Mini-iPod Mystery Drive Unveiled? 434
A user writes "One of the aspects of the '2G mini-iPod' rumour that's so far made it unlikely is the lack of a tiny, cheap, 2G, drive. Well, today Cornice has announced a 2G hard drive (PDF, 100k) that fits the bill. It's available for about $70 in lots of 100,000. The Mac Rumour sites are going faily nuts over this for obvious reasons. The reason the drive is so cheap is that it contains virtually no driver electronics, there's not even a memory buffer - this is the equivalent of a 1980's RLL or MFM drive. At $70 it seems unlikely that the mini-iPod, assuming it's announced tomorrow, will be under $100, but on the other hand the original iPod sold for the same price as the harddrive inside it. Here's hoping..."
possibilities (Score:2, Funny)
Never, ever, have a song skip.
Re:lot of spinning (Score:5, Funny)
SWEET! (Score:4, Funny)
Fully fledged iPod for half the price! - Suckers!
Hmm...something seems not quite right...
Re:$70 for a 2 gig drive! (Score:5, Funny)
That's impressive. I've heard of portable audio players with seek times of up to several minutes.
I think they're called "Walkman" or something like that.
Aah, memories... PRESS PLAY ON TAPE.
Fully functioning PC in a handheld device? (Score:4, Funny)
Re:BOM Cost... (Score:1, Funny)
Re:Flash Memory (Score:2, Funny)
Re:BOM Cost... (Score:5, Funny)
Jobs: How about you sell us half a million of those drives for $10 each.
Cornice CEO: Well, that's pretty much below what it costs us to make them, we've got to have at least $50 each for them.
Jobs: Let me put this another way. How about you sell us half a million of those drive for $10 each, and we'll not buy out your company and fire every manager making over $100k a year?
Cornice CEO: Uh...OK!
OK, so Apple isn't exactly Microsoft, but you can't tell me Cornice isn't going to bend over backwards to get their name associated with something that would be this big.
Re:Did anyone else notice? (Score:3, Funny)
Because if they didn't, could I get some karma points for mentioning it?
Re:I wonder.... (Score:1, Funny)
Well... do you A.) expect to have a monitor that contains so much data that you need an electron microscope to read it or B.) expect to have a monitor that is 5x taller than your house?
Re:BOM Cost... (Score:5, Funny)
Geezus, STOP GIVING THEM FSCKING MARKETING IDEAS! I want an iPod for $100! I don't want 100 bucks worth of music. I don't want a stupid gift certificate or licensing or anything. I'm a dirt cheap geek who is thisclose to actually braving the redneck land of Wal-Mart to get a $99 PC that I can muck around with. You telling Apple all these different ways for them to charge me even more for a product I already think is overpriced isn't getting me any closer to my wet dream.
Really? Why doesn't anybody just say, "If they take a loss on the iPod, they'll sell more at the Music Store. Also, give away 100,000 Junior iPods free to water their mouths!" Now that's a marketing plan I can get on board with.
Re:bin laden.. (Score:3, Funny)
Could be he does HALO or HAHO jumps, in which case the plane may not be pressurized.
Re:Did anyone else notice? (Score:5, Funny)
On the second day of his everest expedition, Bob's iPod was not responding well to the cold. "Damn it, I just bought this thing", thought Bob, as he desperately tried to diagnose the trouble. The thick heavy mittens he wore weren't helping, and suddenly, his precious iPod slipped out of his hand, and half buried itself in the fresh powder.
"My precious!, Where is my precious?" thought Bob. He tore off his sun goggles, in a desperate attempt to locate the shiny white mp3 player. It was perhaps the worst decision of his ill fated decision since he had dozed off during one of the orienteering lectures, lulled by the gentle rhythms of Mick Jagger and Keith Richards.
The snow was bright, so very bright. And his ipod so very small. Up ahead, the rest of his party had moved on. But Bob felt sure he would be soon be able to rock out with a little Donavan. Finely, he spotted something. Was it his player? No, it was merely some loose snow concealing a crevasse...
Re:I wonder.... (Score:1, Funny)
Re:Write speed... (Score:3, Funny)
With only 2GB, you will be constantly swapping songs on and off this thing, perhaps completely replacing the contents. You might be waiting 8+ minutes every day. Sure... you get 7 minutes for a single large file, but to write many smaller files your're in the 8-10 minute time frame.
For comparison, the first generation iPod's 5GB drive has a transfer rate of about 22MB/s on an ATA/66 bus, or about 5 minutes to fill the thing. The newer drives are even faster and use ATA/100 interfaces.
I guess we'll know as early as a few hours if a mini is released. If so, wait a few days and someone will have made a web page with photographs of the disassembled unit, then we'll know what's in it.
Re:You forget a missing piece... (Score:3, Funny)
This will be a dead giveaway that mini iPod's are going to be announced!
Re:$70 for a 2 gig drive! (Score:3, Funny)
Press ">>"
One-one-thousand
Two-one-thousand
Three-one-thousand
Four-one-thousand
Press ">||"
Damn! It's a minute into the third song.
Press "<<"
One-one-thousand
Press ">||"
Well, close enough...