When is Apple going to order flash for the iPhone?

Its more than likely an LED flash. LEDs don’t use much power. I had a samsung phone with an LED flash which also served as a flashlight. It was a pretty cool. It didn’t drain my battery.

I think a flash would drain the battery too quickly. The camera is meant as a convenience, really. It is a phone. if people need a camera with a flash, they should use a dedicated camera, not a camera phone.

iSuppli had earlier predicted that Apple’s spending on memory would jump 32% this year to $1.6 billion. The firm now projects the company’s spending will increase only 12% to $1.4 billion in 2008, up from $1.2 billion last year.

Uh huh.

http://www.infoworld.com/article/08/02/01/Flash-price-drop-spurring-innovation_1.html

The price of mainstream 4Gb SLC (single-level cell) NAND flash memory chips has fallen 73 percent since mid-August to $4.96 late Thursday, according to DRAMeXchange Technology, which runs an online clearinghouse for the chips. The chips hit a high of $18.50 on Aug. 14. The price of 4Gb MLC (multi-level cell) NAND flash chips have taken a slightly worse dive, 75 percent down to $2.23 on Thursday, compared to its summer high of $8.85 per chip.

So, if the price of NAND FLASH is down 73-75% since last summer, then for Apple’s spending to be up at all implies a huge rise in quantities being ordered.

If, for example, Apple’s purchase of 1.2 billion last year was for 4Gb MLC NAND FLASH, that would be 1.2 billion/8.85, or 135,593,220 parts.

The equivalent this year would be 1.4 billion/2.23, or 627,802,690 parts.

That represents an increase of 363% in units purchased, or 4.63 times last year’s quantity, for only a small rise in spending. And this is supposed to be bad for Apple?

I believe Gruber puts the final nail in the coffin of this post:

http://daringfireball.net/

However, to be fair, at least two other major blogs posted the same misleading info, as Gruber points out.

ex ped: Gruber doesn’t mention this post at all, never mind put a nail in it. And to be fair, this blog was equally skeptical of iSuppli’s February report.

Please fix the grammar mistake in

“Apple can’t make iPhone’s fast enough”

ex ped: done. thanks for the catch.

Mmmh, let’s see what you are reporting here:

Apple has not put any order in for NAND flash which goes into iPods, iPhones, MacBooks, etc.

Sounds like Apple is closing shop and you’ll be out of this job posting about Apple.

Add one to the unemployment figure.

ex ped: It’s iSuppli’s report, Jim, not mine. And their claim is that Apple has yet to make “large-scale purchase orders,” based presumably on the NAND flash memory suppliers they survey regularly.

Steve Jobs originally said 10 million units by end of 2008, which includes 2007 sales numbers. Not just 10 million during 2008 only.

ex ped: No, Zinny. This question has been asked and answered. It’s 10 million in 2008 alone. See, for example:

But as Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster points out in a report to clients Wednesday, Apple did clear up one nagging ambiguity: does the company’s oft-stated goal of selling 10 million iPhones in 2008 mean that it hopes to sell 10 million phones within this calender year, or 10 million phones between June 29, 2007 and Dec. 31, 2008? It’s a question often argued in heated words in the comment threads of Apple blogs (including this one). “We confirmed with Apple,” writes Munster, “that the goal is to sell 10m iPhones ‘in CY08′ alone.” (link)

Jimmx,

I agree. AAPL could go down a bit, or it may go into a sideways trend or even go up. I am fairly certain one of those three things will happen.

@ Tommo_UK

Tommo -

The afternoon selloff was a product of 2 things.

1- Pull back in the broader markets, but more importantly:

2- Technical - AAPL reached a very major resistance level from 22 Jan. )look at a 3 month chart - pref candlestick) Note that the highs and close are almost identical (J: 159.98/155.64 and today: 159.69/155.89)

(I actually predicted this as the price neared 160, but not with enough confidence to sell some of my calls! lol)

My guess is that - in the absence of particularly exciting news - the stock will take a few days breather. Might sit the week out at 142 - 152. Might even wait there (again if no news) until just before announcements (Wed 23 Apr)

But my money is that next week it will continue rise as people factor in reported 60% rise in Mac sales as reported last week. That is really huge!

IMHO

Your take on what Steve and/or Apple is doing is always entertaining.
But it is almost always dead wrong.

You always seem to forget how details are an integral part of any story and a less that complete set of facts changes everything.
The amount of times you’ve been right is so few that a lesser man would have given up and gone back to the shoe store or wherever you used to work before you started at Fortune.

Bravo to your “stick to it ness”

ex ped: If I were dead wrong as often as you say I’m not sure even a shoe store would have me. Who needs a lot of pinched feet?

“iSuppli’s February report of “slashed” orders…. helped drive the stock down from its December high of over $200″

Is that so? Let’s see, this report first became public on Feb 20. Apple first broached the $120 territory the first week of February. So, in fact, that report had ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to do with Apple’s stock drop, since the stock hit within a couple bucks of it’s low point 2 WEEKS PRIOR to that report.

The only “reality distortion field” around here, is the one generated by this column, which can’t even get the facts straight.

ex ped: You’re right about when AAPL hit 120, but the Feb. iSuppli report certainly didn’t help the stock climb out of its hole. Text amended to reflect your good point.

These figures are in dollar terms. It has been well reported that NAND prices are down 70% since last summer, a year over year increase from $1.2B to S1.4 in dollars means Apple’s orders have almost doubled in GigaByte terms. Sounds like pretty good growth to me (and doesn’t even include allowances for future price drops).

“Or lets the folks at iSuppli know that he’s already done so” ??

Since when does Jobs report to iSuppli?
Apple does not benefit from having the world know its POs.

Glad to see him keeping the lid on and controlling information.

Hmmm yes… NAND prices crash more than expected so AAPL ends up ordering “less” than expected in terms of Dollar value. Absolutely no mention of the number of chips ordered.

This report means higher margins for AAPL, has nothing to do with its unit sales, and just reflects the disastrous state of the NAND industry’s overcapacity, nothing else.

AAPL is selling off on this news? Morons.

And this is is bad for AAPL why exactly? Talk about misreading the facts! This is about falling Dollar-value orders… has nothing to do with Apple’s unit NAND orders at all.

FUD.

I’m sure Steve will call you soon   Pls don’t try to run Apple Inc. from your small desk…Save the FUD for Elmer.

i don’t think apple needs to buy anymore…they have enough committment on it…