Apple today announced that it has reached long-term supply agreements with Hynix, Intel, Micron, Samsung Electronics and Toshiba to secure the supply of NAND flash memory through 2010. As part of these agreements, Apple intends to prepay a total of $1.25 billion for flash memory components during the next three months.
“We want to be able to produce as many of our wildly popular iPods as the market demands,” said Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO in the press release.
iPod and iTunes are leading the digital music revolution, providing the best way to listen to music on-the-go, at home and in the car. With over 30 million iPods sold, the iPod is the world’s most popular digital music player and the iTunes Music Store is the number one online music store with over 600 million songs purchased and downloaded worldwide. The iPod economy also continues to flourish, with over 1,000 third-party iPod accessories now available.
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Go iPod
They obviously expect to continue their hot streak. Wow.
Or, could this be a bigger deal in disguise– laptops that also use flash memory?
Repent! The end of the world is near. God will come down from the heavens spitting bolts of lightning, and half the world will be flooded in scratched plastic and electronic debris – hallelujah! Brethren, load your iPods with ny eBible and ye shall be spared the wrath of the Lord.
MW: medical as in breakdown.
What this high demand for flash memory will do is create more production facilities, competition, to drive down prices so we can eventually see our Nano Notebooks. No more hard drives!
Hard drives are seriously obsolete, they take too much power, are too fragile and are slow.
Now to replace the cd/dvd drive as a means of transporting files, a USB or a Nano would be a excellent replacement.
To burn a dvd/cd, a seperate powered device wil be needed, which can be hooked up to the Nano notebook or Mac mini’s.
To watch Blue Ray DVD movies, a active internet connection will be required to verify and descramble the content. (also to disable your DVD player if tampered with)
So since (1) Power needs and (2) Internet needs will be required of Blue Ray DVD players, they won’t be in Nano notebooks, but a seperate device with Apple DRM encoding going to the Mac monitor.
Any portable movies will be *cough* sold via iTunes or a low grade version copied from Blue Rays DVD’s.
So you see now how it’s all coming together. 😀
Wait for the Mactel Nanonotebooks with all flash RAM.
1.25 Billion US. That’s a lot of mulah.
Prepay one and a quarter billion? whew! We be serious and stuff!
To COMPLETE the deal, Apple dropped $1.25B upfront, which would probably go directly to capital improvements in the plants to guarantee capacity. While this is a lot, remember Apple has $10 per share in CASH, that’s tens of billions of dollars and no debt…so yeah it isn’t anything to sneeze at, but investing $1.25 now to ensure supply of a critical component is good use of capital.
I TOTALLY agree with MacDude, Hard Drives are the achilles heel of ANY system.
Let’s ramp up production so we get 100GB RAM chips and say adios to clunky technology.
Bring your own music Karaoke Outlet. Load up your iPod with your favorite karaoke converted laserdisk tracks and get together with a few friends in a rented room with screen, speakers, and queuing device with multiple iPod inputs. Select your favorite Motoharu Sano track and grab the mike. Oh Angelina. Kimi wa ballerina….
Oh wait … <objects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewAlbum?playlistId=90148054&s=143462&i=90147932″>wrong song</a>.
<objects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewAlbum?playlistId=90148054&s=143462&i=90147932″>wrong song</a>.
Dudn’t iTunes links work here?
http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewAlbum?playlistId=90148054&s=143462&i=90147932
The money could also be used for R&D to create higher capacity flash memory. Maybe for some future Apple products.
I suspect that Apple will not just be using flash memory for iPods. Consider that Intel announced its Robson technology for quicker laptop startup and better battery life just this October.
Expect to see flash memory to be used in the Macintel laptops in the near future.
That’s worth pre-paying for!
“We want to be able to produce as many of our wildly popular iPods as the market demands,” said Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO in the press release.
Here’s a prediction. Once Apple reaches seven billion iPods sold, I’d say the market will be pretty much saturated with the current offerings.
Something more than just iPods are afoot, methinks.
Me thinks apple has a product road map which increasingly uses flash memory. For laptops (HDrives, are history), iPods, and new products, maybe that tablet is gonna show after all
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Bring them on, i am waiting to buy them all, god i wish
H
John Kerry, Go iPod no no Go Real, no , no Go Ms. No , no Go Apple.
I just can’t stop flip flopping. Hillary—Help!!!
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