Why the 16GB capacity limitation?

[captainkrypto]

I too was disappointed when I found out about the 16GB iPod Touch capacity. I've been holding out for this type of ipod to replace my 15GB 3G. As it is now, I am at my absolute limit with songs, and still have to swap out songs if I want to add something new to fit my mood... now if I had the ability to watch videos too... forget it. So, while I took this disappointment as an opportunity to save myself a few hundred bucks, I couldn't help but wonder why Apple would do such a thing... was it:

-A business marketing decision?
Another way to milk the sales of the classic ipod? I could see that if the ipod touch was all things to all people, it would surely kill the sales of classic ipods.

-A business strategy decision?
Perhaps related to the reason above, maybe Apple didn't want to blow their load all at once. Too much too quickly might have overshadowed their other products.

-A technical limitation?
I knew that the iphone used flash memory, and I heard rumors of the new touch ipod being very similar to this iphone. I just figured that they would take the ipod portion of the iphone and throw in a big HD. I saw the debate about the speed and energy use of a flash drive vs. a standard HD... there didn't seem to be a conclusion. Anyway, I would give up some battery hours and transfer speed for a larger drive. I mean, once you load the thing up initially, how many times do you actually reload it entirely? Also, I don't want my cell phone battery dying on me because I've been watching too much porn or Family Guy episodes... so there ,I can see the trade off.

Maybe I'll just get the best of both worlds and tape my cell phone to my ipod... instant iphone a la Flight of the Conchords!

What is everyone's take on the 16GB limit?

 

[Surf Monkey]

Cost. NAND flash chips aren't cheap.

 

[captainkrypto]

Cost. NAND flash chips aren't cheap.

Right, but why couldn't they use a regular HD like the 160GB iPod classic? For something that is supposed to, primarily, be a multi-media device, you'd thing that storage space would be a major factor... since the iPod Touch is so similar to the iPhone, perhaps Apple saved themselves some $$ on R&D and the limited storage space was a result of the combined R&D?

Just a thought...

 

[Surf Monkey]

Right, but why couldn't they use a regular HD like the 160GB iPod classic? For something that is supposed to, primarily, be a multi-media device, you'd thing that storage space would be a major factor... since the iPod Touch is so similar to the iPhone, perhaps Apple saved themselves some $$ on R&D and the limited storage space was a result of the combined R&D?

Just a thought...

That's what we'd all like to know. Jobs hyped how thin it was. I suppose they showed him one with an HDD in it and he felt it was too fat. Lame if you ask me. I'd have already bought a Touch if it had an 80 or 160 gig HDD in it. As it stands, I'll stick with my iPhone and a new 160 gig Classic.

 

[Justin Horne]

I'm sure they could have used a harddrive, but that would have meant thicker, and Apple has a thing about any new products being thicker than the previous.
I honestly expect that this was the determining factor.

 

[kornchild2002]

There are many, many reasons why a traditional hard drive setup was not used with the iPod touch and why there was a 16GB capacity limit:
1. NAND flash memory is expensive so 16GB is about the right capacity as anything higher and Apple would have had to charge $500-$600 for the iPod touch models.
2. NAND flash memory is used because it takes up less space, uses less power, and can be taken through conditions that hard drives can't.
3. Hard drives were not used as they would have made the iPod touch extremely thick, drastically decreased the battery life, added heat, and made the unit overall less travel friendly due to the fact that Apple would of had to add a larger battery.

So there are many factors that all just tied into using flash memory. Flash memory also appears to be the future as they are already coming out with 64GB flash drives for notebook computers. The only thing is that these drives cost well over $400.

Thickness was not the only concern but I am sure it really added up whenever you tack on a 160GB hard drive and a bigger battery. The iPod touch's/iPhone's display is big, bright, has a multi-touch input, and requires a lot of power to run it. Good luck in using the same battery size with a hard drive of any size. Adding a hard drive would make the iPod touch a couple mm thicker, no big deal. The problem is that instead of getting 22 hours of audio playback, it would have gotten 5 hours and about 1 hour of video playback.

 

[iPod Dance]

To me what is revealing is that there is a black square on the back of the iPod touch for the antennae. This is imperfect and unlike Apple.

It suggests to me that they AREN't quite done with the touch before christmas sale time. They perhaps couldn't make hard drive touches for this iPod event because of technical problems, so they also included the iPod Classic. They had this problem because they don't have experience with HDs in multitouch devices.

Once the capacity is over 30GB, I'll buy one regardless of price and regardless of whether it's a HD or flash.

 

[homeboy]

To me what is revealing is that there is a black square on the back of the iPod touch for the antennae. This is imperfect and unlike Apple.

Yeah! What's up with that?? It looks like a mold. The battery time is a bit less then expected, I wonder if that has got to do anything with the fact that the device thin and uses a smaller battery than the iPhone.

Either way this device isn't going to be fully perfect until next year.

 

[gravydrive]

Yeah! What's up with that?? It looks like a mold.

It's a button, guy.