The missing piece appears?
Jan. 5th, 2004 05:54 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mmcirvinTo recap, the rumors of low-cost mini-iPods don't make any sense unless Apple can find some radically lower-cost manufacturer of tiny hard drives with capacities of a few gigabytes.
Today, a company called Cornice announced a 2GB mini-drive (excuse me, "Storage Element") for a per-unit cost of $70 in gigantic quantities. I don't know if you could make money selling a $100 MP3 player based on such a thing, but it would certainly make possible a device smaller and much cheaper than a current iPod in the rumored low-end capacity.
Cornice's older devices are already used in some MP3 players (and other things, such as video cameras) and have been a focus of rumorological speculation, but they were slightly smaller in capacity, and, I think, somewhat more expensive; the players based on them haven't been all that attractively priced.
The announcement comes one day before the San Francisco Macworld keynote, but this could just be a coincidence, since the press release talks about CES, which is also coming up in a few days.
Update: Apparently Cornice's earlier drive wasn't more expensive, just smaller. $100 retail still seems low.
Today, a company called Cornice announced a 2GB mini-drive (excuse me, "Storage Element") for a per-unit cost of $70 in gigantic quantities. I don't know if you could make money selling a $100 MP3 player based on such a thing, but it would certainly make possible a device smaller and much cheaper than a current iPod in the rumored low-end capacity.
Cornice's older devices are already used in some MP3 players (and other things, such as video cameras) and have been a focus of rumorological speculation, but they were slightly smaller in capacity, and, I think, somewhat more expensive; the players based on them haven't been all that attractively priced.
The announcement comes one day before the San Francisco Macworld keynote, but this could just be a coincidence, since the press release talks about CES, which is also coming up in a few days.
Update: Apparently Cornice's earlier drive wasn't more expensive, just smaller. $100 retail still seems low.