $$$ in apple's pocket. No real reason to discourage that.
That's assuming that all of these microdrives are ending up on ebay NOW. What about people buying them for themselves, or people with dozens or hundreds of drives but holding them to keep supply low (to keep the price up). IANA Statistician, but I would expect it to be a slightly larger percent, but not more than 2-5%.
If I understand correctly, the ipod mini has shock proofing installed around the hard drive. I know that the bigger ipod did. Cameras however with compact flash slots made to accept flash memory do not have any shock proofing at all.
-Mr Lizardo
^I'm with stupid.^
The zire is a toy, come back when you have something with a persistant connection to the internet, a larger screen, a keyboard, and a phone and we'll talk.
No, the Zire is a PDA. What you described borders on being a notebook - if I wanted to carry a notebook computer around, I would have one. But you see, I don't need (or want) a persistant connection to the internet, or a larger screen, or a phone. A keyboard would be nice, but it's not critical. The Zire lets me organize my contacts and notes, view whatever documents I need to carry with me, play games, play video and music, and carry around my photo albums in my pocket.
And like you said, the other devices "eat up power like you wouldn't believe." Why again would I want a device that has features I don't want, in a form factor I don't want to lug around, and that is a pain in the ass requiring frequent recharges?
That's what I thought. Sorry, troll, maybe you should use one of your wonderful "2.5G devices" in the real world and see how you like it.
"Wow, you're like some kind of superhero able to ward off happiness and success at every turn."
-- Ryan Stiles