12/13/01

Apple making Christmas promotions in Europe.

Apple is making a Christmas promotion on the european AppleStore. If you buy a product that is worth (at least) 200 euros, Apple gives you a rebate of 25 euros. This rebate has to be used on the AppleStore before december 25th.

Welcome to iPod-Zone!

We have decided to open a new part of the Cube-Zone, dedicated to the iPod. You can now go to http://www.ipod-zone.com to obtain information about the iPod. You can also contact here if you have usefull information about the iPod

12/10/01

Is Apple the mysterious investor who gave Palm 50 million dollars?

At the end of last week, Palm announced it has issued a $50 million convertible note to an unidentified investor. This note is good for 5 years at a 5.0% coupon rate and can be converted into Palm common stock at $4.63 per share. According to Eric Benhamou, Palm chairman of the board and CEO, "this capital commitment demonstrates a high level of external confidence in Palm.". Benhamou also said : "we're moving ahead on our strategic objectives -- returning to profitability, executing on our enterprise strategy and delivering an ARM- based set of solutions to the marketplace".

Could Apple be the mysterious investor? What if Apple was making an investment, to finally have a PDA to sell? Since Palm is going to use ARM processors and since Apple knows a lot about that processor ( the Newton and the iPod have one), it may be the case, even if Steve Jobs says he does not believe the PDA market is mature enough.

Why does that investor want to remain anonymous? Probably because he has some kind of project/product that has to remain secret before Palm can sell it. You can give us your opinion about that story on our forums.

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12/03/01

Resuming publication soon...

We have not updated our sites for quite a while... We have experienced problems with our providers : The Cube-Zone mail addresses seem to still be down for an unknown reason. If you want to contact us, please, try that address. We are actively looking for our own server solution which could solve all those problems. If you want to help us with a donation, do not hesitate to contact us....

10/08/01

A new PowerBook G4 in ten days ? 500 and 600 Mhz probable.

Several computer retailers have promotions on the PowerBook G4, with special prices till October 20th. This is probably the sign that Apple will ship updated versions of its laptop on that date. The PowerBook G4 seems to be EOL.

We also have spotted an ad in a French Mac magazine about new Apple products. There is the new Quicksilver and the new iMacs introduced at MWNY, the iBook...and two PowerBooks. The low-end one is a 500 Mhz one and the high-end is a 600 Mhz. We do not think that it is a typo. Those PowerBooks were supposed to be launched at Apple Expo Paris (remember this is not new hardware, this is just an update : the processor, the video card card and some other minor details). However, after the cancellation of that show, they could not be launched. The new products will probably be announced this week or the next one. We may also see a 667 mhz iBook. This of course is only a rumor, but a lot of details make us think that it will happen.

Readers comments about the PowerBook G4 update.

Hello, Read today's posting, and just want to toss a thought your way.

1. Apple never, never, never ships consumer boxes at MHz speeds above their Pro line up. So to say there may be a 667MHz iBook on the way... well, it is not going to happen.

2. The counter to this is that the current iBook (500MHz G3) is faster in MHz to the base TiBook (400MHz G4) right now. While this is true, it is at the exact same MHz speeds of the top of the line TiBook. I see your comments regarding the top of the line TiBook hitting speeds of up to 600MHz... if that is the case, the iBook will not get to 667MHz but only 600.

Regards, Mark

Well, you have to consider the fact that the G4 is really hot at high frequencies, compared to a G3. And the iBook is and will probably stay a 66 Mhz bus computer which is not the case of the Titanium. There are also other ways to differentiate a PowerBook from an iBook : the video card is one of them. Putting a Radeon or a Geforce in the titanium would give him some extra speed too.

9/27/01

Back from holidays.

After some travelling around the world, we are back! We may have some surprises in the next coming days..... Stay tuned!

Graphic cards upgrades : the Powermac G4 tower Radeon and GeForce3 cards seem to work in the Cube

Several weeks ago we had reports that you could use a Radeon in the Cube. Lawrence sent us an e-mail about that :

"I know you are on vacation, but please post this if you can. I don't want other readers of the Cube-Zone to make the same mistake I did! I read the article, "PowerMac G4 Tower Radeon in a Cube : is it finally possible?" and decided to try it out for myself. I bought an AGP Radeon Mac Edition and found that it does NOT fit in my 450 Mhz G4 Cube with DVD. I tried everything to get it to fit, even unscrewing most of the Cube's frame. (This is a pain to do.) The Radeon will not fit! The Radeon card is simply too wide. It overlaps with another card in the cube. Also, contrary to what your reader Ken says, the faceplate from the original Rage Pro graphics card will not fit onto the Radeon. Interestingly, in the article Ken mentioned that there was not a fan on the Radeon he used. The Radeon I tried to fit in my Cube did have a fan. So maybe your reader Ken had a different version of the Radeon. Or perhaps he was mistaken and did not use a Radeon at all. (All the photos I've ever seen of the Radeon shows a fan on the card.) Now I just hope that the store I bought the Radeon from will give me a refund. Otherwise I am out some two hundred dollars... - Lawrence"

As we said in our reports, you have to use/buy a Radeon card for PowerMac G4 Tower. It is the card sold by Apple, NOT the retail card sold by ATI. The retail card will not fit in the Cube, even if you change the faceplates.

Sander, another of our readers sent us an e-mail stating that the GeForce 3 works in the Cube:

"ripped one from a QuickSilver G4, works fine :) Just change facelates and it fits like a charm. Also, not very fast under 9.2.1, guess it's a graphic bug or something."

When we asked him for more information, here is what he said : "The fact that it is AGP 4x is no problem at all, however, the performance kinda sux. iTunes for example only shows 10 frames/sec. Quake runs ok (about 30-40 frames/sec) but still I find it pretty slow for a GeForce 3. Good news is that it doesn't get too hot or something. Am curious how this will permorm under OS X."

If somebody else tried it, we'd like to have a confirmation of the fact that the GeForce3 actually works in the Cube.

Cubes for sale.

You can still find Cubes for sale.

8/24/01

The Cube-Zone goes on vacation....

We'll be on vacation fo the next coming days. There may still be some updates if some interesting news come out...

Place your classified ads on the front page of the Cube-Zone!

You can now place your classified ads on the front page of the Cube-Zone! Give it a try if you have something to sell on e-bay, for example, you can have a link on our site for a very small fee....

Mac OS 9.2.1 issues : are ATI card owners second-class citizens?

One of our readers is reporting poor performances with ATI cards and Mac OS 9.2. Does Apple want people to believe the the GeForce2 is really better than the Radeon (which is not the case...)?

"I am a french owner of a 450Mhz Cube with an OEM Radeon Card and i really appreciate your site. Yesterday i updated from MacOS 9.1 to MacOS 9.2.1 an i had a surprise: my Mac runs now much slower. All the benchmarks i tested (Altivec Fractal Carbon, G4TimeDemo, Cinbench 2000; ThroughPut 1.5) had bad scores under OS9.2.1. After reinstalling the ATI and OpenGl i got of a friend who had an ibook dual USB (MacOS Software Update 3.5), the performances were back. MacOS 9.2.1 is not a good version for ATI cards... "

Arnaud.

Apple to open Apple Stores in France in 2002?

The rumor is that Apple will open Apple Stores in France. Apple may buy IC (International Computers) which has several stores in France. The ailing computer retailer is one of the biggest Mac chains in France. According to an article published by the French site MacPlus, IC is supposed to have received some money from Apple and will likely be bought in the next coming months. The IC chain could be the first European Apple Stores. After all, France is the biggest European Apple market and it seems logical that Apple will want to open some stores there.

PowerMac G4 Tower Radeon in a Cube : is it finally possible?

After we explained that it was possible to use a GeForce 2 MX from a tower in the Cube, Ken, one of our readers, did the same with a tower Radeon :

"I just visited your website and noticed several articles surrounding the availability of an ATI Radeon video card for the Cube. I recently purchased a Cube myself and was looking for a Radeon. It is virtually nonexistent. I looked at every online store and even called the Apple Store to see if they had spares, but to no avail. However, the Apple Store did offer an AGP Radeon card for Power Mac G4 computers at $149. I had a hunch that this card might work in my cube. All I needed to do was switch the faceplates. I ordered the card, completed the faceplate switch and voila, it works! I now have a Radeon card for my G4 Cube. So for those of you out there who are looking for an upgrade, just buy the Radeon card and switch the faceplate with your older Rage 128 Pro card. One thing that might be an issue is that this Radeon card doesn't have a fan! This is good news for those of us who want a quiet computer. However, I don't know if this will present issues in terms of how hot the Cube becomes."

08/21/01

PocketPyro : a 256 MB MP3 player and hard drive for Palm V

The PocketPyro for Palm V will be available at the end of the week. It is currently available only for Windows PCs, but a mac version is expected in september.

PyroPro for Palm from PocketPyro revolutionizes the Palm Platform by offering unprecedented access to multimedia power and storage capacity. PyroPro uses this power to store and play over 8 hours of high-fidelity, near-CD quality digital audio files, (MP3 & ACC formats). In addition to the digital audio capabilities of the PyroPro, enhanced file storage, voice recording and other multimedia applications are included. PyroPro can run these applications without being attached to a Palm. The PyroPro attaches to the PC via a USB cable. When attached, it is recognized by Windows 98, Windows Me and Windows 2000 as a removable hard drive (the Mac will be supported in september), allowing the PyroPro to function as mass storage device. Files can easily be copied or moved to and from the PC or Mac to the PyroPro. Data files can be accessed and used straight from the PyroPro's 256 MB of internal flash memory.

08/11/01

Tutorial : How to use a PowerMac G4 tower GeForce2MX in a Cube (with pictures)

In our last update, we were explaining that you can use a GeForce2MX in your Cube. We now have a tutorial explaning how to do it, thanks to one of our readers, Kevin, who successfully tried to use a tower GeForce2MX in a Cube. If you want to do it too, the tutorial is here. Be carefull, this may void your warranty!

GeForce and ATI cards waiting for the transplant...

Bite Parody

Rosco P sent us an e-mail. He has started a Bit.org parody... You can take a look at it here!

Office X screenshots removed

Microsoft forced us to remove the Office 10 screenshots that we posted on the OSX-Zone... Are they copying Apple once again ? (Hey that's a joke...)

08/07/01

Video card upgrades for the Cubes.

We received a lot of e-mails about the Radeon and the GeForce2Mx in the Cube. Since everybody asks about which card fits in the Cube, here is some information. First of all, here is the e-mail we sent to Apple and their answer :

This has been confirmed by some of our readers. Loren O sent us that e-mail :

Robert also sent us an e-mail about using a G4 tower GeForce2MX into a Cube. And it apparently works!

If you want to buy an ultrafast video card for your Cube, you have two solutions. You can either buy a radeon in our shopping pages or a used GeForce 2MX coming from a G4 tower.

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Adobe to fire its User Group Product Manager?

According to Lorene, President of the North Coast Mac Users Group Member, Adobe is going to fire its User Group Product Manager. This may have consequences for some Mac users :

"I need, no I should say the User Group Community needs, your support. I have just found out that Adobe will be eliminating Louise Miller. If you do not know Louise personally she is the person who is the Adobe User Group Program Manager. Louise supports both the Mac and PC community. She has represented Adobe as a partner sponsor for all 3 User Group Universities.

As everyone knows Adobe did not have a presence at MWNY this year, but she continued to show her support to our community by sponsoring UGU, she had an Adobe UG Leader Breakfast and the newsletter/ web contest. If you are the kind of UG member who feels that you do not have a say in things, please think again. We need all members to write to Bruce Chizen, Adobe President and CEO, and to Rye Livingstone, her manager, to let them know that Louise is a vital person at the Adobe Corporation. This is a very important issue in the MUG community. I need all of you to just take a few minutes to write these men and let them know that they need to keep their User Group program in tack and to have Louise head it. If more and more corporations eliminate UG programs Apple may be next to stop all support to their groups also.

So I, Lorene, am asking you each to please band together and show support. Apple can not take an official stand on this issue. But I am not an Apple employee so I am not bound by their limitations. This is a very important issue, please do not feel that your voice will not be heard. Please do not be passive and ignore this, it really is important for us all to show our support. Pass this on to all of your members, the more who participate the more visible we become.

Please email ASAP... Bruce Chizen, President and CEO of Adobe, and Rye Livingstone. If you are too shy to write a short letter then email me directly and I will cut and paste you something. Please do not put this off. She may be gone in 3 weeks. They need to hear that their actions will affect you. Platform does not matter here, it is a matter of community-

08/05/01

Pathetic....

Bite.org is once again criticizing us. Are they doing that every time they do not have anything else to post? They claim that they are"shaking things up in Macintosh journalism, changing the way things are done". Sure they are! They post stories with a highly relevant content such as the one about the new G4 towers ( 08/03/01) : "First, the machine is very clean compared to the lines of an older G4, almost too barren". Whouah, That is journalism!!! (those towers were first shown to the public nearly 3 weeks ago...). " There is in fact no Apple logo on the front of the QS, which is interesting, considering all the newer desktops, from the Yosemite to the latest G4s until now had an Apple logo in the same spot". That is real news! Didn't you check other web sites, including the Cube-Zone...We all had pictures taken at MacWorld Expo New York.... Wait a second! Now I remember! You want to "think different". That is why you said during MWNY :" We don't plan much coverage today, as the big sites cover this pretty well". Well, other sites also have more accurate information to post than "the logos on the side remain the same" or " It comes with the following: one Apple Pro keyboard, one Apple Pro mouse, one USB extender cable, one Apple-style phone cable, the white-style power cord, a 4 to 6 pin FireWire cable, and no less than seven software CDs plus two blank CDRs for this model. The usual manuals are in there as well" (this is still the same interesting article about the G4 quicksilver... yes). Sometimes, a picture is worth a thousand words... By the way, English may be your mother tongue, but you apparently don't take advantage of it to write oustanding articles....

Bite.org also posts highly interesting e-mails sent by their readers : "Reader Alex writes: Ok so I am a loser who religiously checks the various mac news sites once or twice a day... I just bumped into your site today and have to say it's the funniest one out there! your opinionated articles are super! keep up the great work. Alex". Well if you post an e-mail, at least post a feedback about a story... This one has no interest at all (nothing personal, Alex). You may not receive a lot like that, but please don't post such pathetic e-mails!

Bite is also saying about our sister site Mac-Zone.net, "When you have to get the '.net' top level domain AND hyphenate your domain, it's pretty guaranteed that the idea's been done before, mkay?".... Well maybe that is why you chose a .org domain?

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08/03/01

Apple in Japan : is the Cube spirit still alive?

Stig, a Norwegian Cube owner living in Tokyo gives his impressions about the Cube, and more generally Apple in Japan:

" In Japan, the rumor saying that a redesigned Cube is coming next year is highly hypothetical and not very likely. Many rumors seem to disregard the business aspect, and seem to dwell on simply wishful thinking. An aquaintance of mine recently spoke to officials at Apple Japan, and they said the replacement product for the Cube will be launched during September (this year). However, it became clear that this "Cube replacement" actually is closer to what has been rumored as the LCD iMac. The only reason why it can be seen as a replacement is that it fills the premium consumer price point that the Cube left void ($1800 - $2000), and it will probably be very stylish, like the Cube was, but this time it will come with an LCD attached.

The heat-problem, not only regarding CPU, but also regarding internal hard drives and disk drives, is a known issue, and it will likely only be solved as Apple/Motorola/IBM gets around to develop/manufacture higher speed chips for the iBook/PowerBook series, since the requirement for low heat emission is even more critical for this type of machine. Of course, Apple will always have the option on reintroducing the Cube on the strength that most present Cube owners love it, and if they do as I suggest below; produce it in limited editions only (one at a time), they may preserve an exclusive image as a premium, special edition product it may even make (limited) business sense. E.g. at the time a low heat emission (designed for PowerBook) 1GHz CPU exists, and a low heat (fluid dynamic bearing)100 GB+ hard-drive and a version of the Super Drive all can be made to fit into a redesigned version of the Cube which of course also would be fitted with the highest spec video card that can run without a fan. The requirement of everything being able to run without fans will be important to maintain the character of the Cube as a Super Quiet, Super Compact, Super Computer. I think a proper price for the above combination would be around the $3000 mark. It definetely will have to be a High-End Consumer Specialist model. However, I still personally doubt that Apple will use their resources in pursuing this, simply because it may not make (sufficient) business sense for them. But we may still "pray & hope".

Here in Tokyo, where I spend my "gaijin-life", there are still brand new Cubes in stores. Recently I saw a price of less than Yen 100,000 which translates to US$810, but other stores just keep the original Apple Japan list prices. As anywhere else, Cube owners love their machines, but the Japanese are used to quick model changes and new things appearing all the time, and probably do not reflect much on things that passed. The only thing I have seen really upsetting them was the disappearance of the sub-note 2400 series PowerBooks, and I definetely think they would have liked to see something even smaller than an iBook.

Another issue living in Japan as a non-Japanese Apple enthusiast is the total lack of support for anything but Japanese language Apple hardware and software by Apple Japan. (At the same time we are prevented from buying from other Apple Stores around the world that can supply English machines and software.) Occasionally some package of English OS and keyboard has been availlable, but generally Apple Japan chooses to ignore us "gaijin" since their main market (as a matter of course) consist of Japanese. However, after all Apple is an international brand, and Japan is striving hard to internationalize itself, so why this stubborn attitude to ignore minority groups and the original language of the computer platform they deal in? Finally, my "informant" told me that there has been a very high failure rate of Cube power supplies in Japan. This failure rate has been so high that it took away most of the profit from selling the model. My own experience tells me that if you put the power supply flat, and especially if you stack something on top of it, it will overheat, and presumeably self-destruct. I now put it on an end and made sure air will circulate around it. The temperature here sometimes go up to 40 degrees Centigrade in summer, and even the room temperature as I write this is around 30 degrees centigrade. However, my Cube is running fine.

Stig B. has a Cube 450MHz DVD model 768 MB RAM, a Cinema Display, a Cyclone DVD-R/CD-RW (Pioneer Drive), an External Fujitsu 27 GB FireWire Hard Drive, a Sony Memory Stick Adapter, a Roland UA-30 USB Audio Interface.

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Looking for moderators for our forums!

You want to become part of the Cube-Zone team? You can become moderator on our forums (and also on the OSX-Zone forums). Send us a mail if you are interested!

Silverbook for sale

We are selling our Silverbook (shown on Mac-Zone.net) on ebay.... click here to buy it

Radeon cards for the Cube for sale on the Cube-Zone store.

We have good news, some Cube Radeon cards are still available. You can buy them here!

Cube Gallery : new pictures posted

We have posted several pictures of desk with Cubes. One of the Cubes shown here is even on sale on ebay!

08/01/01

Reader feedback about the Cube comeback rumor

One of our readers wanted some clarifications about our Cube rumor :

" Hi there, please clarify: There were some problems with the higher clock rate CPUs that were *used* in the Cubes (wouldn't like to hear that, since I got a 500 MHz one ;-)) or the ones that are used in the minitower now? That the 7450 G4 CPU is way too power hungry to be put in a fanless desktop is totally clear. That problem won't be solved as long as they don't manage to get some cooler versions of those CPUs (would be great news for PowerBook-fans, too) or a revolutionary new cooling system. I don't care for the smallest footprint, what matters is noise. I got a 533/DP and immediately sold it after I heard that 4-fan-cacophony and got a Cube, which I *never* even considered an option till then (as it seems many people never thought about it, thus missing the chance to get this great, QUIET machine). So I can't wait to see what Apple will do about the heat problem with the 7450 CPU. If they introduce a new, faster Cube WITH a fan, thanks, I'm not interested... "

The problems were not especially with the current Cubes but with higher speed processors tested in the current design.

Did Apple try to sell non-existent refurbished Cubes on the AppleStore?

It seems that the demand for Cubes is now so high that Apple tried to sell refurbished Cubes that it actually did not have in stock.... (they are not selling them anymore...) Here is what one of our readers says about that :

" I'm curious to know if you are aware of anyone actually getting a refurbished Cube from Apple? I ordered one from the Apple Store last Wednesday. Received an email later that day telling me it would ship within a day. When my order was still in the "Being Reviewed" state according to the Apple Store website I decided to call them. The sales rep (and her supervisor) told me that they didn't have any in stock and didn't know when they would be getting them. Upon further pestering by me they said that they had never actually had any in stock and had put them up for sale as they expected to get them at some point in the future (near I hope!). So, I'm curious to know if this is really true! I would hope that they actually did have some and ran out of stock before they took the item off their site... In the meantime, I really want my cube!"

Shannon

This means that there is an actual demand of Cubes but also that Apple expected a lot of people to buy its towers and trade-in their Cubes.....It apparently did not happen....

Cube availability report

Some readers report that Cubes are still available in their city :

Radeon cards for the Cube disappearing?

Apple has removed the Radeon cards for the Cube from the Apple Store. That is a bad news since the price of the regular Radeon card for Powermacs has been reduced.

Some of our readers are still looking for one. If you can help them, please, sens us a mail. .Here is what one of them, Jason, says : "I am trying to find an OEM AGP Radeon card for my Cube. I have searched the internet looking for any retailers and also on Ebay. Is the supply of these cards dwindling? Can you point me in the right direction? "