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Apple Rumored to Be After Samsung Flash Memory
Steve Nixon writes "An unconfirmed report today from Reuters quotes an industry analyst firm iSuppli as saying that Apple plans to buy as much as 40 percent of Samsung's second-half flash memory output.
The NAND flash memory cards will be used in a new, 4 GB iPod Mini, which Apple would release in time for the holiday shopping season, the report stated. The current version of the 4 GB mini contains a hard drive. Apple's iPod Shuffle uses flash memory."
More info here
Looks like Samsung is wooing Apple with a price reduction. Samsung also makes mp3 players. Seems like they would hoard the memory for themselves. Maybe they have figured out the sweet spot, in terms of profit, of how much to keep for themselves and how much to sell to the best selling brand.
I call FUD. I jog with my 20GB iPod every day, and I've never had a problem.
Information wants to be anthropomorphized.
Just doing a quick search of retail prices, it looks like I could get a 4 GB compact flash card for about $250, while a 4 GB microdrive runs about $200. Anyone know what the price is like on the Samsung NAND flash memory? The article claims Samsung would have to drop prices 50% to match microdrives, but that seems like a little much - how much less power does NAND flash memory use than a microdrive, and how much less battery would a flash-based device need for comparable performance?
This has been brought up in photography circles for quite some time. A surprising number of people were adverse to flash based Compact Flash (CF) cards because of this.
BUT - you get unlimited reads, lots and lots of writes (about 10^6 with modern cards) and the write longevity can be improved by buffering algorithms. I wouldn't use flash for a swap file, but unless your taste in music changes every 30 seconds, flash memory should be just fine.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
If you update your iPod once per day (for new podcasts mostly and a couple additions to your song collection) and you get 100,000 writes with flash memory (IIRC), then that's about 270 years of use.
Bill Clinton: Pimp we can believe in. - The Shirt!!!
...or even a DVD-iPod.
What I don't like about harddrives is that thowing them around isn't good at all. In addition, they rotate at 5200 RPMs at minimum which isn't good for the battery. And constantly stopping the drive reduces its life rapidly. Actually, shutting down (even correctly!) a harddisk is the most damaging thing that can happen to it.
Flash memory is slow to write, and it wears off in rewrite cycles. Actually, all Siemens S45i phones I've seen had their flash memory broken because the phone constantly rewrote the addressbook. If you buy a flashdrive, it will probably have a notice about it supporting no more than 1000-10000 rewrites.
I don't know if there's any progress happening, but I'm know that it was the situation 3 years ago .
CDs on the other hand can be easily thrown away if broken.
Also, they can have DRM that doesn't discriminate the user:
for example, for each song recorded there can be an included license for the specific playback device. The song can have the license included directly at iTunes Store and then burned to the CD without having to be saved anywhere at the harddisk. The user can be allowed to copy the CD because it won't play on any device except the one listed in the license.
...which is exactly what Apple does, doesn't it?
Apple almost never drops their prices, they just make things better at the current price point... remember, $300 5 years ago got you a black and white 5 GB iPod... look what it gets you now.
I bet it will be redesigned a little, but the price is going to stay where it is.
Because each of those 4GB flashcards cost like $200+ in themselves. Apple will mostly get them discounted and you'll not likely pay $200 just for the internal, but if they put even two of those things in an iPod Mini, it would have to cost the consumer at least $400 (for an 8GB player!) in order for Apple not not go bankrupt over it.
Rumor from the grapevine has is that Samsung approached Apple and offered to match the cost of the tiny harddrive that are currently in the Ipodmini. So, Apple really isn't losing any money per unit. Then again, Apple really isn't going to gain any either. The big benefit is mostly consumer based: longer battery life, no moving parts, smaller space. The big benefit for Samsung is that they get a major push for a lot of these into the market, and force out their competitor at the same time. Then they make a name for themselves and get other companies like Creative, Dell or even Microsoft to purchase, once they can afford to reduce costs. When can we start seeing these things in laptops?
NPR already offers some podcasts for free.
You may want to check with your local NPR station for more podcasts. I know that KCRW here in L.A. already has a majority of their programs (including the music shows) up for download.
.-.
But not WMA, Ogg, FLAC, WAV, etc., if you care about any of those...
.m4p files - which iTunes will cheerfully burn to a DVD for you.
And your minidisk player does ? If you try to transfer a WAV to an iPod, ti will complain. But iTunes will also make an MP3 out of it with a right-click. And there are Mac and Windows extensions to enable Ogg support. Apparently the Windows project on Sourceforge is moribund.
I've never understood why the people in this community are so willing to accept Apple's extremely proprietary architecture
Oh come on, iTunes is perfectly happy to index your existing music folders and not touch a file. Or you can let it manage one. If you stop using it, all your rips have nice, clean ID3 tags and your library is a structured folder full of whatever format you rip in. iTunes 4.9 will rip in MP3, AIFF, Apple Lossless, AAC and WAV; all at a wide-variety of settings. That's four wide-open formats (minus the patent issue with MP3s). And it puts them into well named. It'll even play those MP3s from the leading DRM-friendly online music store.
Once you've ripped in your favorite format you can then burn audio CDs, data CDs (backups, unlimited burns) and MP3 discs that many, many players will handle.
WTF about that architecture is "extremely proprietary" ? I see you have deep philosophical issues with the iTunes Store. I respect that. But if you factor out the objectionable parts, and there are legitimate objections, they have produced a system with very little lockdown built in.
Yes, a successful DRM scheme is something to be concerned about. But a) it isn't mandatory, b) isn't so bad, and c) has an escape route (with a moderate quality loss) by burning audio CDs. Store music CDs plays fine on anything that doesn't reveal flaws in real CDs so it's a real escape. And I consider it to be a fair discount over new CDs given the quality and DRM issues.
As for "sell or give away" for Store tracks, you can burn those to audio CDs and give 'em away. Last I checked it was... seven (?) burns for a playlist ? You could also create an account to do nothing else than buy some music and then sell the account later. You'll also need to provide a copy of the
Just don't use Apple's store. iPods are fundamentally disc drives and their library can be written to by programs other than iTunes. iTunes itself, as discussed, has no lock-in and reads and writes a variery of formats. The biggest problem with having the store available is that it's so damned convenient to drop $0.99 on a song that gets stuck in your head.
Ok, and the Windows version is annoying. Most Windows software is. And I have no idea if it will talk to your minidisc burner, maybe mounting a virtual ISO and then burning that will work for you. The Windows version uses a lot of the Quicktime API and not Win32 so much and so might not see the minidisc as a generic device for burning.
Lastly, do post a link to the "best legal alternative site that doesn't insist on onerous DRM". What's their catalog like ? Publicize the heck out of it (word of mouth is the best advertising) and give the market a chance to work. Link me up baby.
Veteran, Bermuda Triangle Expeditionary Force, 1992-1951