Skip to main content

Apple in talks to buy Israeli flash memory company Anobit for $400M-500M: report

anobit
Image used with permission by copyright holder

Apple is reportedly in negotiations to buy Israel-based flash storage maker Anobit for between $400 million and $500 million, according to Hebrew-language financial daily Calcalist. Neither Apple nor Anobit have yet agreed to comment on the matter.

Anobit makes an advanced chip that increases the performance of flash drives. Apple already uses the Anobit chips in a number of its devices, including the MacBook Air, iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch devices.

Recommended Videos

Of course, Apple isn’t Anobit’s only customer. Other buyers are said to include Hynix and Samsung, both of which manufacture flash drives. According to Reuters, Hynix is the primary supplier of flash memory for the iPhone 4S, and uses the Anobit chip to up the performance of devices that use its flash drives.

Anobit’s chip uses “Memory Signal Processing” (MSP) technology, which ups the performance of flash memory in a number of ways, including speed and endurance. Apple’s reason for buying Anobit, if that is really the case, is to further advance the MSP technology — specifically the MSP20xx flash controllers that are used in smartphones and tablets — which could double the storage size of its next-generation iDevices and MacBook Airs.

The move is considered a curious one, as Apple has traditionally only used its mountains of cash to purchase software companies, not hardware makers.

(via TechCrunch)

Andrew Couts
Former Digital Trends Contributor
Features Editor for Digital Trends, Andrew Couts covers a wide swath of consumer technology topics, with particular focus on…
The wait for a cheaper Vision Pro is going to be a long one
Apple Vision Pro

It looks like a more affordable take on the $3,500 Vision Pro mixed-reality headset has taken a backseat at Apple. In January this year, The Information reported that a lower-priced version with toned-down innards could arrive in 2025.

Now, renowned supply chain analyst Ming-Chi Kuo claims that the pocket-friendly headset won’t be hitting the shelves within the next three years. “As I understand it, production of the cheaper Vision Pro has been delayed beyond 2027 for a while now,” Kuo wrote on X.

Read more
iOS 18’s best AI tools arrive in December, but Siri has a longer wait
Apple Intelligence on iPhone 15 Pro.

The Apple Intelligence toolkit has witnessed a staggered mix of delayed features and underwhelming perks. But it seems that the most promising set of those AI tools that Apple revealed at WWDC earlier this year is right around the corner.

In the latest edition of his PowerOn newsletter, Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman writes that the iOS 18.2 update will start rolling out via the stable channel in the first week of December.

Read more
Scream star thinks the horror franchise has gotten too violent
Matthew Lillard smirks in a video store in Scream.

The Scream franchise has proven to be one of the horror genre's most enduring properties. In the nearly 30 years since it began, the series has produced six films and a spinoff TV show that lasted three seasons on MTV. Across its various sequels and spinoffs, the franchise hasn't deviated all that much from its original formula of meta jokes, third-act twists, and gruesome kills, either. It has instead tried to consistently elevate the stakes of its stories and the violence of its set pieces.

One of the franchise's original stars, however, seems to think that it went a little too far in its most recent outing. Stu Macher actor Matthew Lillard said as much in an interview with GamesRadar, in which he shared his opinion on the franchise's recent Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett-directed sequels (2022's Scream and 2023's Scream VI) and the news that Scream screenwriter Kevin Williamson will be returning to direct the franchise's forthcoming seventh film installment.

Read more