August 21, 2005

iPod Mini with 4GB of Flash on its Way

It's readily apparent now that a 4GB flash memory version of the iPod Mini is on its way. This lets iPod users have a screen and the durability of flash vs. hard-drives, which means you can jog with it and not worry about breakage even if you drop it.

With demand for its popular iPod music player booming, Apple Computer Inc. plans to buy as much as 40 percent of the NAND flash output of Samsung Electronics Co. in the second half of this year, according to market research firm iSuppi Corp. (El Segundo, Calif.).

As Apple moves from a hard disk-based iPod to a flash-based iPod Mini player at the 4-GByte capacity, the switch could leave other NAND customers scrambling for supply, the market research company said.

In a report issued Friday (Aug. 19th), iSuppli memory analyst Nam Hyung Kim said sources told him that Samsung has offered Apple “extremely low prices on its Nand parts” in order to convince Apple to switch from HDD storage to NAND memory for the 4-GByte-density iPod.