Kasper JadeFlash-based iPod digital music player on tap for early 2005.
Apple Computer in December will begin manufacturing a third variant of its flagship iPod music player, which will be based on solid-state flash memory, AppleInsider has confirmed through well placed and extremely reliable sources.
According to contacts in Asia, the computer company will build a stock-pile of approximately 2 million flash iPods before the product begins shipping world-wide in late-January or early February. The new players are slated to be announced at the annual Macworld trade show in San Francisco during the second week of January.
Though precise specifications were not readily available, the flash iPod will reportedly use controller chips from Austin, TX-based SigmaTel, and feature a storage capacity in the range of 256 Megabytes to 1 Gigabyte. Sources were unable to confirm if the player would be released in more than one configuration.
The iPod flash will retail for below (US)$200 and sport a similar user interface to the company's ubiquitous iPod and iPod mini.
Despite comments from Apple chief executive Steve Jobs that flash-based digital music players are often received as gifts, rarely used, and "end up in a drawer," market share figures speak for themselves. Although the iPod holds a whopping 92% slice of the pie for hard drive-based players, this figure shrinks to 65% when flash models are tallied as part of the mix.
Sales of flash players remain strong in the second half of 2004 and account for a larger percentage of digital music players than that of hard-drive music players when surveyed on a global basis. The introduction of an Apple-branded flash player is expected to increase Apple's share of players in the far east, where the adoption rate for the iPod has been feeble.
At last year's Macworld Expo in San Francisco, Jobs introduced the iPod mini, a 4 Gigabyte hard drive-based player designed to compete in the high-end flash player market. A renowned success, the iPod mini drew strong demand throughout the better part of the year, but priced at $249, it remains inaccessible to many.
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40 Comments
Only 2 million? Don't they ever learn their lesson? 2 million will sell out in a week! Then once again, they will be backordered for 2 months.
so, will these have ridiculously long battery lives or will they be ridiculously lightweight?
so, will these have ridiculously long battery lives or will they be ridiculously lightweight?
I think they'll look just like the iPod Mini's but thinner and with a lot longer battery life. Apple's not going to compromise the size of the screen and click-wheel.
Only 2 million? Don't they ever learn their lesson? 2 million will sell out in a week! Then once again, they will be backordered for 2 months.
Actually they are learning. They will actually have product at the time of announcement. Then they can gauge demand and manufactur appropriately. This is good news..Apple will have a solution at almost every price point.
There are times when I think that a 1GB flash player would be nice especially when AAC+ is coming with a %30 improvement in encoding effienciency. That means 96k files will sound pretty damn close to what we have at 128. More songs ..less space small price. It's all coming together.
This will definatley hugley boost sales for apple. If they put their design brilliance on this thing, as you guys said, 2 million will be sold out right away. Im wondiering if it will have the click wheel, which, is my, and probably many others, favorite part of the iPod.