When Intel G2 SSDs were released in mid-2009, the 160GB version cost 440$. Nowadays, it still sells for 390$, meaning that it has only came down by 50 bucks in 1.5 years. The only time when we will see major price cuts is when a die shrink occurs. We have now used 34nm NANDs for 1.5 years and 25nm should be out soon. A die shrink means more GBs can be fit into the same space which is extremely useful when considering about bigger capacity SSDs.
However, even though 25nm will bring the prices down, it won't bring them down by enough to make SSDs the only storage in iMacs. It will take at least another year before Intel comes up with new die shrink. Apple can't suddenly go from 2TB HDs to 256GB SSDs. What we may see is an SSD + HD combo as standard as even 64GB SSD would be enough.
Platter-based HDs are on their way out. They take a lot more space, cause noise and are unreliable. HDs haven't been developing that quickly either. First 2TBs came in early 2009 and we didn't see 3TBs until late last year. SSDs have gone from <100GB to up to 512GB in couple of years.
HDs won't disappear anytime soon but sooner or later they will. HDs don't get much faster anymore, we are stuck at 7200rpm. SSDs, on the other hand, keep getting faster and faster every year.
Trust me on this. I have info the general public does not. I deal with part suppliers who make and sells parts to SSD vendors such as intel as well as a few others. You make it all sound so simple. Believe me it is not, many factors come into play for prices for anything to go down. Even a stuffed teddy bear. It is more complicated than you make it out to be.
SSD's will dramatically go down in price over the next two years as adoption rises by OEM's and consumers. Two years ago SSD's were a niche product. Not used by any mainstream OEM's on a large scale basis.
In order for growth to happen, you need demand and then supply. To drive down costs, production has to be less costly, demand has to be up, and adoption has to be on the rise. All three usually do not happen at the same time. This year all three are happening, as in right now.
That is going to change this year. You cannot go by what prices were a year ago or two years ago. You have to go by market conditions, they are either favorable or unfavorable toward OEM's and consumers. This is the first year in which you will see wide scale acceptance of SSD's and big vendors marketing them as such.
HP, Apple, Lenovo, Toshiba, the big players have all put in big orders for SSD's drives. The prices have fallen, already for OEM's. That gets passed on to the consumer.
The 2xnm migration began last quarter 2010 and this will push down the price of SSDs. The result will be a 140% rise in SSD shipments in 2011 to around 17m units. 25nm is already shipping, 25nm SSD's will be shipping this quarter to the mainstream market.
The SSD price did not fall much in 2009 or last year and had its main applications in servers, industrial, military and high-end notebooks. Not in the mainstream PC market. This year that changes.
However the 2xnm transition is not the only variable in the prices being down this year. Most SSD manufactures improved their manufacturing processes not only in the shrinking of the die, but also the cost of manufacturing SSD's has improved with greater emphasis on efficiency and parts from part suppliers being cheaper.
In two years time, SSD's will be standard fare in all Macs. As well as in all PC's. This year you will see the hybrid of the two. In 2012 that most likely goes away as SSD prices drop again.
"The point here is SSDs will never, ever be able to match hard disk drives on price per gigabyte. But Apple will save on cheaper components such as optical drives and displays to offset the price difference between SSD's and HD's."
You missed my point with this. I was not saying HD's are here to stay. I am saying SSD cannot match HD's because they are more costly to manufacture. It takes years for a manufacturing process to be streamlined enough to be highly profitable and parts to go down. HD's manufacturing costs are about as low as they can possibly get right now, if the parts were any cheaper, they would be free.
SSD's are going to take three years or more to match the manufacturing costs HD's currently enjoy on the large capacity SSDs. The lower capacity SSD's already enjoy about the same manufacturing costs as a the larger HD's.
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(along with the free iPod touch deal, as it's for university) 
