Apple prepping for an all-flash iPod lineup?

Could Apple be getting ready to finally kick those hard drives to the curb and go with flash memory across its iPod lineup? At least one man seems to think so: Prudential Equity Group analyst Jesse Tortora, who compares the swap to Apple's move in 2005 from the 1-inch HDD iPod mini to the NAND flash iPod nano. "Flash memory is clearly more expensive on a $/GB basis than hard disk drives," he says. "However, the late 2005 Nano transition to flash provides a guide as to the point at which the previously mentioned non-cost advantages of flash memory outweigh the cost premium." Apple is in a position to bump its HDD capacities to 120GB thanks to recent advances in perpendicular recording, but while that's great for video capacity, the fact remains you can only get 5.5 hours of video playback out of one of the current models, making additional capacity seemingly a low priority. Tortora sees 32GB as being cost-feasible for later this year, but we'd be surprised to see Apple segment its market with low capacity flash-based video iPods and high capacity HDD-based video iPods, so perhaps they'll manage to swing a 64 gigger by then. Speaking of video iPods, Tortora also claims the next generation of iPods will include an iPhone-esque wide touchscreen, WiFi for Apple TV streaming, and GPS functionality -- something that's been hinted at in certain Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard rumors. Jesse Tortora's track record isn't the greatest, his calls on the iPhone were pretty well off the mark, but the move to flash he details sounds reasonable, and while WiFi and GPS in an iPod seems like a distant dream at the moment, we're sure we could make room in our heart for such functionality.

[Charles R Hamilton @ Feb 8th 2007 1:31PM]

No, they are not. Not now anyway. The 60 and now the 80GB iPod will not be dropped for the sake of flash memory. When Flash memory becomes cheap enough, the advantages will dictate the move. But not now.

[Dubb @ Feb 8th 2007 1:31PM]

Can't wait to see the price on that.

[AJ @ Feb 8th 2007 1:32PM]

I personally hope they don't do this just yet. As the capacity of flash gets bigger I think this is a possibility but I would really like to see a iPhone style "true" video iPod with touch controls and a huge hard drive for storing movies. I think I would buy this way before buying an iPhone

[Jeff Lerch @ Feb 8th 2007 1:45PM]

There's no way this will happen. From a marketing perspective it would be a huge SNAFU to take a next generation product to market that has less space than the model before it. I don't care what the benefits would be from the geek (read: not average consumer) perspective. When flash memory gets to the point where it could surpass the current model's capacity while not being astronomical in price, then it will be a possibility.

[Ignacio @ Feb 8th 2007 2:32PM]

"There's no way this will happen. From a marketing perspective it would be a huge SNAFU to take a next generation product to market that has less space than the model before it."

Actually, that's *exactly* what they did when they replaced the iPod mini with the nano, trading a 6GB HD for 4GB flash.

[Jeff Lerch @ Feb 8th 2007 10:23PM]

Yes, but from a marketing standpoint the mini and the nano were not really marketed as the same product. They were marketed as two different brands serving a similar niche. You can't really do that with the iPod.

As kind of a restatement of my own words you're right. It is possible. But it seems to me to be an unlikely option. The technology provides no obvious consumer benefits. In fact from a consumer standpoint it seems like a downgrade. The only way you'd see a switch like that being a good idea is if it facilitated some other more obvious benefits that were clear and/or marketable to the customer base. The switch from mini to nano can be seen as one of those switches where the size drop (and remember the most popular mini size was the 4g model not the 6 by a long shot... Not to mention that they never really marketed the HD size as much as the price and form factor) was justifiable.

I really don't see that kind of change occuring with the regular iPod. It's the foundation brand, and as such needs to remain relatively steady in the minds of the consumers.

That's my take at least.

[Mathew @ Feb 8th 2007 1:53PM]

Flash is cool but I'm really looking forward to a widescreen iPod with iPhone interface and Wi-Fi capabilities. It would be totally cool to have either Apple TVs' or Airport Expresses' scattered throughout the house and you could just carry your iPod around room to room to playback media like a remote.

[SD @ Feb 8th 2007 1:55PM]

Yeah, seems like a stupid idea to me. I'm ready for a bigger iPod. My 5G 30Gb is almost full with only music. I'd rather buy a next gen video iPod with the new iPhone interface and a nice big 80 or 100Gb HD inside than go backwards just for the sake of battery life. Its not that I want to listen to all my music at once, but rather that I want to have access to it at all times...

Bettery life on my 5G is not a concern anymore either because I always take my Belkin battery pack and extra batteries with me on long flights

I have zero interest in a 32 Gb flash based video iPod.

[Jeff @ Feb 8th 2007 1:57PM]

Totally agree that this is way off the mark. wtf is this guy smoking? Why would Apple intentionally ditch a whole profitable product category with no real replacement possible? Just so they can say "hey, look, we don't use hard drives!"? What kind of moronic company does this guy think Apple is?

Apple will always have a large-capacity iPod on the market - especially as they move more and more into video, and especially as they try to differentiate the iPod line from the iPhone line. (Those lines may eventually merge, but it ain't gonna be yet, that's for sure.) Who cares that you can "only" get 5.5 hours out of a hard drive iPod when watching video? We're not talking about watching all the video on an iPod *consecutively* here, just like nobody expect you're going to listen to 5,000 tracks of music in order before your battery runs out either. But Apple has always seen both the utility and the marketing potential in being able to say that you can carry your entire music catalog with you. That's only going to be *more* true of video too as time goes on, not less.

This prediction is bordering on stupid, in the real and absolute sense of the word. Prudential needs to get their money back from this guy.

[tc @ Feb 8th 2007 1:58PM]

Can they combine 2 or more together to create larger capacity? I would buy this over a hard-drive anyday. (even if a tad more money)

[fashionista @ Feb 8th 2007 2:03PM]

I don't think 99% of iPod buyers know or care about the difference between flash memory and an HDD. They see "10,000 songs" vs. "250,000 songs", etc.

[doctorSpoc @ Feb 8th 2007 2:07PM]

won't happen at least for now... way to expensive... the device would have 1/4-1/2 the capacity and twice the price..

[Alex Padilla @ Feb 8th 2007 2:20PM]

I don't forsee this happening in the immediate future. I could see them incorporating a SSD iPod into the lineup, but not as a HDD-based iPod replacement. Personally, I'd love to see SSD iPods, but that's not going to happen. Perpendicular drives are now increasing HDD space astronomically, and I doubt that Apple will give this up.

And personally, I'm willing to sacrifice size for larger capacity or even another battery...

[LongshotX @ Feb 8th 2007 2:26PM]

What about a removable battery? Why can't the user buy one at the store and replace it. Fuck Apple, they make there products to purposely die in 2-3 years just so you can buy another marginal upgrade or send it in to get a new battery for lots of $$$$.

[steve @ Feb 8th 2007 2:27PM]

it's 3.5 hours currently, 5.5 is the flash-based projection

[Ignacio @ Feb 8th 2007 2:36PM]

"it's 3.5 hours currently, 5.5 is the flash-based projection"

Actually, no: Apple says the current 80GB model (hard disk) has 6.5 hours of video playback.

[Adam @ Feb 8th 2007 2:31PM]

Even if you can only play 5.5 hours of video, I still want to be able to keep my entire photo library and music collection on my iPod, so I don't see them ditching the large drive-based ipods anytime soon, perhaps the 30GB would be replaced with flash, but that's probably it. It would likely match the 80GB battery life if they went that route as there wouldn't be a disk to spin up.

[Jean-Michel Decombe @ Feb 8th 2007 2:56PM]

There will be Flash-based iPods, and that is great, but high capacity iPods should still exist. I need a 350GB iPod for my own collection of digital tracks so they still have a long way to go. And that's just for my music. I want total choice at all times. I want my entire collection on the iPod instead of having to carry multiple iPods. Apple's research tells them that most iPods are completely filled with tracks. That is documented. So you can't go with lower capacities, that would be absurd.

[jollyllama @ Feb 8th 2007 3:10PM]

Man, I wish I could be a tech pundit. Here's my stab at it, ala Tortora:

I predict...technology will continue down a path of logical progression!

There, now give me money.

[atlmd @ Feb 8th 2007 3:34PM]

"Actually, that's *exactly* what they did when they replaced the iPod mini with the nano, trading a 6GB HD for 4GB flash."

Do any of you really think that you know what Apple will do? Just cause you want more battery or a bigger HDD doesn't mean that the Lord Our God (Steve) feels the same.

[Ignacio @ Feb 8th 2007 3:55PM]

I didn't say that, just pointed out that they had done that before. As for Tortora's predictions, they are as bad/good as any random person: he doesn't seem to have *any* inside information.

[Geoff @ Feb 8th 2007 3:42PM]

There is no question in my mind that the 30gb ipod will be replaced with a widescreen ipod with 32gb of flash. This seems a foregone conclusion to me. I am not sure about the large capacities, I think that they might not intro a large capacity ipod and keep the 80gb as a HDD for now.

There are now two destinct roads the iPod needs to travel. Music and Video. While the iPod line is transitioning to a more video centric device, the nano and shuffle will become the primary audio devices.

[atlmd @ Feb 8th 2007 4:25PM]

Ignacio-
I meant to say that you are right. They did something that many people would not have thought they would do, nor necessarily wanted them to do. (regarding replacing the mini with the nano)

[Kory @ Feb 8th 2007 4:34PM]

As someone who has a 4th gen iPod (20gb) and a 1st gen Nano (4gb), I have to say "flash all the way!"

It pains me to think of using the slow and easily "skippable" iPod 20. I love the Nano and would buy a flash iPod that had even more storage. The current 8gb, though, isn't really enough of a bump to make the investment worthwhile.

[JoeT @ Feb 8th 2007 5:26PM]

Posting a story based predictions made by guy with an admittedly bad track record. Why?

[Grant @ Feb 8th 2007 6:40PM]

"From a marketing perspective it would be a huge SNAFU to take a next generation product to market that has less space than the model before it."

Well, i'm sure it wouldn't be a verbatim swith, they constantly push longer battery life, and i'm sure with as SS drive they could make it smaller.
Think bastard child of the 30 GB video and nano.
a larger nano with video playback. I mean look at this last gen "improvement" brighter screen, longer battery life and a few GB boost. wow.

I mean you can't assume *most* consumers will buy purely on storage of songs, the 8gb nano and 30gb video cost the same.
which clearly shows form factor is a valued factor, especially for all those teenage girls who want to have a device that plays The Hills in math class and still fits in the little bag that can't hold much more than 3 packs of orbit.

But this year could be a little too soon, because apple isn't dealing in 3rd party SSD now, thier dealing with NAND and doing their own thing with heavily discounted bulk memory, also used in their computers.
My prediction is that ONCE and only once apple makes lappies with SSDs, they will release a SSD ipod as well.

[Jeff Lerch @ Feb 8th 2007 10:38PM]

You're right it is about the conjoint benefit. But from a marketing standpoint I don't see anything I'd like to trade off. This is an exchange not really an upgrade. Battery life is already pretty damn high on the iPods, with the direction the company's going with video HD size will start to seem smaller and smaller fairly quickly. I don't know for sure but I'd be guessing that's where a lot of consumer-placed utility is going to be.

And yes. There are other things to consider from a technology perspective. I was just trying to speak to the marketing side of things.

[Bla� @ Feb 8th 2007 6:52PM]

"Tortora also claims the next generation of iPods will include an iPhone-esque wide touchscreen, WiFi for Apple TV streaming, and GPS functionality"

... and a battery that's going to last a whopping 10 minutes.

[nikster @ Feb 8th 2007 7:34PM]

BS. These analysts are full of it. Here's my own analysis, and it's for free:

Flash iPods will come whenever they get reasonably cheap to produce, but HD based iPods will stick around and get upgraded to whatever the largest 1.8" drive can offer. At 70% market share I think Apple can allow itself to intro more different models. The current iPod line-up is so thin that there is plenty of room to add additional battery life to them, especially using Li-Poly batteries which can take any shape or form.

I don't think battery life when playing video has ever been a consideration for Apple. They know very well that no one seriously wants to watch 8 hours of video on a 2.5" screen... only analysts would want to do that?!

[JJ @ Feb 9th 2007 1:28AM]

But when dammit, when!?

I've decided to go ahead and join the iCult. I've got a coupon to buy one that expires at the end of March. I want the biggest drive possible. Do I wait for 6.0, or go for 5.5 because 6.0 won't be released until after my coupon expires in March.

Who's got a good guess? Convince me please.

[ohcyt @ Feb 9th 2007 4:31AM]

Like others have said before me, flash memory seems an inevitable next step for iPod's, even the larger capacity. However, these other are right when they say that this step won't be in the very near futere, beceause the 'full size' iPod line would be crippled if they would reduce the storage capacity.
Perpendicular HDD's provide enough affordable space for movies (the killer app of the new iPod generation, mark my words) for the near future, and since screens should become a bit larger for movies, a slightly larger form factor for larger batteries would not be a problem.

[babakm @ Feb 9th 2007 10:31AM]

From a recent semiconductor industry report, the latest NAND Flash spot prices (2/5/07) are:

2Gb ... $2.6
4Gb ... $3.9
8Gb ... $6.3

Assuming the same ~1.5x price increment for each doubling of capacity:

16Gb ... $9.5
32Gb ... $14.2

Times 8 to get GB gives me a rough estimate of $114 for the silicone in the 32GB drive. Add a bit more for the other hardware and contract pricing and a cost of $150 for the storage portion of a 32GB flash iPod isn't too bad. I'd guess a starting list price of over $300, for which you'd get the slim design, better battery life and probably, bigger screen (maybe even some iPhone design elements).

[Galley @ Feb 9th 2007 10:34AM]

The only way this would work is if the iPod worked like the Apple TV, where there is a small cache for select media. Everything else would have to be streamed whether it be from your home network, a Wi-Fi hotspot, or a cellular service.