Apple may launch Flash version of iPod

Rethink IT, Jan, 2005

Rumors abounded recently that Apple will release a bottom end of the iPod range powered by a Flash memory card rather than by a hard drive.

If's that's true it will certainly have to offer substantially less memory than the iPod Mini, which comes in two sizes of 2Gb and 4Gb. Right now Flash memory is available in those sizes, but as that's at the pioneering end of the market, those capacities are both too expensive right now and would marginalize its own iPod Mini. So if the rumor turns out to be true, we would expect a device that only holds about 500Mb or 1Gb, and comes in at substantially under the iPod mini price of $249.

But that's the trouble with this rumor, we think it leads to an iPod size that is fundamentally not as profitable as its existing range and that it undermines the Mini.