So Apple’s just placed a huge order with Samsung. What could it mean? Well, NAND chips are like the basic unit of flash memory. If you have an iPod Touch, baby Zune or something like that, chances are it’s got a couple of them in there. 8Gb is handy for making 8, 16, and 32GB size devices, so it’s no surprise when Apple orders some — they go through a lot. But 100 million? What could it mean? We’ve got two guesses.
#1: 64GB iPod Touch. Uhh, no. Go home to your momma. The iPod Touch will be getting some other improvements, but raising the capacity that much would probably put the price over $500. Even for a sexy little device, $500 is the kind of price most people just stare at in disbelief.
#2: 32GB iPhone. Why not? With video-taking ability on the iPhone among other things coming in 3.0, you might want that extra space. With SD capability putting other phones ahead of Apples in the space race (so to speak), Apple would do well to embiggen their coolest product.
100 million 8Gb chips would make 25 million 32GB iphones, which seems a little high, so probably they’ll be making 10 million or so and spreading the rest around for their usual products. Forgot that these are the gigabit chips, so they’ll be making about an eighth of whatever I estimated. About 3 million 32GB iPhones? That’s totally in the ballpark.