When Apple Computer CEO Steve Jobs introduced the iPod Nano on September 7, he predicted it would be the best-selling iPod model ever.

That is a strong statement, considering the Nano is only Apples second device to incorporate flash memory instead of a hard drive. It is an even stronger endorsement of flash-based technology from a company that until this year declined to use it in a single product.

This is good for some extra publicity but does it really stand up to the claims made…

Jobs newfound enthusiasm for the memory format indicates the extent to which the digital music industry has pinned its hopes for mass-market appeal on flash-based players. Though hard-drive and micro-hard-drive devices have dominated the MP3 player market, flash-memory performance, price and popularity are all improving at such a clip that some analysts believe it will overtake the hard drive in the very near future.

Flash-based devices store content on a chip, which unlike a hard drive contains no movable parts. This means flash players use less battery power — 30 times less –than hard-drive players, as well as being much smaller and extremely durable.

[ Continue reading at reuters.com ]