Latest iPods to be flash-based, only up to 16GB?

Taiwanese paper DigiTimes put out a report (read: rumor) on this year's iPod line (supposedly due this September), which is said to be primarily flash based (up to 16GB), eschewing hard drives entirely. 80 down to 16GB? One step forward, two steps back -- so yeah, we hope so, but not really.

[Thanks, Sam]

[Malcolm T @ Aug 7th 2007 3:49AM]

They should have put that fricking 16GB flash chip in my freeekin iphone.. freeking jerks.

[Homeboy @ Aug 7th 2007 6:15AM]

They will do that in the very near future. As for this stupid 16GB rumor it concerns the Nano and not the big iPod. Apple will most likely not switch over to flash memory for the big iPod until they can offer at least 32GB/64GB.

So don't worry about this silly rumor at all.

[caramelzappa @ Aug 7th 2007 5:49AM]

My music collection is 79gb, and if I were to encode some dvd's into mp4, well the 80gb ipod isn't enough anymore, looks like people like me will have to go and buy a toshiba 100gb drive instead of a new ipod.

[jumpingeorge @ Aug 7th 2007 3:58AM]

Gotta agree with you Malcolm, flash iPhones would rock. Maybe this could be a nano refresh, but I doubt it. Maybe it could be a whole new iPod design all together. That would be a nice surprise.

[dan @ Aug 7th 2007 8:30AM]

i thought the iPhone was already Flash-based.

[Bernhard @ Aug 7th 2007 4:05AM]

Well I guess 16 GB is still plenty. Unless you download songs from limewire 24/7, its difficult for the average consumer to even fill the space

[Andrew @ Aug 7th 2007 8:46AM]

Well i guess you never owned any video. I have the 80 gb iPod and only have 20 gb free. then only thing on my iPod that some people might consider illegeal is dvd ripping.

[justus87 @ Aug 7th 2007 8:19AM]

Raise your hand if you have more than 16GB of music.

[byaah @ Aug 7th 2007 8:27AM]

*raises hand*

[David Susilo @ Aug 7th 2007 8:40AM]

I have about 120 Gb of legitimate MP3 (purchased or self converted from private CD collection).

16 Gb is enough to put all of my favourite songs, but hardly enough to put the entire collection. Mind you, that I don't have anything less than 192 kbps MP3s. Mostly at 256 kbps bitrate.

[Brien Mizell @ Aug 7th 2007 1:13PM]

Raises hand! I have (including podcasts) over 180 gigs of music and almost 35,000 songs. and that grows by 750-1,000 songs a month... I don't want to get a new ipod for every new month of music! A 120 gig would be great. Flash would be amazing, but not going to happen for the next 1.5-2 years. I have a 60 gig ipod video and i could put most of my movies and tv shows on that... most since i have 35 gigs worth of the seinfeld episodes!!

trust me, and i know i have not inside data for apple and all but, the 16 gig will be for a nano. No possible way Apple would buck the trend of getting larger and larger capacities for their ipod... now, that being said... this could be a whole new line of ipod's the all flash based in which case 16 wouldn't be too shabby for the 250$ ipod flash.. bump it up to 32 for the 350 and you are getting somewhere apple!


now about that wifi so we can sync wirelessly through our network... time's a waste'n!

[J @ Aug 7th 2007 12:05PM]

@Brien Mizell

I call foul on your claims of music addition. If you add 750-1000 songs a month to your collection, you're adding roughly 3000 minutes of music to your collection (at the low end) and that's 50 hours of new music a month. Unless you're listening to music pretty much constantly, you could never add that much music a month.

[Mario @ Aug 7th 2007 10:55PM]

yeah i hate to break it to you, but i have 10.34gb of MP3s at 128kbs, I have a little over 1.5gb of Photos, and another 6gb of Videos, so thats almost 18gb right there. And not to mention that new CDs come out every tuesday, every CD is about 40-60mb...And i do not hesitate to buy new CDs.

[Nathaniel Meyer @ Aug 7th 2007 4:08AM]

I don't understand why people think it's so necessary to have their entire music collection on one portable device. With a collection big enough that it would take weeks to listen to in it's entirety, it makes no sense to have all of it on an ipod. All of it in your computer? Certainly, but why waste more money on a bigger, heavier, ultimately less portable version of something when the majority of people, at most, do not listen to their mp3 player for more than two hours a day. Shuffle things around, change up your music every week, or day if needed, and you will not regret it. I'm never going to think "Oh dang, I REALLY want to listen to some Cher right now but I put Celine Dion on instead" and then justify spending $100+ more so that I can listen to both in the same outing. Granted if you have Cher AND Celine Dion on your ipod you have more issues than hard drive space (or flash space), but the point remains. I for one would be glad if they switched over to smaller, flash-based ipods, though I still wouldn't buy one, since they're essentially built to fail within 6 months at best. I'm sure those with the means will whine enough until they make larger capacities anyways, so why not start with more reasonable sizes.

[David W. @ Aug 7th 2007 4:14AM]

Just because you have a different mindset doesn't mean everyone agrees with you...

I like to have all my music on my iPod, because it's always with me, and I do have lots of CD's, so I'd like to be able to pick what I want instead of having to settle with what's on there, I listen to my music on a whim...I'll be driving down the road and say, oh! I want to listen to ... but then I'm like oh durn, I took that off to fit something else on there...then I go home, switch them out and I don't even want to listen to them anymore...

When I'm paying $250 for something, I shouldn't have to settle...

[SYN @ Aug 7th 2007 4:17AM]

you just don't understand peoples need to not hear the same song twice in a 48 day period without having to swap music on to and off of their portable device.

[Lance @ Aug 7th 2007 4:19AM]

@Nathaniel

In case you haven't noticed, the iPod also plays videos.....

I've got about 15GB of video on my iPod + 2GB Music + 10GB of data (using it as a removable disk for my lappy). So no, most people dont need more than 5GB or so for music, but they use the storage for other purposes.

[Richard @ Aug 7th 2007 4:24AM]

I fully agree carrying all your music seems pretty pointless but people do want it... This play makes sense IF they keep producing 5.5gen ipods and/or the new ipod has wifi and remote syncing/streaming...

[JonYo @ Aug 7th 2007 4:43AM]

I think it's a bit of an exaggeration to say they're built to fail in 6 months. I have had a 60GB 4th gen for 2.5 years, and it works fine. Besides, they all have a 1 year warranty. If it dies for whatever reason before the year is up, you get a new one. I don't think that'd be a smart thing to do if they were "built to fail in 6 months" on purpose. (like the purposefully limited lifespan of light bulbs, grrr, that bugs me)

I do like my ipod to be big big big in capacity, even if the trade off is that it's a little bulkier. I like to have all my music in there all the time for the same reason David W mentioned, my music of the moment is whatever pops into my head, and it changes often. I usually just leave in random mode and hit play so it picks randomly from my entire library. Of course, that's not for everyone, nor is a 55GB music collection something everyone has. I'm a music guy and a musician, music is my life, so my 2000+ CDs, while excessive to some, is normal for me.

I think it's a drag that the iphone got limited to 8GB. I know they had to use flash instead of a hard drive to make it the size they wanted, but 8GB, while more than enough for some, doesn't come close to cutting it for me. It seems like the price of flash memory goes up and down like crazy like other commodity items, like oil, livestock, etc. Of course, Apple has been making some huuuge deals with flash memory makers to secure supply to properly roll out new stuff like the iphone in the quantity required by the consumer demand. even though the total spazzing of the first few days of the iphone coming to market are over, it's still selling well.

If they mader the iphone with a 100GB 1.8drive (which are available now from toshiba or hitachi, I forget which), and added 3G and MMS, I would have been one of those nuts waiting in line overnight for their iphone a month ago. (I know the technical issues surrounding the decision to not use 3G, but it's still a bummer, and 2.5G / Edge network, is sooooo painfully slow.)

Ok, done yakking.

- JonYo

[Rynth @ Aug 7th 2007 5:14AM]

They should make the storage space even smaller, just so that you cant listen to Celine Dion or Cher.

[Xander @ Aug 7th 2007 5:54AM]

Well, if this is true my next MP3 player won't be an iPod. I need more space, not less.
My music collection is 86 Gigabytes and growing, and yes, I hate it when I want to listen to a song I happen not to have on my iPod.
Also, not being forced to synch your iPod every day is really handy when you are travelling a lot with a corporate laptop on which you are not allowed (and not even able) to install iTunes or any other way of synching your iPod on.
And then I do not even speak of video and my big hopes for an iPod that matches the PSP screen in quality and size.

Probably the 30Gigabytes+ market is a niche market which Apple probably can afford to leave to its competitors, but it is a shame if there will never be an 160 gigabyte DAP like Archos is offering, but then with the iPod look and feel.

But probably Apple can get away with this by calling it a feature in stead of a problem, like they did with the screen and the Shuffle.

[caramelzappa @ Aug 7th 2007 6:03AM]

I have 80gb of music. Yes, I can work with swapping out 5gb every once in a while, but I'd rather it all be on my ipod, because frankly I don't want to spend fifteen or more minutes of my day picking and choosing what music I might want to listen to, and then when I get tired deleting and transferring more music on. When I can just get more space, put all my music on the ipod and never have to worry about it unless I get more music. (and really the 80gb ipod is hardly less portable than the 30gb)


I'm actually left wanting MORE space on my ipod. It would be nice to have a collection on classic films in 640 x 480 on there so if say I'm with some friends or a girl who wants to watch a movie, I can just plug in the av cables and watch it in dvd-quality.

Ipods are even more useful than just for movies and music, a lot of people keep their files and applications handy on their ipods because they make nice portable hard drives.


Media players are expensive, and when people are paying $250 to $350 on them, 16gb is not a "reasonable size," and flash memory does not make up for the utter lack of space that people need to store their files. No, I don't really NEED more than 16gb, but it's awfully convenient, which is the point of having such a device. Of course we don't even need mp3 players, let's all go around carrying cd players with a couple extra cd's. No. I'm paying for convenience, not for something I need.

[lassi @ Aug 7th 2007 8:59AM]

are you just trolling?

why would i want to keep my entire music collection with me? why wouldn't i want to? if i go on a week trip, why would i want to make a choice of what music i take with me?

why should i decide beforehand which music i might want to play to some friend of mine in a random party?

besides, it's just couple of videos and it's full. i also used mine for random copying of files(as a removable hd).

but 30gb still wasn't big enough to hold all i would have liked.

[HineyWipe @ Aug 7th 2007 9:43AM]

I don't understand why some troll would ask such a silly question. Seriously. You think some women might prefer a larger penis inserted? Maybe some are happy with a little one. (Is this the wrong analogy?).
I have held off purchasing an iPod for the very reason: I do know how HD's fail and to have my music (entire library or not) on something more reliable like NAND, is preferred. I've also followed the NAND chip manufacturing and its at 32G now. So expect the HD ipods to fade, albeit slowly, away.
Smaller in physical size, bigger in capacity. (almost like Moore's law).

[Nick @ Aug 7th 2007 11:39AM]

"I for one would be glad if they switched over to smaller, flash-based ipods...."

before posting maybe you should think... Apple already has two models of smaller flash-based ipods.. its called the "shuffle" and "Nano"... so if you want to pick and choose about which of your songs you will be in the mood for and wanting to listen to then buy one of those two products. I personally dont like having to go through and spend the time picking and choosing which songs i might be wanting to listen to... i want to be able to have the freedom to be able to listen to anything that i own when i want to and not have to go back to my computer every other day and re-organize whats on my iPod.

[Andy @ Aug 7th 2007 10:57PM]

I'm a sound guy. I have a small room to work in roughly the size of a walk in closet when the sound board is out of the room. I'm expected to be able to play music for many different events. Would it make sense for me to use valuable room space on a cd collection?

[David W. @ Aug 7th 2007 4:14AM]

That would really annoy me...

My 30GB has been full for a while and I've been waiting for the new models to come out to replace it...if this is true...well I might be going for the 2nd gen Zune...or Creative...or w/e

I need something bigger then 30 but don't want to pay the ridiculous cost...

[Shane Harley @ Aug 7th 2007 4:17AM]

Nathaniel, I think it's more a matter of having to go through selecting what music goes on your ipod.
I've got a 30G 5G and I've got 45gig of music and as it is i find it to be a pain in the arse unselecting music when it fills up

[Darnell @ Aug 7th 2007 4:30AM]

Flash up to 16GB. HDD after that makes more sense. 100GBs maybe? Sounds like a nice round number to me. I think the screen will be a little wider though (curse that lil' video iPod screen). That's my only guess as far as design goes. I hope for a more scratch resistant screen
a la iphone.

[Fox McCloud @ Aug 7th 2007 4:26AM]

You guys forget that the Nano series has only been up to 8GB so far. I would think that the new ipod they speak of is a Nano style one in that its small but then it also has a touchscreen and way bigger screen, does video and some extra crap.

Thats called an improvement not lets pull out our pocket protectors and do yet another analysis on why Apple Computer Inc. is WRONG every time a freekin new story hits.

I dont really think the ipod should be used to carry your entire music collection anyways. Who wants to browse through so much junk. Just put the latest 10 cds out a few movies a few tv shows and your 5 favorite new podcasts to sync and your good.

[josh @ Aug 7th 2007 2:44PM]

"I dont really think the ipod should be used to carry your entire music collection anyways. Who wants to browse through so much junk. Just put the latest 10 cds out a few movies a few tv shows and your 5 favorite new podcasts to sync and your good."

wow, you mean people use technology for different things? i use my ipod as a replacement for the radio during my commute, so i have a lot more than the 5 latest podcasts, no video content whatsoever, and a smart playlist that plays all of my highest-rated tracks (3 stars or higher) on shuffle. i dont have my whole music library on there, but i do have alot, because i dont want my smart playlist to repeat the same songs too much. and i also drive for two hours a day so i dont feel like wasting even more time choosing new music.

[Lucas Bang @ Aug 7th 2007 4:28AM]

This is the obvious move to make with the nano line of ipods, however apple is smart enough to know that a good deal of Ipod users need/want a LOT of space. If this is true i highly doubt that it would replace the current 30/80 Gig Ipods.

[Craig @ Aug 7th 2007 4:34AM]

i've always thought that eventually the nano would make the commensurate 2x jump to 16gb, and the full-size iPod would get 32gb of flash memory simply by putting in twice as many chips as the nano.

i've been doing just fine with the current 30 gb iPod... i've sort of felt that at that capacity, it is possible to store a decent chunk of music. around 30-40gb, you're getting to a point to where you might realize that you don't necessarily need every single modest mouse album... and you don't need to load albums you haven't listened to in years (and don't plan on listening to very often in the future). you're cutting off the extremities of your current library of enjoyable music, not the core. of course, i don't watch any movies on my iPod, which would demand a lot more space.

so while i wouldn't mind a capacity jump (and i would certainly be able to fill the space), a modest capacity bump to 32gb while switching to flash wouldn't be bad, either.

[blackfett @ Aug 7th 2007 4:48AM]

if this is true its obviously for the new rumoured nano which will apparently have a widescreen and play video so a 16gigs makes sense.

[Nathaniel Meyer @ Aug 7th 2007 4:36AM]

Wow, I wasn't really expecting much of a response for this, and you all bring up valid points. I guess it really is just too much of a personal preference, I would rather have a smaller device, one that if stolen, lost, or broken, (all very likely to happen with ipods and nearly all other mp3 players) doesn't leave me with a $250+ hole in my wallet.

I'm not saying that they should never make larger capacities, I said earlier that it would happen eventually anyways, regardless of what their initial offering to the market is. What I'm simply suggesting is that people (consumers, Engadget writers) shouldn't be so quick to judge something inadequate. A flash based mp3 player would theoretically be more reliable, have better performance, and smaller size. If the only downside is that someone's 20 years worth of music and video collection can't fit on one device hardly bigger than your wallet, then it certainly isn't "One step forward, two steps back"

[Michael @ Aug 7th 2007 7:25AM]

Smaller is not what is desired from the video iPod. Smaller would mean a smaller screen and people want the opposite from the video iPod. What you are describing is the nano, small, flash based player. That's great, but not for everyone. Me for instance, I have a 30gig video iPod filled 90% with TV shows and movies I watch often. I was waiting to buy a new iPod so that I could get something 80gig or above and hopefully with a bigger 3 to 3.5" screen.

I would settle with a 32gig flash based iPod video, since it's the capacity I have right now. So long as their was a justifiable reason to go flash based, such as a larger touch screen and wifi radio sucking the juice normally needed for the hard drive. I could see Apple doing that. Otherwise, give us the capacity of 100+ gig.

[non native @ Aug 7th 2007 4:39AM]

You can actually shorten "What does" to "What's"?

[Jamie @ Aug 8th 2007 5:30AM]

I usually have around 10Gb of Podcasts on my ipod ... let alone the 55Gb of Music, 20Gb of movies/videos encoded myself.....

A 16Gb iPod would just be a pain to be always managing whats on it and what i want to listen to....

Bring on the 100Gb ipod for me please

[Ypoknons @ Aug 7th 2007 5:42AM]

Meh. Sounds more like an upgraded nano. The Zen V+ has a 16GB model already, after all - it's not hard to fit 16GB in flash devices these days.

[jabar @ Aug 7th 2007 6:46AM]

Engadget must have gotten Lost in Translation.

[Ant @ Aug 7th 2007 7:03AM]

Hang in there, for the love of god don't do the Zune in some countries you will be hunted down for such talk, lol. I don’t think we are going to be disappointed this year with the iPod, maybe later today or over the following months. Apple do listen to the people that mater, us, the users and I think old Jobs has been wetting his pants just a little with rival media players creeping up on iPod. There is only one business path that makes sense for Apple this year and that is to destroy the media playing competition with the most desirable iPod yet, like they did a couple of years ago. Personally I think Jobs will do the whole range in one sitting with a Nano 16Gig Flash talk, talk, talk…..lights fade……screen shows backlit Apple logo……take the mickey out of the audience……fiddle about in his pocket…….talk, talk, talk……. booom (he might even give us a couple of booms)…….and a 80-120Gig iPod that you would sell most of your family to get your hands on…….Me off to bathroom with a box of tissues and a printout.

[ElMAGNiFiCO @ Aug 7th 2007 8:21AM]

I think this is not true, did Apple forget that they sell movies and TV shows on iTunes, they fill up 16GB easy, then whats left for music and pictures??!! And what the price is going to be??!! 250$?! No way!

[Galley @ Aug 7th 2007 9:08AM]

The 6G iPod may only be 16GB, but it will act like a portable Apple TV, meaning you will be able to stream anything to it via Wi-Fi, or even over the Internet.

[Jon @ Aug 7th 2007 9:39AM]

where does it say wifi anywhere? apple wouldnt want to cannibalize the iphone sales this quickly

[uberfu @ Aug 7th 2007 8:50AM]

Yeah_ I can see Apple making THAT decision_

[Muu @ Aug 7th 2007 9:10AM]

A lot of people coming to these sorts of blogsites have either the money for all kinds of music or their way around torrents enough to get whatever they want, but that doesn't necessarily mean that their average user has a 100GB stash of music. I think to that crowd a redesign is more important than being able to cram another terabyte of christmas carols in your player.

[Chip @ Aug 7th 2007 9:11AM]

In the near future, storage on the device will be irrelevant for the most part. You won't store music on your device, you'll stream it across the 'net. Want your 120Gigs of music? No problem. Better yet, be connected to a music service and have millions of songs at your fingertips.

In theory, you can already do this with a 3G phone. I've done it with my laptop and 368k connection and 192kbps mp3s. I'll try to duplicate that with the Sprint Mogul.

[Ryan P @ Aug 7th 2007 9:11AM]

All apple has to do is add something extra like bluetooth (which is already in the iphone) or a touchscreen and everyone will run out and buy another iPod. Then again when they up it to 32GB

[Andrew @ Aug 7th 2007 4:57PM]

i wish there was a 100GB model. i have 35Gb of photos (it's my main backup for my iphoto library), about 2GB of video and the rest is music. because the iphoto library is so big i can't fit all my music on.

I'm sure that replacing that last major source of faliure, the HDD, with flash is their priority #1. how many years ago now were they able to do it with the mini? it must be frustrating that they have had to wait this long.

[gfar @ Aug 7th 2007 9:12AM]

Comments longer than the article itself are brutal.