6th Generation iPod Tracking For Late 2007? Early 2008?

[MacRumors]

Users hoping for a refreshed widescreen iPod (without cellular capabilities as in the iPhone) will get their wish as early as the third calendar quarter of this year if a report from AppleInsider holds true. However, the site does note that the timing is dependent on the iPhone rollout and could be put off until early next year.

Among the potential challenges believed to be facing Apple ahead of its sixth-generation iPod launch is a required margin of differentiation between the player and iPhone, both of which are expected to carry relatively similar price points upon availability.

The site also mentions the possibility that lower NAND flash prices could pave way for Apple to deliver a 32 GB flash-based iPod with increased battery life and even sleeker design. The claim is similar to one in early February by analyst Jesse Tortora, who said that Apple would be moving to a totally flash-based lineup by the end of 2007.

MacRumors Analysis: While the addition of a flash-based iPod is a very real possibility, we think it is very unlikely for Apple to decrease the storage capacity in their high-end iPods and thus cut out users that have larger music/movie libraries. A speculative solution would be to have one model be flash based and a higher-capacity model be HDD based.

[gkarris]

Total flash-based? I'm running out on my 60Gig - and really want a 120 Gig with lots of videos - how much is a flash-based 120 Gig model gonna cost???

[Stridder44]

Again, flash = cool. 32 Gb of HD space = I cry myself to sleep at night.



Wake me up when they have at least 100.

[rockthecasbah]

All flash iPods would be so nice for most consumers, but for people very large libraries, i think keeping around the Hard Drive (with very large capacities) will still be necessary for another few years.. The capacity just can't compete right now.

[gavstephenson]

Excuse my ignorance, but what are the advantages (and disadvantages) of flash-based drives?

[xfiftyfour]

Originally Posted by rockthecasbah

All flash iPods would be so nice for most consumers, but for people very large libraries, i think keeping around the Hard Drive (with very large capacities) will still be necessary for another few years.. The capacity just can't compete right now.

agreed.

i have a 60GB right now, and i won't go lower than that. i'm really hoping for the 6G iPod to be the iPhone minus networking capabilities, and with increased storage. this is probably too much to hope for, though.

[Diatribe]

Originally Posted by gavstephenson

Excuse my ignorance, but what are the advantages (and disadvantages) of flash-based drives?

No skipping, less mechanical failure prone, better battery life, smaller footprint.

[saxondale.]

Was hoping for it to be sooner, my 8gb nano is becoming unless, i need more space, but really would like to wait for the 6th generation iPod.

[xfiftyfour]

Originally Posted by gavstephenson

Excuse my ignorance, but what are the advantages (and disadvantages) of flash-based drives?

as i know it:

advantages: smaller form factor, increased battery life, faster, and you can run with 'em.

disadvantages: it's a new technology right now, so getting flash-based drives with as much storage as a conventional hard drive is REALLY expensive.

[longofest]

Originally Posted by xfiftyfour

agreed.

i have a 60GB right now, and i won't go lower than that. i'm really hoping for the 6G iPod to be the iPhone minus networking capabilities, and with increased storage. this is probably too much to hope for, though.

For you (and those who have expressed similar sentiments), see the "MacRumors Analysis" addition to the story.

[psychofreak]

Originally Posted by Diatribe

No skipping, less mechanical failure prone, better battery life, smaller footprint.

Don't forget speed...although not really a problem on iPods...

[kwood]

I don't know a whole lot about NAND flash, but what is stopping Apple from putting in 2 32Gb modules into an iPod to give 64Gb of storage?

[gavstephenson]

Ahh, these flash-based drives sound good!

Thanks for the info. folks.

I was hoping I wouldn't have to wait as long for the 6th gen. also. I really want to wait (rather than buy a 5th gen. now), but how long can one cope with a Creative Zen?(!)

[shunpike]

Originally Posted by kwood

I don't know a whole lot about NAND flash, but what is stopping Apple from putting in 2 32Gb modules into an iPod to give 64Gb of storage?

Price mainly...

[tablebeast]

In designing a new iPod Apple has to consider both the device itself AND the iTunes service. Apple sells iPods AND media. These media files all take up space. The more storage capacity that you put in the customer's hands the more headroom they have to spend more money on your MEDIA! They may very weill introduce a 16 or 32GB flash based iPod but until flash is as cheap and has the same capacity of hard drives you will continue to see at least one hard drive model in their lineup. Also, if flash is getting so cheap, how long until we have a flash based laptop? I bet there will be an ultraportable Macbook Pro with a 32GB flash hard drive before we see that in an iPod.

[mashinhead]

Originally Posted by kwood

I don't know a whole lot about NAND flash, but what is stopping Apple from putting in 2 32Gb modules into an iPod to give 64Gb of storage?

That's what i said about the iphone. Surly they can take that route and increase the capacity if cost and availablity are issues. That's what they did for higher capacity ipods to get increase storage.

[Multimedia]

I thought 640 x 360 Wide Video iPod would preceede iPhone this Spring. This is bad news for owners of old Video iPods. I'm crushed.

[brianus]

Originally Posted by kwood

I don't know a whole lot about NAND flash, but what is stopping Apple from putting in 2 32Gb modules into an iPod to give 64Gb of storage?

Though prices on flash memory are falling dramatically, they're still nowhere near where they'd need to be to make that practical. Even for 32GB, the price of that much memory would eat up most of the cost of a full-sized iPod. We'll see where things stand at the end of the year, but remember, doubling the memory doubles the cost of that memory.

Ever since I saw that analyst report last month, I have been going with the speculation (apparently now shared by Macrumors) that the current 30gb iPod would be replaced by a 32GB flash model, while the 80GB would be bumped up to a 120GB internal hard drive. The 32GB would of course be thinner and lighter than the HDD-based model; and oddly enough, even though both models are currently HDD-based, the current 30GB is signifcantly thinner than the 80 (why is that??)

[brianus]

Originally Posted by Multimedia

I thought 640 x 360 Wide Video iPod would preceede iPhone this Spring. This is bad news for owners of old Video iPods. I'm crushed.

I was hoping for this too, but it never seemed very likely if you think about it. Apple would not want to undercut the brouhaha over the iPhone release by putting out a very similar iPod at the same time; and Apple has, at least since 2004, tended to roll out the biggest changes to its iPod line in the fall, not the spring (around August-October).

[chicagdan]

I think all of you guys are missing the point here ... Apple spends a king's ransom every year swapping iPods with consumers because the hard drives fail so often. The repair/replace rate for flash-based iPods is significantly lower than hard drive based iPods ... so Apple is very eager to stop making hard drive based iPods as soon as its practical and may be willing to eat some short-term margin to gain the repair/replace savings.

[shunpike]

Originally Posted by brianus

Though prices on flash memory are falling dramatically, they're still nowhere near where they'd need to be to make that practical. Even for 32GB, the price of that much memory would eat up most of the cost of a full-sized iPod. We'll see where things stand at the end of the year, but remember, doubling the memory doubles the cost of that memory.

Ever since I saw that analyst report last month, I have been going with the speculation (apparently now shared by Macrumors) that the current 30gb iPod would be replaced by a 32GB flash model, while the 80GB would be bumped up to a 120GB internal hard drive. The 32GB would of course be thinner and lighter than the HDD-based model; and oddly enough, even though both models are currently HDD-based, the current 30GB is signifcantly thinner than the 80 (why is that??)

The reason that it is thicker is that it is a double layered HDD for the 80gb but only a single layered HDD for the 30gb.

[SamL]

Sounds something like an article that I wrote in January on my Site!

Wow, why are these places considered more credible?

Check it out at:
http://www.samlustgarten.com/Jan_Arc...FullscreeniPod

Oh Well,
Sam

[slffl]

New iPods? LAME, I'm voting negative! WTH people?

[Doctor Q]

From a technology standpoint, it doesn't make sense to sell/buy a product with features that are not needed. But from a consumer point of view, the iPhone and a touchscreen iPod may not need to be strongly differentiated. Depending on their prices, and the price of cell service for the iPhone, people might think of an iPhone as an iPod whose built-in communication features are "free". You pay for those features, if you choose to, by buying a cell/Internet service contract.

That's the way you might think of a cable box's feature of letting you order pay-per-view movies. They don't sell two versions, one that supports pay-per-view and one (a little cheaper) that doesn't. My TV, answering machine, microwave, wristwatch, and even washer and dryer have features I never use too.

Actually, I doubt that Apple would sell only an iPhone version of the video iPod, because the phone features aren't a trivial part of the cost, and because they like to have products at multiple price points, but if iPhones are just a "step up" from iPods, people buying an iPod may be tempted to pay a little more for "extra" capabilities, without knowing for certain that they will use them.

[dashiel]

nand memory is expected to drop in price by as much as 25% this quarter and more than 40% over the year.

last year when introduced the 32 GB flash drive was estimated to cost around $900, the next generation model available now is $350. if you apply another 40% price drop to that you get $210.

those are also of course retail prices not wholesale. as i recall in at least two instances (the original ipod and the ipod mini) apple was selling the ipod for less than the retail cost of the hard drives inside. especially with the mini, people were buying the ipods cannibalizing them and reselling the hard drives on ebay. so one would hope that apple's wholesale cost for the drive is an additional 30-60% less than the above numbers. maybe $90-$150 for a 32gig by the end of the year.

also at CES this year 64GB and 128GB flash drives were announced. if you accept that nand memory is currently ~$11 a gigabyte (i.e. the 32GB model drive is $350) then the 64GB might cost apple as little as $170 and the 128GB model might come in as low as $330.

now let's assume the ipod 6 is basically the iphone, but without the phone components and bluetooth. that would be a total of $140.

32GB ipod6 = $230
64GB ipod6 = $310
128GB ipod6 = $470

as a reference the iphone was estimated to cost $250 and $280 respectively.

conclusion: unless there's a more than 50% drop in nand prices over the next 6 months and/or apple is able to negotiate an absolutely killer deal. i don't see an all flash line-up for another 18-24 months.