When Apple Computer CEO Steve Jobs introduced the iPod Nano Sept. 7, he predicted it would be the best-selling iPod model ever.
That is a strong statement, considering the Nano is only Apple’s second device to incorporate flash memory instead of a hard drive. It is an even stronger endorsement of flash-based technology from a company that until this year declined to use it in a single product.
Jobs’ newfound enthusiasm for the memory format indicates the extent to which the digital music industry has pinned its hopes for mass-market appeal on flash-based players. Though hard-drive and micro-hard-drive devices have dominated the MP3 player market, flash-memory performance, price and popularity are all improving at such a clip that some analysts believe it will overtake the hard drive in the very near future.
A significant quality unmentioned in the article is flash memory devices being more durable in portable devices that bounce around like a music player.
Flash-based devices store content on a chip, which unlike a hard drive contains no movable parts. This means flash players use less battery power — 30 times less –than hard-drive players, as well as being much smaller and extremely durable.
The trade-off is that flash memory chips have a limited storage capacity and a higher price than their hard-drive counterparts, which boast 10 times the capacity at half the cost.
But flash costs are dropping dramatically. According to semiconductor research firm iSuppli, the price-per-megabyte cost for flash memory has fallen 56 percent in the last year. The firm projects the price will fall an additional 47 percent by next year and then another 33 percent by 2007.
Memory capacity also is improving. Samsung plans to begin mass-producing 16GB flash-memory chips by the end of next year and points to a 32GB prototype on the horizon.
Research suggests that most owners of hard-drive-based devices that can hold 10,000 songs or more do not come close to using the full storage capacity. According to Card, only about 20 percent of iPod users have more than 1,000 songs on their players. No surprise then that MP3 device manufacturers, including Apple, are counting on smaller and cheaper devices to drive the digital music player market forward.
A bit of a contradiction of targets, here — if most folks aren’t using all of their 4-8gb, now — and manufacturers are headed for 16-32gb. Folks will have to come up with uses requiring larger amounts of memory.
From what I’ve read, the part about most owners now coming close to using as much capacity as they have, is totally true.
I had a 15GB iPod, but after converting my music library to AAC, I was only using 2GB of space on it. The nano just made sense for me – small form factor, better battery life, awesome podcast support. Many people fail to realize that these devices make excellent mass-storage devices. I’m using my old iPod as a backup for both my PC and notebook now.
If Apple can make a fuel cell PDA quad, I’ll buy one.
Check this out.
Quark fuel-cell four-wheeled motorcycle.
The Quark has a removable interactive interface, which appears to be a PDA on steroids.
http://www.gizmag.com/go/3153/
http://www.gizmag.com/go/3153/gallery/
I always enjoy showing off the ol’ Apple II ( http://apple2history.org/ ) for my students (which are, by the way, still on our school’s inventory) and pushing it’s up-to-dateness for the late 70’s – 64K baby! A colleague of mine still has his on his “mac shelf/shrine” – it may still work!
I’m waiting for a better PDA. Imagine a machine with 8 gigs solid state, a couple of USB ports, headphone jack, touch screen, a “media out” for video with dongle (I actually just wanted to say dongle), and running Linux or (scary thought) watered-down Windows with universal drivers to plug in a mouse and keyboard to those USBs… it’d be bad ass… the presentation master. Hooks up to any projector.. just bring your mouse along.. You could make full length interactive multimedia (Adobe/Macromedia Director, etc) and set up a mouse and monitor at a trade show – super small footprint – super fast mobility. Wouldn’t anyone else want one of these?
Mant a times there have been statements made by industry leaders regarding storage requirements and as to why an X capacity would never ever be required, and they were mostly proven wrong. So, gearing up for larger capacities might just find its uses. Some of them might be:
Generic and Obvious Uses:
– Video
– Photos
– A Portable Backup Option
Functional:
– Medical Images
– Detailed Maps
– Presentations with Linked Media
– Architectural Blueprints
– CVS/Codebase Offline Dumps
– etc.
iTunes 5 now has the capability of downloading videos, as it does with the diggnation videos, though it does not synch-up the same to my current iPod photo. But, video offering might well be on the way, considering that Archos and PSP already offer the same and stand out as a diffrentiator to iPod. A small device might even have a standard video-in ports and act like a recorder for the same. iTalk already does for audio.
If we are considering an all in one platform, then it might be a wierd product in the end. But, the way plugins have been evolving for iPod, it appears that a portable device might end up being like an SDK, and could be called HDK (Hardware Development Kit)!
For now, space might not be required, but wait until we discover ways of filling up space.
Thanks!
A few months ago, when I was looking for a portable MP3 player, I ruled out iPods. Having been an engineer for a good part of my life, I wanted a portable device that had no moving parts.
So, last May, I picked up an all solid state 1 Gigabyte iRiver iFP799. It is not nearly as cool as an I pod, but it has served me well. I use it regularly for listening to podcasts while walking around the city. Its single Gigabyte of flash memory is more than enough for that.
When I heard that Apple was releasing a solid state player I seriously considered buying one. The new iPod Nanos are incredibly cool and fun to play with. But it really bothers me that they use rechargeable batteries that are NOT user replaceable (Apple is not alone in this –most other manufactures do the same thing — although not usually for solid state players).
This has two major drawbacks. One is that when its battery runs down you have to wait until it is recharged before you can get your iPod back into operation — and that can take an hour or more. OTOH, It takes only seconds to swap out a user replaceable battery. The other disadvantage is that when your iPod battery finally fails you have to send the whole unit BACK TO APPLE — just to change the battery!!!?? Adding injury to injury, the Apple folks have also elected to charge an exorbitant price for a replacement (well over US$50).
While I like the Nano, I plan on sticking with the iRiver for a while. An AA battery in my player will last for almost 30 hours. When it runs out I can insert a new one in a few seconds at a cost of less than 50 cents. If I want to use a rechargeable battery I can do that as well — a NiMh AA rechargeable sells for under $5 and will run my player at least as long as an alkaline battery will.
But the Nano is so cool…
A bit of a contradiction of targets, here — if most folks aren’t using all of their 4-8gb, now — and manufacturers are headed for 16-32gb. Folks will have to come up with uses requiring larger amounts of memory.
Modem speeds and expensive memory drove the need for jpeg compression of photos and mp3 compression of songs.
More memory, and DSL/Cable internet speeds, should cause a shift to more photos being saved as RAW or PNG files, and songs being saved in FLAC (or other lossless formats).
Goodbye to complaints about jpeg artifacts in photos, and arguments over wmv/mp3/aac and fixed/variable bit-rates for songs.
I read people bitching about how the new memory cards are getting too small to handle (miniSD, memory stick micro) and “yet another card format” – but the same technologhy is allowing 8GB CF cards to save a butt-load of RAW files from a 12MP DSLR. 🙂
I am waiting for the next step in evolution in portable storage/playback devices – which won’t require the “sneaker net” method of removing the memory card from the camera/camcorder to transfer files to the storage/playback device. We should be reaching the point where a USB High Speed connection between the camera and the storage/playback device is possible. (The new WiFi-enabled cameras are also nice – but with so many exisiting WiFi-equipped devices around, I would prefer a physical connection for more assurance my files aren’t glitched by interference)
How do the cycle lifetimes for flash compare with the MTBF for micro/mini HDs?
Okay, RT, I’ll post it.
http://oldapples.blogspot.com/
and with the 80 column card, that pushes it up to 128k, thank you very much.
Couple of notes:
1. I’ve had an iRiver-120 (20GB model) for almost two years, and it has NEVER given me a program, and I’ve dropped it a NUMBER of times while running (OK jogging). The 2.5 and 1 inch hard drives are very durable and can withstand lots of “abuse” (ie: the circuit board or screen will break on a “drop” before the hard drive will go on most lap tops and other devices). The 3 to 4 ounces in weight saving is not worth it in a lot of instances, so give me the GB’s instead of saving ounces… (for what its worth, my music/mp3 collection on my computer is over 200 GB’s, all legal!, and if you ask me, I”d like to have it available everywhere/anytime!).
2. From my understanding of how the technology is going, hard disks will continue to beat out solid-state (flash) in physical size for the short and medium turn future. As an IT person as well as a gadget geek, the thought of 100’s of gigabytes of storage available in in a 4 ounce package is amazing and will have LOTS of uses for both business and non-business applications (video, etc.)..
Disk space, ram, processor speed, paycheck…. there is never enough
I have a portable media center with 40GB. It plays MP3s, MPEG movies, shows JPEGs, records audio for notes, connects to the Internet for more…
It’s called a laptop.