Apple Moving To All Flash Based iPods?
Prudential analyst Jesse Tortora, who loves to wax poetic on Apple, claims the concern will offer only Flash memory iPod’s by the end of the year. The new high-capacity Flash players would also get a major design makeover with a new display in the wide-screen format.
“We believe that the video iPod transition from 1.8-inch hard disk drives to NAND flash memory may occur as soon as late 2007,” Tortora wrote. “Our checks indicate that Apple is considering canceling its next generation HDD-based iPod design, with the form factor refresh involving a move to NAND flash memory.”
Despite the larger cost per GB for Flash memory, Tortora believes that the transition could be feasible with sizes as large as 32GB sizes of Flash memory. However, the higher cost will certainly be offset by a significantly lower failure rate and increased battery life. The current 30GB Hard Drive based iPod only offers 3.5hrs of video playback, while a 30GB Flash iPod could allow for 5.5 hours of video playback.
