Why did Apple choose to go with flash memory instead of a hard drive?

[Prozak]

I'm just wondering what the reasons are.

[daihard]

My speculation:
No moving parts = better reliability
Lighter?

[Dougfnj]

I'm going to guess that they wanted to keep it VERY thin, and they may have had issues with the running drive having an effect on the screen? just guesses though.

[BlackWolf]

its faster and - and thats important - its much thinner and smaller than hard-drives ;-) just look at the difference of the touch or nano compared to the classic when it comes to thickness.

[touchy]

An old tech hard drive wouldn't have meshed with the new technology, it would be like putting an overhead valve four banger motor in a sleek hybrid car...

Also the slim factor, and having a hard drive would make it harder for Apple to justify the player's admittedly high price. Apple pays a great deal of effort in maintaining and increasing a per-unit profit margin on iPods while keeping market share.

[bobbit]

Faster read speeds (not write speeds - those are significantly slower hence why transfers take so long), way thinner, smaller and lighter.

[DerekVOF]

Definitely the read speed. If I remember right (<ducks>) in modern Unix OS you can leave more of the application "on disk" allowing you to use less RAM. Since the iPod Touch has very little actual RAM (for lack of a better term) - only about 120MB - the ability to read quickly from flash so that the product was responsive enough was definitely a big deal. In addition, a hard drive having to spin around to run applications would have been a total battery burner.

The "classic" iPods that are playing music & video are able to cache more of the media by reading ahead so they don't have to keep spinning all the time. Imagine jumping from Mail to Safari to Music and back to Safari with a hard drive spinning all the time. You'd either have no battery life or rotten performance or both...

[BlackWolf]

Definitely the read speed. If I remember right (<ducks>) in modern Unix OS you can leave more of the application "on disk" allowing you to use less RAM. Since the iPod Touch has very little actual RAM (for lack of a better term) - only about 120MB - the ability to read quickly from flash so that the product was responsive enough was definitely a big deal. In addition, a hard drive having to spin around to run applications would have been a total battery burner.

The "classic" iPods that are playing music & video are able to cache more of the media by reading ahead so they don't have to keep spinning all the time. Imagine jumping from Mail to Safari to Music and back to Safari with a hard drive spinning all the time. You'd either have no battery life or rotten performance or both...

additionally, it would be very loud and the touch would vibrate which would suck since you have to touch it. I even feel the touch vibrating from time to time as it is now. it doesn't disturb me, I'm just saying it would be much worse with a normal hard drive.

[Prozak]

additionally, it would be very loud and the touch would vibrate which would suck since you have to touch it. I even feel the touch vibrating from time to time as it is now. it doesn't disturb me, I'm just saying it would be much worse with a normal hard drive.

I have a 30gb ipod video and I can feel the device vibrate slightly when the device is reading but its no big deal at all. But how in the world is an ipod touch vibrating? There are no moving parts inside.

Also, couldn't they just have used something like a 2gb memory chip for applications like safari and applications that are useed often? And leave a hard drive for music and videos?

And hard drives aren't old out dated tech. And a lot of people complain that the price is high for ipod touches is becase the price per gb is very high compared to a hard drive. Using something like an 80gig hard drive would definately make it seem like you are getting more for your money.

I'm sure though that besides write speeds, battery life definately had something to do with it.

[bobb-mini]

But how in the world is an ipod touch vibrating? There are no moving parts inside.
Technically, if the touch uses a fluorescent backlit, there will be a upconverter in there and could be the cause of the vibration. But, am more incline to believe Wolf is being paranoid. :)

Your subject should had said, I want a Touch with HD so I can have gazillionbyte of video!

This is been discussed b4r... many opinions.

While others throw u all the "technical" reasons, me, I just think Jobs LOVES thin, a HD + Touch screen + battery would make it too thick for Jobs' taste. Am sure of it. :)