Will The iPhone 4G Cause A Shortage Of Flash Memory?

Speculation is mounting that the upcoming release of Apple’s iPhone 4G might cause another shortage of flash memory in the market. With Apple expected to ship a good 40 million iPhones this year, which is a significant increase from 25 million a year back, there does look like there could be a shortage. To make matters worse, Apple is expected to ship about 7-8 million iPads this year too, which will put another dent in the amount of supplies. Apple is already commonly regarded as the single largest consumer of flash memory in the world, since it uses built-in memory in its devices such as the iPhone, iPad and iPods while other manufacturers rely on removable cards.