Posted on Sunday, February 11 2007 @ 1:05 CET by Thomas De Maesschalck
Analysts
believe Apple may switch all its iPods to use flash memory this year:
The report, from Prudential Equity Group analyst Jesse Tortora, was spotted by AppleInsider. Tortora believes that by late 2007 Apple could shift the video iPods over to flash memory as part of a redesign of the product. The iPod Nano and iPod Shuffle already use flash memory.
Flash memory has many advantages. It has no moving parts, unlike hard drives that can fail from repeated jostling or falls, and it allows Apple to make smaller, thinner iPods. Moving to flash memory would also enable Apple to increase the battery life of a video iPod from 3.5 hours of video playback to 5.5 hours, based on the 30GB model, Tortora said.
One of the only major drawbacks of flash memory is the price. Flash memory chips are more expensive than mini HDDs. However, prices of flash memory are still dropping and Apple has some deals with Samsung and other companies.
