

Down the Memory Hole -- Apple has chosen their meaning for Flash - YooLi
http://jeffrock.com/post/1366710567/down-the-memory-hole

======
bradleyland
"Like the Ministry of Truth, it appears that Apple is deliberately attempting
to usurp the meaning of the word Flash in the computing industry and redefine
it."

Were Apple attempting to bring new meaning to the term flash this would be (at
best) a passable assertion. However, the term "flash" has been used to refer
to silicon-based NOR and NAND memory since the beginning. I don't know the
exact date, but I know it was around in the early nineties ('91-'92) when I
started messing with computers.

Macromedia Flash didn't come in to existence until the late nineties, and I'm
certain that flash memory existed for a long time before I was even aware of
it. That means flash memory easily pre-dates Adobe Flash by a wide margin.

~~~
loupgarou21
At least with the people I work with, the term "flash" is used to refer to the
Adobe product. When we're talking about flash memory we use a variety of other
terms, but not simply "flash."

~~~
jonhendry
Jobs wasn't talking at your workplace. So what you talk about with your
coworkers is kind of irrelevant.

In the context of an Apple quarterly performance conference call, Flash RAM is
arguably the more relevant sense, since so much of Apple's product line uses
it and thus it plays a major role in Apple's business.

The person posing the question failed to specify, allowing Jobs to deflect the
question by choosing the meaning most convenient.

------
jonhendry
This is just painfully stupid. Flash, in the sense of memory, isn't an Apple
neologism. It's been around for years.

Jobs was making a _joke_ , and deflecting a question he didn't want to address
on the call. Hell, half the conflict with Adobe is no longer an issue - Apple
dropped the restriction preventing Adobe's Flash-to-iOS-app tool from being
used.

~~~
andrenotgiant
Is there a difference between an SSD and a "Flash Chip"?

I think the confusion is around the fact that the old Macbook had "SSD"
[http://web.archive.org/web/20080725015206/www.apple.com/macb...](http://web.archive.org/web/20080725015206/www.apple.com/macbookair/features.html)

and the new one has "Flash Chip" <http://www.apple.com/macbookair/specs.html>

~~~
jonhendry
I assume the change is either 1) because Apple used to buy Flash storage in
hard drive-shaped SSD packaging and now just go with the bare electronics to
save space, or else 2) they called it an SSD before because it was relatively
new and the familiar 'disk' terminology would be reassuring to customers, but
now they figure that the market won't flinch at the lack of anything called a
'Disk' of any sort.

They've had Flash-based iPods for a long time, and the iPhone, and iPad, but
they never bothered saying they had "SSDs".

I mean, what is an SSD? As far as I can tell, it's a bit of flash and a
controller, packaged in such away that it is compatible with standard hard
drive connections and mounts so that it can be used in place of existing hard
drives.

If a device isn't designed to have user-replaceable storage, then there's no
good reason to use SSD packaging. Just use the bare circuit board and chips,
plugged into a header or one of those really thin ribbon cables, or just
directly on the device's main circuit board.

------
andrenotgiant
I also noticed the apparent search-and-replace of "SSD" to "Flash" on
Apple.com's macBook Air Promo page.

Interesting perspective on it.

------
beej71
What does Jobs love? Flash. He loves it.

