Source of Cheap 1.5GB Drives?

This could be the smaller iPods. 1.5G are a reasonable size and if Apple gets the drives for $50 that would be a $100 iPod.

Apple will charge an arm and a leg for the Mini-iPod.

If it's $50-$65 for the mini-drive, then Apple will probably price at around $150-$200 for the final product.

Gotta keep those profits rollin' in somewhere.....certainly not from ITMS.

Thanks but no thanks.

That Cnet article is from June. So, it is quite likely that the capacities have incresed to 2GB and 4GB since then. If Apple is betting on huge sales from this (and judging from iPod sales, it's a safe bet), they could have negotiated a very low price by placing a huge order. I would not be surprised if this drive, or one similar to it, is found in the upcoming iPod.

--DT

The only place that I've seen Cornice drives is the Rio Nitrus ($220 or so), even though they've allegedly been shipping for most of a year and Cornice can't keep up with demand. That implies that they're either having production problems or someone (not necessarily Apple) is stockpiling them for a big product rollout.

Unless I'm mistaken, most of the Toshiba 1.8" drives used in full-sized iPods weren't actually announced by Toshiba until after Apple started shipping them. So, this could be a new vendor or new product that hasn't really been announced yet. If I had to bet, I'd say Hitachi, simply because they have products in the right size range as the rumors, and it wouldn't kill them to build a less-robust microdrive in a circuit-board mountable formfactor instead of the CF format that they use now. I don't know if they could get prices under $100, though.

OTOH, the 5 GB drive in the original iPod listed for $400, and Apple was able to sell the whole package for $399.

IMHO, a

If you check out Cornice's partners ( http://www.corniceco.com/partners/index.html ) you'll notice PortalPlayer, who you know was a part of developing the original iPod.

Price aside. I had the first gen of the Microdrives. Replaced 3 of them under warrantee. I moderate a Pocket PC user group along with a Pocket PC discussion board and I can't count the number of dissatisfied Microdrive owners who have had bad sectors go on them or others who have had drives just plain crap out on them. My concern is the quality of these drives. These micro-hard drives are really new tech. I'd be seriously concerned with failed drives on something so new. It wouldn’t help Apple's rep if these things fly off the shelf only to have the consumer have problems 6 months down the road.

Assuming that Apple could get 2GB versions for $50 a piece and sell them for about $99 to $149, they would kill similar priced flash players that only hold around 128 to 512 MB.

I figure they would've ran into bugs already since they've been out to other companies for like 6 months now.

I believe they could still be with Toshiba.
A good relationship in Japan normally means the owners are more then likely to give all their long term friends a better deal then say someone they just met.

Remember most flash drives that are in the 512mb market are going for like almost $200 bucks now. The new Irivers are good example of this.

I don't think Apple will be doing flash.

So a 1-2-4GB smaller iPod around $200 bucks will kill everything Flash in this area.

I had forgotten about the mini drives that IBM has been producing for awhile now. Maybe now that Apple and IBM are working closely together on chip production maybe we'll see that relationship spill over into other areas.

Originally posted by CheekyGit
Apple will charge an arm and a leg for the Mini-iPod.

If it's $50-$65 for the mini-drive, then Apple will probably price at around $150-$200 for the final product.

Gotta keep those profits rollin' in somewhere.....certainly not from ITMS.

Thanks but no thanks.

I hardly see how $150 would be an arm and a leg. There are other components involved than the hard drive. A lot of the "profit" goes back into advertising and developing new products.

Why do people always seem to think Apple products cost more because they just want to screw the customers?

I think $150 for 2 GB's and $200 for 4 GB's would be a phenomenal value (especially if they can keep the current interface).