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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."
I hope this will help drive down the cost of flash memory so that flash-based hard drives will become available to the general public. Silent, less power-hungry, more reliable. How longer will we have to put up with very fragile magnetic disks spinning at 7000+ rpm under a head that would cut them in half if contact occurred...
Global warming is a cube.
what kind of price changes would we expect to see, if any? right now id love to get an iPod, but they are a take on the expensive side. Would be nice if it dropped just a little for the cheapo people like myself :)
I don't think the big news here is that Apple is making a Shuffle-Mini hybrid, but that Fourty percent of the world's Samsung Flash memory stock is going to be eaten by a single buyer. Think about how many different manufacturers and resellers buy that memory - and 40% of it is going to Apple. Wow.
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An iPod mini with flash memory instead of a hard drive obviously would have much better battery life and be significantly lighter.
What's it worth to you, though? $300? Will we have to wait a while before the price point becomes attractive? For me, frankly, battery life has never been an issue.
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Hopefully this would push down the size of the iPod mini. I can't help but hide a smile when people talk about how small the minis are, when you can get 10 times the storage on something only about twice as big...
Until the iPod mini is really small (like shuffle size), it is just impractical for people with decent sized music collections. The size and weight you save vs the large models isn't enough to outweigh the loss in capacity. Of course, I guess it's ok for people who call 64kbps "near CD quality"...
Absolutely -- but I just have to wonder why they'd want to move the mini to flash. Battery life -- sure. But size? Wouldn't they just end up with an iPod shuffle with a screen? Maybe they're just going to discontinue the 4 gb mini and introduce a 4 gb shuffle (since the largest mini is currently 6 gb). Who knows... ;)
Mike.
Mmmm......sacrelicious.
Nothing says Apple has to stick with using only one 4GB flash memory... (beyond price).
A smaller Mini that holds 8GB might go over well, and fit even better between the large iPods and the Shuffle.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Apple put a mouse on every one of their computers - now every computer has a mouse (or equivalent). Apple put a CD-ROM in every Mac - now every computer has one. Apple put ethernet in every Mac - now it's default standard. Apple put a "universal serial bus" in every Mac, for data and media, and now we all use them. If they replace HDs with FlashROM for all personal storage, we might just all get to leave the rotating discs behind, connected to the network. Go, Apple, go!
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This is getting to be an urban legend...
Yes, flash memory has a limited lifespan. So too does magnetic media. One can reasonably expect at least 10,000 write cycles on a particular NAND gate for consumer level flash memory - and that's the barest minimum. It's even more likely that you'll get a million cycles out of consumer NAND flash memory these days. And even that is conservative - it could be several million.
In normal operation, how long would it take before you would use up a million writes on a particular sector? And with arranging files intelligently on the memory, that's going to be less of a concern. Do you completely recreate your entire music library on your iPod every single time you add a song? Probably not. Would you do this a million times before buying a new iPod. I'm guessing no.
The number of cycles on current NAND flash technology is more than enough to last for years. Granted, I wouldn't want to use it for a swap partition, but for storing your music library you should be perfectly fine.
Flash is far more expensive per unit of memory than disk drives. Engadget.com is estimating that Apple might get as much as a 50% price reduction from Samsung. However, even at such a sharply reduced cost, a 20GB flash iPod would likely cost ~$500 or more. The current market surely won't support such an expensive 20GB MP3 player.
While thinking philosophically, we see problems in places where there are none. -Wittgenstein
Still, Slashdot is an old reliable standby for normal people who don't need 100%-up-to-date info, and Slashdot still has more people to argue with.
Ok, I have to wonder, why these never caught on. I have a mini-disc player and I love it.
I get 30 hours off of one AA, 15 off the rechargable.
I can throw my MP3's on it easily, (sonicstage sure, stupid program, but its easy)
I pay $5 for 1GB discs and it came with one.
Playlist management on the device.
Plus I can record through a mic to it, transfer back and forth and whatnot.
It has never skipped for me.
They are fairly small, smaller than an IPod.
USB, optical or stereo jack in.
Anyway, yea, I would love to be enlightened
It only seems like a bad idea if you think only in terms of raw storage space. In the end the choice between a Mini and the full sized iPod is also one of form factor, where the significantly smaller size adds a lot of value, especially if people are not going to be listening to more than 4GB of music anyway (every person has an amount of storage beyond which nothing is useful).
I don't think using Flash will increase price. What I thgink will happen in the new flash iPods will be smaller still, with longer battery life - at the same price as the old Mini. Alternatley (depending on how cheap it is to buy in that large a quantity) I could see all of the above being true plus perhaps expanding storage to 8GB (by using two) instead of 4GB - it could even cost the same as larger iPods though and it wouldn't matter, since again the forma factor is different enough to make it a factor. Even if they were the same price I might well choose the Mini over a larger iPod (especially if one is flash and one not or battery life is dramatically different).
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
You get discounts when you buy in bulk. You get it practically for free when you buy 40% of a company's stock in any given period.
Like all economics, the drugs analogy works best: one gram of cocaine is $50, an eight-ball (1/8 of an ounce -- 3.5 grams) is $150, but with bricks of the white, powdery goodness, you get it for less than $10/gram.
I'm an Apple zealot, I'm typing this on a Mac Mini, and I'm going to be clicking submit with my one mouse button, but there is no way I'll be buying a flash-based iPod. My free upgrade phone is on order (a Sony Ericsson K750), it has a USB connector, plays mp3s and takes a Memory Stick Duo Pro card (currently maxing out at 2Gb, but 4Gb version promised soon).
By the time Apple gets to market, I'll have all it's functionality plus the ESSENTIAL feature of automatically stopping playing when my phone rings, just by adding a card to my phone - which also has the simple game play and video playback functionality that is missing from iPods (even if Sony forgot to add a usable fast forward/rewind or pause button).
I'd love have an Apple device in my pocket, because they get the user interface right in ways that Sony Ericsson can't be bothered to think about, but until they have a LOT more functionality, I can't justify buying one.
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is that if apple buys up 40% of their production, they're likely to seriously increase their production in the next year, and the market will likely be flooded in a couple years. it has been a long time coming, but flash ram is about to undergo a serious price drop. combined with continual improvements in scaling and capacity, perhaps this means we'll have 40GB flash drives by 2007. that ought to shake things up a bit...
One of my Japanese co-workers had this to say about Sony:
They are masters of selling you expensive things you don't need. Case in point: TVs, Walkmen, Discmen, speakers, DVD players, boomboxes, and Playstations.
I think, of DAPs and Apple, something similar can be said:
Apple is master of making things you didn't know you need, at prices you didn't think you were willing to pay.
You got a Creative JB2 in Christmas 2001 INSTEAD of an Apple iPod, 5gb (which is what I bought). Yours is 10gb, but is also the same size as a Mac mini. I later sold my 5gb iPod to a friend, and got a 10gb iPod, which I STILL have as well. I now have a 512mb iPod shuffle.
You bought an iRiver H320 instead of an iPod; I suppose, from your admission, that you use it to record, and you wonder, "Why would I ever buy an iPod?" because you assume it's a lateral move. Apple's positioning is that there are TWO products that you don't own yet, and that is the mini and the shuffle.
Well, lets put it another way; Your iRiver replaces your JB2 in both size and capacity; the mini replaces your iRiver in terms of 'carriability'. You can fit a mini in your breast pocket, your jeans pocket, your back pocket, etc. It's smaller than many cellphones, and is useful because it's size allows it to be lighter and easier to carry. It's not meant to record (which is why you use your iRiver), but only for strict playback.
In other terms, it is a portable laptop to your iRiver desktop.
The shuffle is even smaller, more rugged, and lighter; it is a PDA to your iPod mini laptop!
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Why couldn't you have a two tier tertiary storage system. 6GB of power hungry storage, and 256MB of low power storage, the 32 MB of volatile RAM etc...
That way your iPod wouldn't have to fire up the harddrive half as often. If you need to access your music you can, but providing you don't want to change the playlist / album or are happy with the shuffle selection you'd only need to fire up the HDD every couple of days.
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