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News
07/13/2001
How to create a good
rumor....or the story of the new G4 tower pictures....
This week, we have seen several sites including
MacOSX.org posting pictures
of what is claimed to be the new G4 towers. Those pictures may
be real. But that is not the purpose of this article. this article
is only a guide for people who attempt to create a rumor and
some traffic for their Web Site.....
Here is what you need to create a rumor : closely
follow the discussions on the forums of several sites dealing
with rumors and try to find realistic specs (but high enough
to appeal to the power-users). When you have those specs, go
to the Apple web site and find a Jpeg or Gif image of the current
Apple product (ie : the tower). Open Photoshop on your Mac.
Slightly modify the current Mac. You can change the color, add
some new features (speaker, drives) that you will find in some
other computers. Use some photoshop filters and say that the
pictures are not very clear because you wanted to hide everything
that could lead to your very secret source (it is important
to have a secret and trusted source!). Post the pictures with
some comments...
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New G4 enclosure first seen on that site.....Is
it fake? Maybe.....
But there is one last thing that you need to do
really make people believe in your rumor. You have to write
the magic words, several hours after publishing your article
: "This picture has been removed at the request of Apple
Computer Inc".... When readers come back and see that they
believe that there should be something real in that rumors.
Why would Apple bother to ask a web site to remove a picture
if it not a picture of a real product?
If one day I were to kill the Cube-Zone, I would
create a new site called, let's say....Rumor-Zone.....now that
I know how to create good rumors that people like to read....
;-)
Will the Cube come
back sooner than expected?
Yesterday, Think
Secret published an interesting article about the Cube and
Circuit City: "Circuit City stores told to keep Cube display
fixture in storage for future use? The death of the Cube means
the removal of its marketing material, and as Cubes are cleared
out of Circuit City, the display fixtures must, of course, be
removed. This display in particular is a 3-foot hardboard banner
with a picture of the Cube. The Cube is gone, so there is no
use for this display, correct? Oddly, Circuit City stores are
being directed, once the Cube demo units are sold, to safely
store the display fixtures for future use. "They will be reused
in the future," documentation states. "The display could not
be 'reused in the future' for anything but a Cube," one insider
familiar with the setup commented. "It is not as though there
is salvage value in the display." ...unless the Cube returns,
of course, which is somewhat unlikely."
More reader feedback to the demise of the
Cube
I hope you guys are going to stay around for
us Cube owners and keep us posted on news. I knew the Cube was
going bye bye a long time ago and made sure I had a Radeon upgrade
before they went away. I do believe that we will see high prices
paid for the Cube on eBay for years to come. Have you seen what
a Newton sells for these days. My question to you is this, where
and what should I buy as a CDRW/DVD drive for my Cube? Do you
know anyone that has put one in? Is it tough? Thanks for the
info, the site and all the good Cube times. Let everyone know
that I, (one of the first Cube users) have no plans of ever
changing to a tower.
Michael
We would recommend an external Firewire drive
( QPS drives are quite good, but there are several other ones
on the market)
Impressed by our first Cube's appearence, size
and silence and fearing it's demise I ordered a second, 500
mhz Cube, June 23rd from the Apple Store. For us the Cube's
best feature is the fact that it does not need a fan and is
as quiet as our G3 laptops. The new Cube has arrived, along
with the 17" monitor. My only regret is that I didn't order
a third one. Thanks for the Cube Zone. Keep up the great site.
Longshadow
Hey there ... just signed your bring-back-the-Cube
petition. Hopefully the hints at macosrumors are accurate ...
I really have no desire to upgrade to a Tower in the future,
having finally gotten rid of all the obnoxious fans in both
my office and home environments. Silence, as they say, is golden.
What I do not understand is the early pulling of the line ...
the model is clearly aimed at a niche between the iMac (student)
and Tower (power-user) configurations, which is pretty obviously
filled by the business user. Apple must know that they do not
own that segment, that they have never owned that segment, and
that their only hope to make a serious foray into that segment
was to wait for OSX to catch on. With its Unix compatibility
(I have all the disks of my grad students' Linux/Pentium-III
workstations all NFS'ed onto my Cube, I can ssh/scp to my heart's
content, all my old Perl and tcsh scripts work flawlessly, etc.)
as well as MS Office compatibility, OSX seems to offer a wonderful
solution to the world's sysadmins who tire of maintaining two
entirely different and completely incompatible networks of machines
(Unix and Wondiws) -- which, by the way, is the norm for nearly
every tech firm in the country, as the R&D folk use Unix and
the marketing folk lean towards Wintel. So -- if you are a sysadmin
asked to populate the desks of dozens or hundreds of workers
with OSX boxes, what box to purchase? iMacs are silly, and Towers
are a bit overkill. The Cube is a brilliant choice for its power,
elegance (everybody who walks into my office is amazed), silence,
footprint, and again -- SILENCE. What was Apple thinking?
Bruce
07/11/2001
Is the weather too
warm for you and your Mac? Use a USB fan!
The AIG-FAN/U is not a computer fan. It is a regular
fan connected to the USB port of your Mac. The USB port is only
the source of power of this small fan. The Mac or the PC does
not remotely control the fan. The AIG-FAN/USB is currently sold
(for approximatly $15) only in Japan, by e-Let's. The fan uses
2,5 watts. If you can read Japanese, check this page
for more information.
More readers
feedback after the Cube demise
Just a couple of observations, from another MOST satisfied
Cube owner:
The Cube was and is a superlative example of American
design, a blend of art and technology that will be viewed
by later generations as a peak achievement, in the much
same way we now laud the the Bauhaus school and the
works of Frank Lloyd Wright. Ten or 20 years from now,
while some Cubes are still in regular daily use, others
will be enshrined (and working) alongside the Jag XKE
in the Museum of Modern Art. In other words, if you
have one, keep it -- your grandchildren will thank you.
The technology of the Cube -- its compact design,
its fanless cooling, its fundamental elegance -- will
not be wasted, simply because this particular format
failed to achieve critical mass in the marketplace.
Apple may have lost some money in the short term,
but it will reap great rewards for having SQUEEZED
the envelope of computer design. The Cube spirit is
most definitely alive, so long as Steve Jobs and his
ego breathe.
The Cube is a NATURAL for upgraders: a relatively small
market, true; but these are 200,000 people who laid
out what the overwhelming majority of potential Mac
buyers apparently thought was an exorbitant price for
great design and limited expandability. This suggests
to me that as new processors become available, the same
buyers would be more than open to paying a bit (well,
more than a BIT) more for a 1Ghz+ CPU upgrade daughtercard.
The prospect of selling 10-30,000 such cards (wild guess)
should be enough to encourage some serious 3rd party
development. Yeah, we've got a bit of a white elephant
here. But the little guy's got big ears... I think he
can fly. =))
Bruce
I believe the Cube did not succeed because
it was not quite the product it promised to be. Clean
lines & lack of desktop clutter are worthy goals but
what you see in the promotional pictures is not what
you get. By the time the power brick, audio amp, and
maybe an external drive or iMic audio adaptor are hooked
up, one realizes that a Cube is a collection of bits
& pieces strung together by a lot of wire. Some users
don't see the need to hide the ugly parts as a problem
but is a disappointment that they are needed.
R.R
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07/09/2001
Kanguru MicroDrive : a new USB pocket-sized
RAM drive
Several weeks ago, we published articles about
USB RAM drives. A new drive is coming to the market, the Kanguru
MicroDrive
This USB Flash drive, sold by Interactive
Media Corp, fits in your pocket and can store up to 512MB.
A 1GB is planned too. It works with virtually any operating
system. Mac OS and Linux do not require a driver to make it
work. You just have to plug it into your USB port and begin
using it. The MicroDrive includes a write protect switch, a
LED indicator. It is only three inches long and weighs only
18g. The MicroDrive works with Windows, Macintosh and Linux.
There is currently no pricing. The product should be available
this month.
Great deals
MacSales is selling a used Cube with 15"
TFT flat panel for only $ 1499.00. You can buy one here.
The reference is CPU7606
07/06/2001
After the demise of the Cube, it is the
turn of the current iMac.
There are reports that several resellers are out
of stocks of iMacs in Europe and that they cannot order some
new ones. Several of our European readers have reported that
the Cube is not the only Macintosh that is currently out of
stock and on its way out. Similar reports have been made on
the French Web Site MacPlus.
The clients are asked to wait for MacWorld Expo before being
able to order iMacs again. This may once again add to the rumor
that new LCD iMac will be unveiled during the Expo.
More readers feedback on the Cube demise.
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I believe the demise of the Cube is due primarily
to its size. When the Cube first came out and I saw the ad pictures
I was intrigued. I was considering buying one until I went to
a store and actually saw it. The thing was so small and "toy-like"
that I changed my mind. If Apple wants to consider reentering
it into the market at some time, they should first make the
compartment bigger - with enough room inside to host a few expansion
cards. The bigger size will remove it's "toy-like" appearance
and the expansion capability has its obvious alure.
Joe
Cube cartoon
One of our readers sent us this link
this morning....The Cube demise gave ideas to some artists....
07/05/2001
We already miss the Cube:
a petition to tell Apple that we want it back soon
It is time to sign our petition if you want Apple
to bring back the Cube one day. Cupertino said that it may eventually
sell the Cube again one day. You have to tell them that you
really want it back soon! It is here.
Autopsy of the Cube
: why it could only end up with a demise...
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Since the very beginning, the Cube was a
luxury computer designed for high-end iMac users. The
demise of the Cube comes approximatly one year after its
introduction represents. The Cube should not have been
a failure, since it was well received by the media and
power users. It won several prestigious awards, but it
never took off with the buying public. Maybe because it
had a high $1799 price tag. But Apple soon offered rebates
that brought the price down to $1299.
What was really the problem, if it was not
the price of the Cube itself? Apparently, the Cube was
ahead of its time. But not because it was revolutionary
in some ways. Just because it had to use a TFT screen
to be appealing. Why buy a small computer if you end-up
with a big and ugly CRT? And those TFT screens were really
too expensive. Apple should have launched the Cube this
year as the new iMac, not last year as a midrange computer
for wealthy people.
However, there is still some hope for the
future. Apple said there is a small chance it will reintroduce
an upgraded model of the unique computer in the future,
but that there are no plans to do so at this time. According
to Mac OS Rumors,
it may happen as soon as next year....
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07/04/2001
Readers feedback to the Cube demise.
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Making the leap to buy a Cube required something
of American consumers that basically does not exist. To buy
a Cube, one had to be knowledgeable enough about computers and
one's own needs to know what you did not need and then you had
to be willing to put your money where your mouth was because
you were still going to have to pay full price. The history
of the computer market is that as time goes on, you wind up
paying less money for more computer. The market has clearly
demonstrated that with the Cube. People weren't willing to buy
a machine that they could never "expand." That of course flies
in the face of the fact that most people never do more to a
computer than add memory or change the hard drive. Look at the
Sport Utility market. Most people never take these vehicles
off the road, everybody knows that, but the perception is different
from the reality of course and they continue to sell well, even
in the face of rising gas prices, mounting safety issues, and
an economy that seems to be teetering on the verge of recession.
My Cube is my treasure. I've had it for almost a year and I
still just like to look at it. It's always the first thing that
I "see" when I walk into my room. To me, this is about as good
as it gets as far as owning a computer is concerned. It's never
had a problem that I could not fix myself, and it does everything
that I want it to. The Cube's flaw has always been perception.
Apple will always offer something "different" and ahead of it's
time. That's what I love about Apple Computers. They're one
of the only companies out there that is willing to take risks
like the Cube. What a remarkable and beautiful failure it has
been. There will be other "Cubes." I think anyone reading these
words knows that. I'm sorry that the Cube wasn't a great success,
but I can't help but to feel a wonderful sense of anticipation
when I think of what's coming. Don't you?
Ray
Maurice
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Personally I think most of the comments on
the Cubes demise are silly at best and stupid at the least.
I have one and more than satisfied with it. It did not sell
at thats about all one can say about it. Sure it was priced
higher than an IMac and lower than a G4 Tower so, it was in
the end really nothing to do with price at all. Except maybe
for the 500 mhz. Cube. But, then again people don't understand
that the Nvidia 32 meg. card is what roughly some $400.00 or
more. My Radeon 32 meg. card was $259.00. It's a bad a economy
at the very least and people are looking for the cheapest thing
they can find for the most part. Point being that it is pitiful
for people to expect that Apple could have done more to make
the Cube a success. If they don't want or can't afford a G4,
then stay away from it don't bad mouth it and expect Apple to
bring down the price further. And for those thinking that the
next IMac will have a G4 in it, (Yeah right, and I have three
bridges in Brooklyn I need to sell you cheap). I suspect and
hope in the end that Apple has figured out there is very little
market between the IMac and the G4 Towers, and another machine
in between will do just as bad as the Cube did. Oh, one more
thing I might add. Apple may well still have close to 4 billion
in the bank. However, if the economy does not turn around soon
for the tech industry, Apple along with others may well have
to start eating that money. Yes I am sorry to see the Cube go
but, my hope is that it will be a lesson learned by Apple about
the middle ground and I hope it will never be repeated. Take
care people and have a pleasent holiday!!!!!!
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Apple confirmed the suspension of the Cube.
Cubists like us are happy with ours, but sorry to see it become
a footnote in history. My Cube is powerful, elegant, quiet,
infinitely usable, versatile, and did I mention quiet. My Apple
LCD screen is gorgeous, brilliant, sharp, constant, ergonomically
correct, and huge. The Mac OS software is slick, solid, tolerant,
usable and useful. If anything else in life is so dependable
as these three things, I don't know what it is. Long live the
Cube.
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I *just* ordered a cube and it looks like I
did so just in time! I placed the order on www.apple.com on
Thursday of last week (June 28) and I just received a call today
from The Apple Store indicating that I had two choices: 1) wait
6 weeks for my order to be filled or 2) have it cancelled because
they are discontinuing the cube. I went to the apple store on-line
and you can't order a Cube anymore. They are gone. Good thing
I placed my order when I did. Cheers from the last of the new
Cube owners,
Cary
Maurice
Kevin
If you have any comments about Apple's decision
feel free to send us a mail.
You can also still sign the petition.
Apple Puts Power Mac G4 Cube on Ice
Contrary to what we thought this morning (but
confirming our story of last week), Apple today announced
that it will suspend production of the Power Mac G4 Cube indefinitely.
The company said there is a small chance it will reintroduce
an upgraded model of the unique computer in the future, but
that there are no plans to do so at this time. "Cube owners
love their Cubes, but most customers decided to buy our powerful
Power Mac G4 minitowers instead," said Philip Schiller,
Apple's vice president of Worldwide Product Marketing.
You cannot buy the Cube on the Apple Store anymore.
We may see some cocepts used by Apple for the Cube in the next
iMacs and G4 Towers. The Cube-Zone will still support the hundred
of Cube owners.
07/03/2001
Finally, some hope for the Cube?
Apple has removed some Cube configurations from
the Apple Store. You cannot order a Cube with GeForce 2MX anymore.
However, as stated on the Apple Store, NVIDIA
GeForce 2MX is TEMPORARILY unavailable. What could that possibly
mean? If the Cube was simply on its way out why write "temporarily"
unavalaible? Why is only the GeForce 2MX Cube unavailable? Even
if Apple does not produce the current Cubes anymore, NVIDIA
still produces the GeForce cards.... That may mean that Apple
will use the remaining GeForce cards in a new version of the
Cube.....The answer in a few days......
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