Analyst company Merrill Lynch has predicted that Apple will launch two new iPods by the first half of 2005, including the first to be based on flash memory instead of on a small hard drive.
The report, titled “What to Expect from Future iPods” and written by Merrill Lynch analyst Steven Milunovich, claims that the company will launch the flash-based iPod in the first half of 2005.
“The new iPod would signal a departure from the thinking that an iPod should hold all a persons songs,” according to the report.
“We estimate that Apple might be able to charge $149 for a 256 MB [60-song] unit. We think Apple could quickly become a significant player in the fragmented $2.6 billion flash MP3 market.”
Milunovich also predicts that Apple will launch a photo iPod soon.
“Since iPods are already being used as portable hard drives [HDDs] for files, we believe a photo iPod is likely to be announced, perhaps in the first half of next year,” he said.
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