Apple once again squeezing Samsung's flash memory supplies?

Apple and Samsung have a long history of locking up large-scale flash memory deals, and it looks like these two lovebirds are at it again -- word is that Cupertino's bought up all of Sammy's output until April of this year. That's an awful lot of memory -- Samsung manufactures some 40 percent of the world's flash -- so if we were the betting sort we'd say Apple's planning on making a bunch of new flash-based devices around that timeframe, potentially in preparation for a June launch. Hm, what could those possibly be?

[Via All Things Digital]

[Tony @ Feb 20th 2009 8:10AM]

Please let there be a 64GB Ipod Touch. Thats all I want.

[EMoShunz @ Feb 20th 2009 8:25AM]

with gps and bluetooth headset/stereo support

[Laura @ Feb 20th 2009 10:19AM]

amen to that, brotha!

[riv3r @ Feb 20th 2009 11:54AM]

hopefully a unique version of flash
tethering and remote desktop control would be sweet

[Guibs @ Feb 20th 2009 12:18PM]

Oh gosh, that would be sweet. This is the only reason why I have not upgraded my 30GB 5.5G ipod Video. 32GB is just too small as my 30GB is full. a 64GB or more ipod touch would win it for me.

[Hamidxa @ Feb 20th 2009 4:44PM]

Every single one of your requests have long been met by Windows Mobile.
Why you insist on relegating yourselves to an inferior device with an inferior OS is a question for the ages.

If it's a flashy interface you seek, then TF3D, PointUI 2, and Mobile Shell 3 meet and exceed most of your needs too.

[Joseph @ Feb 20th 2009 8:36PM]

Because Windows Mobile... well, how do you say it....

SUCKS.

It's slow, NOT user friendly, and definitely not media eccentric.

Plus, they're talking about iPods, not phones for the moment.

[FoxKenji @ Feb 20th 2009 11:30PM]

"Why you insist on relegating yourselves to an inferior device with an inferior OS is a question for the ages.
If it's a flashy interface you seek, then TF3D, PointUI 2, and Mobile Shell 3 meet and exceed most of your needs too."

Seems like sheer ignorance abounds.

Windows CE lacks the sophisticated Quartz Core Graphics compositing layer that Apple uses in OS X for the Mac and iPhone.
Vista has something like Quartz now (more than a half decade after Apple first debuted Mac OS X), but that product struggles to run on full sized PCs.

Windows Mobile will be stuck with the same basic 2D graphics of Windows XP, firmly rooted in the technology of the 90s.
It also lacks anything like Apple’s Core Animation (developed for the iPhone and also released for Mac OS X Leopard as well) for making fluid, animated interfaces easy for developers to build.

Indulge yourself:
CoreGraphics (Quartz)
http://developer.apple.com/graphicsimaging/index.html
CoreAnimation
http://www.apple.com/macosx/technology/coreanimation.html
CoreImage
http://developer.apple.com/MacOSX/coreimage.html

Every single iPhone and Touch out there run the same compositing layer technologies showcased in the OS as an unified and uniform interface. Thus it is is far easier for 3rd parties to develop for and makes outcome much more predictable and easier to improve.

Mobile Shell? ($29.99) Get outta here.

[FoxKenji @ Feb 21st 2009 12:52AM]

This is a video demo of what CoreAnimation can do:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pyd8O-2mkgk&feature=related

[enohPi @ Feb 20th 2009 8:10AM]

AHAHAHAHHAHAHHAHAHAHHA!

you all know what the deal was when you clicked that title...

iPhone PWNAGE June 29th 2009...

[roach @ Feb 20th 2009 10:58AM]

Maybe they bought them so they can make money by reselling it to Blackberry. It looks like Blackberry is ate up some iPhone share in the last quarter.

http://www.crn.com/mobile/214501941

[Eric @ Feb 20th 2009 3:58PM]

you're right. they need all the flash they can get when so many are buying and returning those storms.

[darkmax @ Feb 20th 2009 8:10AM]

Looks like Samsung is eating both sides of the table. Apple fanbois rejoice, for you seem to have version 3 of that underwhelming iPhone coming

[MNJP @ Feb 20th 2009 8:19AM]

Doesn't it hurt that iPhone will be available in it's third incarnation and you will be waiting for Windows Mobile 6.5. Sad little Microsoft drone :-(

[eggothewaffle @ Feb 20th 2009 8:26AM]

Hopefully, the third incarnation won't be as horribly underwhelming as the last two. Doesn't anyone else remember Hamixda's list from that article on the INQ phone?

"Top 30 reasons as to why the iPhone / OSX misses the mark and should never even be considered for such an honor:

1. No multitasking (outside of a few nominal system apps needed for basic functionality -- ever wonder why it appears smooth, well no kidding, you are only running 1 app at a time 90% of the time)
2. No turn-by-turn voice navigation system (a poor man's Google maps version is available for the system however)
3. No Flash support inside Safari (SkyFire can do this with ease, and Flash Lite for Opera even works better than Apple's offering)
4. No copy and paste (WinMo handles this elegantly by comparison)
5. No VGA or WVGA screen (instead we are given a low-Res screen leaving much to be desired. come on Apple, at least give us VGA resolution if not WVGA)
6. No way to edit documents (SoftMaker Office for Windows Mobile handles this impeccably well, even Office Mobile suffices to a certain degree)
7. No bluetooth music streaming and/or file transfers -- A2DP (video is out of the question)
8. No voice command (WM devices have featured this for years now and it works brilliantly on them)
9. No video recording (seriously Apple, I mean come on, my grandmother's 5 year old flip phone has this feature)
10. No capability to take handwritten notes (Asian markets that rely on this and many of us Note takers in general that rely on this critical feature are left out in the cold)
11. No user replaceable battery
12. No physical keyboard (no amount of fooling one's self will make up for the lack of a true hardware keyboard)
13. No drag and drop file juggling
14. No tethering (natively)
15. No MMS (natively)
16. No external storage card support (Micro SDHC cards are up to 32 GB now, 8GB is NOT enough these days, especially for a media device, and besides choice of being able to carry additional media is always a plus)
17. No Java
18. No IR port (it's something many take for granted, using their phones as a remote for well...anything just about)
19. No Live TV (that doesnt require you to be connected to an app like Orb on your home PC, which defeats the purpose, why would I want to watch it on a dinky non VGA screen instead of just on my home PC when im at home anyways)
20. No camera flash
21. No camera zoom
22. No auto-focus
22. Same old, subpar, 2 MP camera for that matter as in the first iteration
23. No radio
24. No front camera
25. Limited video format support
26. Limited picture format support
27. Limited file format support in general
28. Only 128 MB of RAM (Cant run many apps simultaneously -- I mean not that it matters since multitasking is for all intents and purposes out of the question! New WM phones are getting 256+ MB of RAM, with 150+ MB free on bootup)
29. Sluggish performance (perhaps due to the aforementioned 128 MB RAM limitation. why does it take several seconds to open up the contacts list or why does it lag when typing text)
30. A very stringent and almost "closed" development environment (why does Apple have to give its seal of approval for every single app distributed on the phone. This is counterproductive and in many ways even stifles competition. Apple for the longest wouldnt even allow developers to write their own web browsers. SkyFire with flash would otherwise have been an option already for the iPhone, but that would threaten their own Safari browser. Let's not even get into all of the other potentially cool, and not so ethical apps that are simply not even allowed to exist)"

[tcc3 @ Feb 20th 2009 8:26AM]

Doesn't it hurt that iPhone will be available in it's third incarnation and you will be waiting for Windows Mobile 6.5. Sad little Microsoft drone :-(

Doesn't it hurt that iPhone will be available in it's third incarnation and you will be waiting for Windows Mobile 6.5. Sad little Microsoft drone :-(


Ahhh copy/paste feels good.

[enohPi @ Feb 20th 2009 8:33AM]

Your logic is flawed...

lets say you drive a 2008 Honda Civic...
the honda has many modern features..

i drive a 1970 Roadrunner big block...
Just because my car is older and missing many features of the civic.... does not make it less of a car... as a matter of fact i will be the one to drive away with your girld friend in my MAN CAR and you will drive home in your piece of crap Japan go cart made for little wussy men with no cahenes

AHAHAHAHHA!!!!!

American muscle.. american iPhone.

[Tehseen Hussain @ Feb 20th 2009 8:41AM]

@ enohPi

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BwfYLWFL4Ys

^^ Says it all :)

[larryryan0824 @ Feb 20th 2009 8:53AM]

Um jailbreaking your iPhone pretty much eliminates all of what you just said...

[enohPi @ Feb 20th 2009 8:52AM]

@Hussain,

You of all people should not be lecturing the rest of the world what is FAIR...

let China deal with their problems and you deal with your own... It is not the place of the USA to dictate how another country treats its people.

and with a name like Hussain, you should know that they get treated way better than the oppressed women of your country.

[MNJP @ Feb 20th 2009 8:58AM]

@ eggothewaffle

someone has a little too much time on there hands ......

Of all the things you mention cut and paste would be good and tethering would be handy in a pinch, but remember that is a AT&T restriction.

[Erb @ Feb 20th 2009 9:01AM]

@MNJP

AT&T is an iPhone restriction (US anyway) which makes tethering an iPhone restriction :)

[Skeezle @ Feb 20th 2009 9:54AM]

@enohPi; I have no idea what you were trying to get at but I will say
my Subaru WRX will outhandle, and rightly smoke your old MOPAR while using a fraction of the fuel. You wont be taking anyone's "girld friend" either, but you may very well pull into a rest stop in your 'man car' and discreetly masturbate while thinking about it...

[Dax @ Feb 20th 2009 10:36AM]

I know, the iPhone is just such an inferior, piece of crap, right?? All those amazing WinMo handsets from last week just BLOW IT AWAY!! WOW!! All the features!! WOW!! The original multitouch designs, WOW!!! Im getting a new fancy WinMo...... or wait, there are these AMAZING Android handsets, all two of them, and they are just straight from the 22nd century, right? WOW!! Android is just incredible technology. And lets not forget about Symbian, the most sophisticated and modern OS on a handset. The iPhone is such garbage!!

L
M
A
O

[elBravo @ Feb 20th 2009 12:09PM]

@Dax:

Comparing android to the iPhone OS is like apples and oranges. Android is more of an embedded software technology rather than a single purpose smartphone OS.
I guess a better analogy would be like comparing a screwdriver to a multitool. And not just a philipshead screwdriver, but one of those stupid proprietary tri-wing POS's. And not just a leatherman but a constantly upgradable and interchangable multitool.

[enohPi @ Feb 20th 2009 9:41PM]

@Skeelze...

exactly my point... YOU ARE NOT A MAN IF YOU NEED ALL WHEEL DRIVE-STABILITY CONTROL AIR BAGS!!!

Your AWD uses more gas so don't come off as some sort of Whale kissing tree hugging moon maiden!

Subaru is crap unless you rally in mud like a pig...

IF you cant handle a little power without traction control you are a loser.

[Hamidxa @ Feb 20th 2009 4:50PM]

eggothewaffle,

I believe I've seen that list somewhere before :)

[GeekGirl @ Feb 20th 2009 8:13AM]

Ahhhhh a new iphone :)

[iLoveApple @ Feb 20th 2009 8:15AM]

Jesus will rise again!

In June.

[Rod @ Feb 20th 2009 8:25AM]

And be flamed for his lack of cut & paste in July!

Not to mention his P-poor 3.2 MP camera with no flash, crappy video recording at 320x240px @ 15fps, non-replaceable battery, proprietary connectors...etc...etc...

And all for the bargain price of an 18month contract & £400+ (probably)

I sincerely hope that Apple actually try to get ahead of the hardware curve this time instead of feeding us some bullshit hardware from 2 years ago, then spend the next year defending it....'because the OS is like, sooo good..' - whatever.

Give me cutting edge tech!

[Aaron @ Feb 20th 2009 8:54AM]

Downranked for using such a stupid term as "Jesus Phone"

Asshat!

[shravan @ Feb 20th 2009 11:34AM]

By the time ur iphone comes with a 3.2 mp camera, the whole world will be bored of 8mp cameras and moving to 12mp cameras with optical zoom, xenon flashes and an embedded projector that does 720vids. grow up, kids. come out of ur rooms and see what the world is without the iphone. Its wayy too better.

[Zak @ Feb 20th 2009 1:35PM]

Hey shravan, what exactly do you use cameraphone pictures for? You're not using your phone to take professional pictures, you're using it to take quick snapshots that you will either trash later or upload to the web. And what are you going to do when you upload them to the web? Oh right you're going to DOWNSIZE THEM. You're going to downsize them so that they're smaller than a 2MP picture.

So why do you need 8 or 12MP on your cameraphone again?

That's right. You don't.

[Mike10010100 @ Feb 20th 2009 10:49PM]

@Zak

The POINT, however, is that by having a good enough camera on your phone, in theory you won't need to carry around another camera for things like photo opportunities or sight-seeing. You won't HAVE to downsize them. Personally, I prefer to upload my digital photos in all their high-def glory.

What website are you using that forces you to downsize them?

[FoxKenji @ Feb 21st 2009 12:05AM]

@ Mike10010100

"...by having a good enough camera on your phone, in theory you won't need to carry around another camera for things like photo opportunities or sight-seeing. You won't HAVE to downsize them..."

It's plain obvious you don't know jack about photography.

1) Unless you have a premium account at Flikr (or perhaps Picasa) every website that lets you upload pics (i.e. Facebook, MySpace, etc) will downsize the pictures (shrink dimensions) that you upload and reduce its quality to 72dpi down from their original 300 or 350dpi. Also MOST cameraphones out there also take pics at 72dpi where as dedicated cameras use 300dpi. What's the difference? 72dpi is LOW rez, just good enough for your screen but is garbage for photo printing. If you care about quality, a 300dpi image is what you need to match the print quality that you get from film. Hi-rez is important for cropping and enlargements; I could go on and on.

2) All you cats bitching about megapixel size have zero idea that megapixels are hardly the most important thing in digital camera image quality. Try reading a little on www.dpreview.com or www.kenrockwell.com perhaps you might learn a little. Megapixel count these days is only a marketing gimmick.

3) If I want a quick snapshot of whatever I'll use my phone since it's in my pocket. If I want to take photographs I will use my Nikon D80. And by the way, as far as equipment goes, it's the lens that matters more, not the camera. But ultimately it's the photographer that makes the good shot, not the equipment.

[Mark Anderson @ Feb 21st 2009 7:41AM]

Well Zak and Fox you make good points with the following exceptions:

1) 2MP is still shit.
2) Good luck taking photos at night. Seriously.

[neodorian @ Feb 20th 2009 8:18AM]

Gotta have some way to keep people buying a new one every year. Maybe this one will add MMS, the following gen can add copy/paste, and by gen 5, you may even be able to run more than one program at once!

[Phillip @ Feb 20th 2009 8:24AM]

Not to mention the camera, how about one mega pixel per generation ending with flash and auto focus ;)

[GettoLoser @ Feb 20th 2009 8:31AM]

we can only hope thats true by the 5th Gen..and not further away

[Look_Around_You @ Feb 20th 2009 10:29AM]

With the Dow tanking into oblivion, you would have to be an idiot to be buying anything.

[Mark Anderson @ Feb 21st 2009 7:42AM]

"I've rarely seen someone trashing anything that's not an iPhone."

I take it you don't read iEye's comments then?

[bongo123 @ Feb 20th 2009 8:18AM]

feck i hope its not a new iphone i just got one a few months ago and im tied for the next 18mths unless i sacrifice my first born, as much as i love the iphone and cannot for the life of me understand the hate towards it, it would suck monkeyballs to see a new one out there...

[wrabbit @ Feb 20th 2009 10:34AM]

I think it's not so much hate towards iphone, it's more hate towards iphone fanboys who feel the need to trash any other phone whether for good reason or not. That's how it started really - they couldn't admit that the iphone is not a perfect device (it's a very good smartphone but it's not great, and it's getting older by the week as other companies are coming out with superior devices) and as all little whiny kids do they started calling other devices names. So then the anti-iphone fanboys were born and now it's just a big mess.

[Eric @ Feb 20th 2009 11:00AM]

Someone came out with a superior device? Wow! Where? All I saw was Win Mobile 6.5 at Barcelona, while phone companies bribed by MS kept their Android phones under wraps, even though the Androids are coming this Summer while WM6.5 isn't coming until the end of the year - maybe - and will be crap.

All this hate for the iPhone and iPhone fanbois (some do deserve the criticism) and claims of superior phones. I've tried using a Blackberry Storm. Crap. I've looked at some others. I look at what's coming out now. Nothing can touch the iPhone for overall usefulness. Period. That's what counts. Not some theoretical list of bullet points that mostly miss the point of what a phone is for.

[dtatgenho @ Feb 20th 2009 12:10PM]

@Eric:

Palm Pre.

[patriotsn1 @ Feb 20th 2009 12:56PM]

so... eric is here to prove wrabbit's point?

oh and btw "overall usefulness" is exactly where the iphone lacks... I think you meant to say "prettiness"

[FoxKenji @ Feb 21st 2009 12:37AM]

@ wrabbit
Oh such irony. I've rarely seen someone trashing anything that's not an iPhone. What I do see more often, such in the case of bongo123, is fans expressing their desire to want one. Did bongo trash any other phone out there? I don't see where. Conversely, I see MS fans taking extra time to go out of their way to trash the iPhone left and right. The funny thing is, it is the MS fans that love to fabricate the idea that Mac fans claim the iPhone is perfect, and then trash the Mac fans for it.

By the way, if you don't like/care about Macs/iPhone, why did you even bother reading and writing in this post?


@ dtatgenho
The Pre looks like an interesting device but as is, we don't know enough yet. I'm looking forward to reading reviews when it comes out and perhaps playing with it at the store. Android was looking good before it came out but now it's sort of not going anywhere. Hopefully that will change and more manufacturers will adopt it.


@ patriotsn1

If you think that looking pretty is all that the iPhone is, you're dead wrong. Here is my explanation why:
http://www.engadget.com/2009/02/20/apple-once-again-squeezing-samsungs-flash-memory-supplies/comments/17260043/

Btw, if looking pretty is fault, why are so many handset makers copying the iPhone's look and feel?

.

[csmitty @ Feb 20th 2009 8:33AM]

Well I guess my one year of servatude will be replaced with another 2. Hopefully it will be something good and not just a capacity bump. I'm fine with my 8 now

[Sea Urchin @ Feb 20th 2009 8:21AM]

How about new Ipod Nano, current one is too big and ugly.

[Tarnation @ Feb 20th 2009 8:23AM]

Nah Steve just wants to make some really expensive flash based toilet paper to wipe his arse.

My bet is pretty much just a revamped iPhone 3G that is thinner metal backed and up to 32 and 64GB versions. They will also not have flash and copy/paste muahahahaha. They will also be good as pie servers.