Citing sources from hard drive makers, news and rumor site DigiTimes says that Apple's iPad could end up slowing SSD growth in the market place. Say what?
The reason, sources say, is because the iPad might create a shortage of NAND flash chips. Apple already consumes about one-third of the total NAND flash output because of the company's immensely popular iPod and iPhone devices, and if the iPad proves to be just as hot, NAND flash supply could tighten.
The news gets even worse for SSD fans. The cost of NAND flash has been the biggest roadblock in pushing SSDs into the mainstream, and the sources noted that prices are continuing to increase. That should change once the NAND flash industry transitions to a 20nm process technology, however that isn't expected to happen until at least the second half of 2011. Bummer.
Comments are closed on this article
glassneeds1
March 25, 2010 at 5:02pm
When I bought my windows vista lap top, I have had and know eveyone else has had issues. How long do you wait to buy ipad before the kinks are worked out?
nsk chaos
March 05, 2010 at 3:34pm
i effing hate you apple and your super, uber, WTFOMGHOLYSHITHAX!-zealous patients....o wait i already do.
kamikaji
March 05, 2010 at 5:09pm
Go die, Apple. No one likes you except for n00bs who are too ignorant to learn how to use a PC, and trendy posers with stupidly high superiority complexes.
"Oh, I am sooooo much better than you, because I have a Mac. It's so shiny, and it's made by Apple, so it MUST be good!"
"Um no, actually, you're just a tool who eats the lies that are continually spat forth from Steve Jobs's foul maw"
The best way to describe Apple Products:
- Overpriced
- Ridiculously expensive customer service packages that should be free
- Other similar products are much better and less expensive
- Lack of options (Apple locks you out of using most 3rd party programs and apps unless they approve of them)
- The vast majority of computer games cannot be played on Macs
- Lack of customization and adaptability for power users: OSX looks like it was built for babies! Big buttons, few options, minimal customization, only so much you can do. With Windows and Linux, you can customize anything.
- I could probably think of a lot more, but you get the point.
Phulkrum
May 19, 2010 at 3:20pm
Obviously you have never researched Apple's products at all....
First off a little back story,
I started my carreer in the computing industry on pc's and for over 25 years have worked exclusively on nothing but pc and designing pc gaming systems....
as for your comment on the cost differences between the hardware...
they are the exact same you can't tell me you can go out and get an i7 chip system with a 512 meg or 1 gb videocard and a motherboard that has deciently designed archatecture that wont bottleneck the performance because of some cheap ass south bridge that the motherboard manufacturer placed on the board to cut costs..
rule number one in the PC gaming industry,,, you get what you pay for.
that being said the costs of buying a copy of windows to run the OS and the time to get it installed and all the drivers as well, as well as all the freaking number of security updates microshaft keeps puttingout on a daily basis to plug secruity leaks, (not to mention patching the system on the sly to fix driver compatability issues with the hardware to keep the darned thing from giving the blue screen of death and rebooting with a stupid report on next boot (with a microsoft error code so you have to call their tech support to figure out what it is.( and that aint cheap eaither like 100 bucks an hour over the phone)
after you have just spent the last 6 to 8 hours doing this crap you can finally use your PC for gameing. until it crashes again at which time you have to scour the game writer's forums for other people bitching about the same issue just to find out it's a driver problem or a direct x problem with your video chipset.
mac on the other hand runs right out of the box and their support has been far better than any other PC manufacturer out there. and their support isn't a hut in the sands of india, or helping some curdish dirt farmers farm more dirt. it actually goes to support the american economy by keeping americans employed.
i have several caases where the guy's at the genious bar have replaced hardware on my mac without question or their phone support has been free on their OS as well as hardware support.
as for customization? if you were inteligent enough to know how to customise a mac you could do so with ease.. it's only shoddy companies that panders to idiots that put admin level settings in a user's hands.
side note as for uptime...
my company has several servers most of which run windows and they yo,yo all the time (thank god for clustering huh?)
I have 2 Mac Xserv's and in comparison of uptime between the windows systems there is no comparison at all...
they have been online for the last 2 years non stop 24/7 without a hickup or need to reboot.
the windows systems well they have been down a total of 48 times in the last 2 years....
go figure... and you like all the CGI in the movies? yup thats MAYA (a Mac APP)
not to mention the ease of video editing on MAC vs. PC.
or Audio editing for that matter... much better on a Mac. (kinda funny cause all the EDM producers out there perfer Mac to PC for Production hardware...
that being said....,,,
I am so GLAD I joined"The Dark Side" (hell i even got a free cookie)
screw u PC...
once you go Mac you never go back...
:P
mogmios
March 12, 2010 at 8:08pm
I've been a professional software engineer and electronics geek for some twenty plus years. I daily work with multiple flavors of Unix, Linux, Windows, Mac OS, and whatever else comes up. I write code for both iPhone and Android. I've probably been writing Linux code since you were in diapers.
I have a Macbook, iMac, several iPods including two Touches, and I just dropped $1000 on the 64GB iPad 3G. (I also happen to have several Windows and Linux computers, an Android tablet, a Dell Mini that runs Windows and Mac OS, etc.) I can say simply that you have no idea what you are talking about.
Apple makes very good hardware. It looks good (and yes that matters) and more importantly it is well built. Your $400 cheap ass PC is not going to work as well as a $2000 Mac. You can get standard PC hardware as good as what Apple makes, although seldom as good looking, but it is far from standard and it's not cheaper. Customer service is pretty good actually. Probably what you expect for a computer that costs this much.
Lack of options is a feature. If you knew anything about consumers you'd know that. If you really want options it's easy to bypass those restrictions. If you don't know how then you're not smart enough to be given that much rope to hang yourself with. Note that the only security issues with iPhone devices have really been from idiots that jailbroke them and didn't know enough to secure them.
The iPhone has a ton of games that are easy to find and install. Especially casual games which is what the vast majority of users want. Use a console or content device for games and a computer for a computer. Windows games suck anyway because you always have issues eventually with incompatiblity, crashes, etc and the interface is ass ugly. Talk about looking like it was made for babies. It's just a suck platform for gaming. The sad thing is the Linux desktop tries to copy it and does an even worse job.
If you know how to access the command-line OS X has plenty of customization. It's essentially Unix with extra goods on top. It's a powerful system that makes Windows look like a joke. If you don't know how to use the command-line then you're not smart enough to be a power user. If you can't code then you don't know what any system really offers.
I'm tired of all the script kiddie wanna be 'power users' whining about how limited Mac OS and iPhone OS are. It's obvious they know nothing about them and probably have never done anything more powerful than playing WoW on mommy's eMachine.
Caboose
March 15, 2010 at 12:37pm
"Apple makes very good hardware. It looks good (and yes that matters) and
more importantly it is well built. Your $400 cheap ass PC is not going
to work as well as a $2000 Mac. You can get standard PC hardware as good
as what Apple makes, although seldom as good looking, but it is far
from standard and it's not cheaper."Can you tell me what hardware Apple makes? Their CPU's are Intel, RAM is prob. Kingston (Just a guess), Hard Drives are Seagate, Chipsets are Intel, video cards are either Intel IGP or ATi (some nVidia). Optical drives are re-branded LG's, LiteOn's or other. THey make their own mice and keyboards. LCD panels are LG or Samsung in a nice white shiny Apple bezel. PSU's are prob. some offbrand type. Apple may make the chassis, but it pretty much ends there.
My $400 PC is going to perform better, and most likely be built with the same components. Plus I can afford to actually buy myself food, and pay my rent afterwards. Yes, Macs are good at some things (like draining your life savings), but PC's have the most choice. I can very easily install Windows, any flavour of Linux, and even Mac OS should I not be in the right mind, should I choose on my PC Hardware. I can go to the computer store and browse the THOUSANDS of different components. Pick and choose what I want, and install it without issue.
I have greater choice with the Windows platform. Always, and forever.
-= I don't want to be dead, I want to be alive! Or... a cowboy! =-
Keith E. Whisman
March 05, 2010 at 11:04am
What we need are some more memory manufacturers and suppliers. This would flood the market with more memory than is needed or at least satisfy demand and that will bring the cost of memory parts down. This all pretty much confirms my post from yesterday.
I don't think any companies can get started just producing Memory parts. I think the overhead is going to be too high so I think companies such as AMD, Intel and others should expand their manufacturing capabilities beyond where they are today.
I believe that getting into Flash memory production right now can be very profitable for a company in the long run as demand really picks up even more than today. When the price of Solid State Hard Drives drop to compete with mechanical drives I think most people will buy a solid state drive and that will really pick up and grow very fast but the problem is that we need prices to come down in order for demand for SSD's to pick up.
Bender2000
March 05, 2010 at 9:34am
Somehow Steve Jobs has figured out how to charge an Apple Tax on people who don't buy Apple! Its like Obama figuring out how to tax foreigners living abroad.
Scootiep
March 05, 2010 at 10:19am
That's damn near one of the funniest posts I have ever read. Thank you for the laugh sir. In addition, CURSE YOU APPLE! Get your inferior products off the market so I can afford some sweet sweet SSD goodness!
To start press any key...ohh, where's the "Any" key. - Homer Simpson
nduanetesh
March 05, 2010 at 8:44am
My crystal ball says that the iPad will have a very strong opening week or so of sales, and then it will fade into the ether to become one of those "hey, do you remember that thing?" type of items.
mogmios
March 12, 2010 at 8:12pm
My crystal ball says that there will soon be a free BSOD app just so people that can afford an iPad can make their Windows friends feel better. Even seen how Windows machines are displayed on Mac OS network browsing?
nekollx
March 05, 2010 at 10:09am
The iPad is just a revised Norton
Remember how well that did?
------------------------------
Coming soon to Lulu.com --Tokusatsu Heroes--
Five teenagers, one alien ghost, a robot, and the fate of the world.
Bender2000
March 05, 2010 at 9:36am
What about all the other pad PCs announced? Are they doomed too? Are you saying the whole industry is missing the mark or is Apple out with a new Cube fiasco?
Caboose
March 05, 2010 at 8:59am
Lets hope!
-= I don't want to be dead, I want to be alive! Or... a cowboy! =-
B10H4Z4RD
March 05, 2010 at 8:36am
Damnit Apple! NOT OK! We need these 1TB Solid States ASAP, and I don't want to take a Mortgage out on my house to pay for it.
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