Toshiba to Introduce 1-inch Drives

[MacRumors]

CNet reports that Toshiba is due to unveil a less than 1-inch hard drive next month at the Consumer Electronics Show.

While no capacities are yet known for the upcoming drives, for reference, Hitachi currently manufactures 1-inch hard drives that hold from 1GB to 4GB of data. Competition in the mini-harddrive market continues to increase as more players are introducing comparable form factors. Hitachi recently introduced their own 1.8" hard drive which has found its way into the Dell Digital Jukebox.

As readers are aware, Apple presently uses Toshiba's 1.8" hard drives in the iPod and reportedly enjoyed nearly exclusive use of those drives from Toshiba in the first year of production.

 

[bobbyp80521]

i want 10

indeed

 

[KLFloyd]

Cool...we may see even smaller iPods, or same size iPods with better battery life soon.

Looking forward to see what Apple has planed for the iPod.

 

[captain kirk]

This can only be good news for Apple.
Maybe this is the hard drive to go into the new epod?????

 

[ITR 81]

Smaller lowend iPods?

 

[NavyIntel007]

1" drives can't hold the capacity yet to put in the ipod. But it would be nice if they sold a 1 Gb - 4 Gb workout ipod. Smaller form factor and design with some water resistance and shock protection. I'd buy one and still use my 20 gb ipod.

 

[rainman::|:|]

keep in mind how expensive they'll probably be at first. i don't think we'll be seeing them in low-end (cheap wise) ipods anytime too soon...

pnw

 

[ITR 81]

Sport Pod
with attaching arm bands.
Featuring: iShock
Apples patented shock resistant technology that a paint shaker can't even disturb.

Also is water and sweat resistant.

Also comes in 7 cool flavour colours.

Not to mention a shock and scratch resistant outer shell and screen.

Comes in 3 capacities:
1GB
2GB
4GB

Now start sweating in style with your Sport Pod today!!

 

[Timo_Existencia]

Maybe I'm missing something here...but it seems to me that you'll never see a hard drive based mp3 player listed as shock-free. The "sport" mp3 players all have flash memory only.

If there is a spinning drive, then it will likely not be a sport ipod.

 

[JoeMacDaddy]

Cheap Gen III iPods

This will mean that the prices on the current Toshiba units will be coming down in price. Apple will be able to maintain their product margins and offer reduced priced iPods. They will sell more of the current iPod design.

 

[Macmaniac]

Good news, if they have a 5 gig version then we may see a low cost iPod soon, hopefully these smaller drives will allow for longer battery life. I don't think the iPod's form factor will get any smaller, Apple would not want to lose the functionality of the current design, however it could get even thinner

 

[Mr.Hey]

Originally posted by NavyIntel007
1" drives can't hold the capacity yet to put in the ipod. But it would be nice if they sold a 1 Gb - 4 Gb workout ipod. Smaller form factor and design with some water resistance and shock protection. I'd buy one and still use my 20 gb ipod.

nail meet head . I hope Apple reads these forums because this would be a great product.

 

[Jerry Spoon]

Re: Cheap Gen III iPods

Originally posted by JoeMacDaddy
This will mean that the prices on the current Toshiba units will be coming down in price. Apple will be able to maintain their product margins and offer reduced priced iPods. They will sell more of the current iPod design.

Ah! That's exactly what I was thinking, b/c we should know that we won't see these smaller drives in an ipod..too expensive and not enough capacity.

 

[Gymnut]

Hopefully they won't run into any production problems of not being able to produce enough of 'em.

 

[spencecb]

I love my iPod to death and I always take it with me when I am working out, but I have to admit, when I see the other people working out with the mp3 players around their arm, I'm a little jealous. Granted, I do see a multitude of other people with iPods, but you really dont need to carry around your entire music collection to go work out with. It would be great if Apple made some sort of workout iPod like two other people have already posted...it would be kick ass!

 

[beefcake]

Someone already said it: hard-drive based mp3 players aren't good for jogging, thats what flash memory is for.

 

[spencecb]

well, i beg to differ...when I work out I use cardio machines and I have my iPod in its case attached to my shorts. And it works just fine. It has skipped once or twice on me, but thats no big deal. And its not like the iPod reads the music off of the hard drive continuously...it loads the info into onboard memory, which lets the hard drive spin down until it is needed again, which is about 20 minutes worth of music at a time.

 

[mproud]

Hello? Everyone?

This is all MOOT if Toshiba doesn't provide sizes 10 GB and higher. Apple has no reason to adopt something that doesn't hold as much as the current iPods do! We still don't know what sizes Toshiba will be releasing. If this is their first release of 1-inch and below, it's probably going to be comparable to the Hitachi (duh).

This has very little immediate impact on the iPod line, folks!

 

[MrMacMan]

Only good if it increases battery life.

I want a 5 GB iPod... then I'm good.

All the new features... battery life...

That would be worth it.

 

[ThomasJefferson]

Must be fruit flavored. Lime Green Part Deux.

 

[applejilted]

A little off topic but for the life of me I can't understand why Palm or others don't incorporate hard drives into their PDAs....it's just plain dumb as they could then easily double as MP3 players

 

[Tulse]

PDAs don't have hard drives because a) they're hugely expensive, and b) they suck power. Nobody wants a Tungsten that costs several hundreds of dollars more and only runs for a few hours.

 

[drbyers]

i just want a cheaper iPod, period. I don't care what size the hard drive is...

 

[sethypoo]

I just don't think my 10GB iPod will ever fill up, I have 461 songs on it. I know that's tiny compared to some, but 461 songs is a heck of a lot to me.

A 4GB iPod would be neat, for those interested in the "cool" and "cheap" factor. I probably would have gone for a 4GB'er if it had been offered when I was buying my 10GB iPod.

Oh well, 10GB= room to grow.

 

[sethypoo]

Originally posted by Tulse
PDAs don't have hard drives because a) they're hugely expensive, and b) they suck power. Nobody wants a Tungsten that costs several hundreds of dollars more and only runs for a few hours.

I'd take one.

But then again, that's just me. Tungstens are just so neat.