iPod How much money does Apple make on each iPod classic?

[gnasher729]

but i am sure that fabricating (hardware/software) is much cheaper today. and if they sell iPOD they must have larger profit margins.

Which lots of people posting on this thread don't believe, because the cost of producing _the same_ hardware doesn't actually go down. If Apple tried to build an original 1984 Macintosh computer today, with the same parts, it wouldn't be any cheaper than 30 years ago. Actually, most of the parts would be impossible to find for any money, and most would be illegal due to various regulations.

 

[macresante]

Ignore the OP. He's obviously an as5hole. A MAJOR as5hole

 

[7thMac]

I just bought another Classic (to replace one that was stolen - people still want these things). I'd prefer an alternative with more capacity and SSD but there are not very many alternatives. I'm not concerned with Apple's profit - this is not an expensive item.

 

[gnasher729]

I just bought another Classic (to replace one that was stolen - people still want these things). I'd prefer an alternative with more capacity and SSD but there are not very many alternatives. I'm not concerned with Apple's profit - this is not an expensive item.

A while ago I looked on Amazon, and there was actually _no_ alternative to the iPod Classic, except for a used Archos player made in 2011. Now if you look for example at the size of a Sandisk Cruzer 64GB USB flash drive, it should be possible to put 256 GB of flash or more into the space of a 1.8" drive.

 

[meustrus]

That means the total bandwidth of the core i7 is 39.69 GB/s, while the mechanical drives are 150-300 MB/s! [units corrected]

Hard drives have never been at parity with CPU bandwidth. Otherwise we'd have no need for RAM. For that matter, there are 2-4 tiers of memory between a CPU and the hard drive. You may notice something called "L3 cache" listed in CPU specs. Current MBPs have 6mb of it. There's also L2 cache (currently 256 KB per core) and L1 cache (currently 64 KB per core). That all operates between the CPU and the DDR3 1600Mhz RAM, which although it operates at a 100GB/s bandwidth, has enough latency that depending on the operation the effective bandwidth could be as slow as 1.4 KB/s (assuming word size of 64 bits and a latency of 5.625 ns, achieved with 1600Mhz at CAS latency 9 which might actually be faster than what's actually available).

It is true, however, that hard drive transfer speeds have been an increasing bottleneck over the years. It's not fair to say they're 80s technology, however, anymore than it is to say that a Core i7 chip is really 70s technology. Sure, it's the same basic principles at work, but just as the i7 chip has a lot of improvements built into it the HD platter density is just unheard of compared to 30 years ago. Not only that, but the SATA transfer protocol that all HDs now use is only just over 10 years old. I think it's fair to say that if you told an 80s engineer the specs of current hard drives, they'd either say it was impossible or to come back in 30 years.

 

[Infinus.gold]

Which lots of people posting on this thread don't believe, because the cost of producing _the same_ hardware doesn't actually go down. If Apple tried to build an original 1984 Macintosh computer today, with the same parts, it wouldn't be any cheaper than 30 years ago. Actually, most of the parts would be impossible to find for any money, and most would be illegal due to various regulations.

The fact is apple is not going to build iPOD using old hardware.
they will try newer and more cheaper techniques.
they are not going to SOC new chips, it's already done and use same one...
infact iPOD classic 7G after 2010 produce bad quality sound as compared to 2009 model.
they cost same...