11/12/2007, 10:10am, EST

Monday, November 12th

Piper: SSD drives may come to Macs in Jan.

Technology announced by Samsung may herald flash drives arriving on Mac notebooks as soon as January, say analysts at the research firm Piper Jaffray. Flash offers not only the advantage of speed, but of smaller dimesnsions, and lower power consumption. Samsung's new 64GB, 1.8-inch SSD drive may finally represent a capacity large enough for Apple to consider installing in a new MacBook, which may well be announced at the next MacWorld event in January. It is also suggested, however, that Apple could be installing a flash drive into an original product, such as the subnotebook rumored by sources including TheStreet.

On a tangential note, Jaffray says it expects the next major iPhone update to follow much later than v1.0.2 did after the initial iPhone launch. The current prediction is February, when Apple plans to open the device to third-party applications. This update may also include some form of contextual search, similar to Spotlight in Mac OS X Tiger and Leopard.

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mgpalma

Sub-notebook

11/12, 12:32pm, EST

Build it, and they will buy...

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Constable Odo

Why...?

11/12, 1:09pm, EST

Does anyone use subnotebooks now? If they do, it must be a very small market. I suppose if Apple builds a popular subnotebook, every company will look toward the market as the next hot thing. I doubt if I'd have much use for one, but if it was cheap enough and small enough, I might use it in place of buying an iPod Touch for watching movies around my house. I won't consider buying an iPod Touch until the 32GB model is introduced.

Does anyone know what group of business people need a subnotebook? Would it be useful enough for college students to carry around?

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Will C

but...

11/12, 2:26pm, EST

..does not flash memory have a limited number or re-writes (around 10,000 cycles)???

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smitch

wow...

11/12, 4:55pm, EST

I'd buy! I LOVED my small 12inch from before. I manage our computers in three offices so I have to have one with me almost always. Just need net access everywhere I go (i.e. digital phone access card slot).

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nhmlco

Drives and Spaces

11/12, 6:07pm, EST

First, while it would be cool I hope one could put regular drives into it as well. I'm awaiting the new 320GB WD drives, and I'm not sure I could do ANYTHING in just under 64GB.

My current notebook is a 17" MBP, but now with Spaces I just might reconsider a smaller machine.

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Titanium Man

too small

11/12, 10:10pm, EST

My old Powerbook has its 80GB HD nearly full. I don't think I can cut it back to less than 64GB.

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mytdave

size

11/13, 8:49am, EST

It would be enough capacity if they put two of them in there in a raid 0 configuration. 128GB is sufficient, and it would be wicked-fast. I'd buy one.

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