Apple's impending launch of the iPad may hamper the ability of other companies to use solid-state drives, those within the hard drive business claimed on Friday. The company reportedly already consumes as much as a third of all supplies of NAND flash memory to make iPhones and iPods, and the addition of a third primarily flash-based product could tighten supplies further. By reducing availability, Apple could force the price of the remaining supply to go up and render SSDs more expensive to make.
