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BW: iPods with Hard Drive Days Are Numbered

Wednesday, October 10th, 2007 at 1:05 PM - by

Evidence is mounting, based on an analysis of the components, that hard drive-based iPods may be on the way out, according to Business Week on Wednesday.

The possible extinction arises from asking the question as to why Apple's iPod with the biggest and best video screen doesn't have the highest storage capacity.


Endangered Species: iPod classic

iSsppli analyst Chris Crotty thinks that the answer is the downward spiral in prices for flash memory. In addition, while hard disk prices are falling, as they always do, flash memory prices are falling faster.

Doing the math, another iSuppli analyst, Andrew Rassweiler, predicts that Apple will be able to put 128 GB of flash memory into an iPod for roughly the same price as today's 8 GB within three years.

"Apple is still making the hard drive-based player because there's still a business case for it," Mr. Rassweiler said. "But it's pretty clear that the writing is on the wall, that the hard drive-based product is going to be marginalized."

Fortunately, Samsung and Toshiba, who supply hard drives for the iPod also manufacture flash memory for Apple.

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