Tech Goes Boom

Flash Based iPod

John Gruber over at Daring Fireball has weighed in on the rumors of a flash based iPod. While I agree with most of the things John has to say, I feel he glossed over one point and completely missed another.

Glossed over: Skipping. It's an issue for people who use their iPods to work out. Many iPods also have a nasty habit of simply freezing once the buffer runs out and things are too shaky to read the next couple of songs off of the drive. I have seen a lot of this, and a flash player would fix the issue.

Not Mentioned: Battery Life. A flash based iPod could potentially have much better battery life than a HD based one. Maybe not double, but certainly a couple more hours. For some people, especially business travelers this would be a big plus. Battery life has been a black eye for Apple with the iPod and this could be a chance to make up for it.

One other note:
Size: The iPod mini could certainly loose some weight. Considering there are now 2GB SD cards coming to market, decent storage at a very small size is available. Given the current screen and control sizes, Apple could reasonably shave 10mm off of the height and remove half of its thickness without compromising the controls.

While I remain skeptical about a flash based iPod, it would not surprise me to see Apple trying to capture a larger share of the flash based player market. Apple is doing its best to become the name in digital music, and even if they didn't make a bundle from a smaller flash based player, they would still be getting their brand into the hands of users who previously would have stayed away.