Questions remain about the timing of the launch, however. One of the firms making the claims noted that prices for current flash memory would make it impractical to ship a device during the summer and would likely force a release closer to the end of the year, when costs would allow enough storage. Another representative of the industry has in turn suggested that a summer release would be possible but might force a drop in storage compared to original plans.

At least one of the sources also believes that the new iPod would be a replacement for the full-size, fifth-generation model, which currently relies on a rotating hard disk for storage. The order was not linked with the iPhone, which along with iPods has recently been blamed for a potential supply crunch for flash memory in the second half of the year.

Most of Apple's current iPod line is flash-based due to the high price of flash memory versus hard disks, which forces smaller capacities on devices that use the more responsive and skip-proof flash technology.