The Return of an Apple Cube... as an iMac?

[pianojoe]

I think we all agree that the iMac needs to see another speed boost soon, and what will that be? I think the current form factor wouldn't allow for a squeeze-it-all 1.4 G4, and for a G5 the cooling should be more sophisticated, too. It's clear Apple will (have to) redesign the case.

I love the current design though. Just bought one for my girl friend.

 

[caveman_uk]

I think the current imac is a beautiful machine and most people I've tried to convert to macs have thought so too (the girls especially like it).

They all think it's too expensive though and I'm inclined to agree. Look at the price of the emacs and the price of the imac. That difference is too big to just be the cost of the TFT screen.

 

[rdas7]

If you recall, when the Cube came out it went against the new division of the Apple product line up:

One of the first things that Jobs did when he came back to Apple was clean up the product line which consisted of a thousand variants of machines (The myriad of PowerMac 5500/6100/8100/5560/6580/ etc. etc.) and reduce it down to 4 products: Pro, Pro Portable, Consumer, Consumer Portable.

The Cube went against this as it was neither Pro, nor Pro Portable and was too powerful to be Consumer.

At the time, there were only the blue and white G3, the PowerBook Wallstreet, the Bondi iMac, and the clamshell iBooks. The Cube was in between each of these categories.

With the categories now a firmly established staple of Apple now, it seems likely that the Cube would have been better suited to the Consumer range of products. After all, it has limited internal expandability in the same way that the 17" iMac does. What made it Pro when it came out was that it was a G4, and that sort of power was "reserved" for professionals.

Now that we're seeing the iBook and iMac line using the G4 chip, and pro moving to G5, the "old" cube would only need to be painted white to fit in perfectly to the lineup.

The question remains: how will they ever top the sheer genius of the connecting arm for the 17" screen?

 

[Nightstalker]

20th anniv mac?
new cube?

there was a recent rumor about a water cooled g5 powerbook.
the original cube used much powerbook technology (afaik).

maybe a water cooled (and therefore quiet) G5 cube?

Nightstalker

 

[DrBoar]

On the PC side there are those shuttle cases that really is similar to the cube in size. In Mac terms this could be implemented as either a iMac with a replaceable AGP graphical card (and perhaps a PCI slot as well) or as a headless box with similar features. A upgradeable CPU would be nice but if the CPU is good to start with (1.6-2.0 GHz G5) it is less of a problem.

If the towers move to all duals then the iMac and iCube will have some space

 

[s10]

 

[AhmedFaisal]

Screw the iMac and the Cube, I want the headless Pizzabox back!

For a year now I have been hoping that Apple would finally come out with a revival of the legendary 7100 PowerMac. Nope. I want a Mac for my home entertainment system in the living room but I don't need a dumb iMac with a screen attached to it nor do I want a huge PowerMac G5 or a Cube either. I want a slim flat Pizzabox. By the end of this year I will buy one, but its going to be a PC the way things are going with Apple. Since stuff like VLC finally works on Opendarwin as well I will just run OpenDarwin with Gnome on it. www.hush-technologies.com offers this fanless beauty. If only it were a Macintosh... *sigh*

Ahmed

 

[reyesmac]

If Apple makes the iMac more like the cube but then cripples it by not allowing you to take it apart and upgrade components like you can with the cube it would be a huge disappointment. Its about time Apple had a consumer machine that you could add more than ram too. The original cube can be upgraded with graphic cards, processors, hard drives, dvd drives, and a few other parts. If the iMac had this it would once again become the hot seller it once was.
People shouldnt have to spend over $2,000 just to have a computer they can upgrade.

 

[iwantanewmac]

Re: Screw the iMac and the Cube, I want the headless Pizzabox back!

Originally posted by AhmedFaisal
For a year now I have been hoping that Apple would finally come out with a revival of the legendary 7100 PowerMac. Nope. I want a Mac for my home entertainment system in the living room but I don't need a dumb iMac with a screen attached to it nor do I want a huge PowerMac G5 or a Cube either. I want a slim flat Pizzabox. By the end of this year I will buy one, but its going to be a PC the way things are going with Apple. Since stuff like VLC finally works on Opendarwin as well I will just run OpenDarwin with Gnome on it. www.hush-technologies.com offers this fanless beauty. If only it were a Macintosh... *sigh*

Ahmed

Tastes differ, but I think that thing looks more like a dvd player or my mc intosh power amplifier....

 

[jncrow]

Lets hear it for the mac 128...

Originally posted by Trimix
ooops, i remember the first mac, am i that OLD ????

There are probably a few of us that remember the first mac and our gui (grapical user interface) when our friends were fumbling around in DOS.

Let's hear it for the first mac....

 

[nagromme]

I imagine the next iMac having a flat, wide, base, shaped almost exactly like the 17" screen.

The arm could attach closer to the bottom of the LCD, and close to the back of the bottom box.

A cube would be cool too, though. Just so the arm mechanism doesn't change--it's great!

 

[BJNY]

Slab instead of a Cube

What I want is a Slab. Basically, a 15" AluBook without the display. About two inches thick to allow for dual CPUs, etc. Fitting nicely underneath a Cinema Display, or by a TV.

 

[CmdrLaForge]

For me the real question is if an LCD is attached or not. If as the topic said is the new iMac - then it means the Screen is attached. But the good thing about a cube would be you can buy any screen.

 

[whooleytoo]

Originally posted by Phil Of Mac
What is it with Steve and his cube obsession?

Perhaps he want's to assimilate new customers?

 

[Eric_Z]

Originally posted by CmdrLaForge
For me the real question is if an LCD is attached or not. If as the topic said is the new iMac - then it means the Screen is attached. But the good thing about a cube would be you can buy any screen.

I'd just like to note that Apple is free to name there products whatever they whish, so iMac does not automatically mean AIO, even thought it has done so in the past. And besides does not the iMac name indicate that it's a machine that fills the consumer desktop "slot" in the current product matrix?

My own "line-up speculations":

The Power Macs go all dual and gets increased internal expantion, the iMac(Shuttle formfactor) is all single G5s and is sporting one AGP and one PCI slot for internal expantion, the old iMac(perhaps slightly redesigned) becomes the new eMac, the old one gets phased out. The Power Mac G4 (unfortunately) gets cancelled so that it won't cannibalize the iMac.

 

[kangaroo]

Modify current form

It’s an interesting design challenge. The iMac is Apples primary computer icon; the dome base w/floating display, even taken as a 2 dimensional front image, = Apple. I doubt they would give that up. Just like car manufacturers make subtle changes to a model and it creates the appearance of a ‘new’ car—I think Apple can tweak the iMac form and achieve the same result. The size/shape of the iMac’s base and display are nicely balanced; one seems neither too big nor small for the other. I would like to see a larger/higher quality display coupled w/an aluminum enclosure containing a G5. To do this, the base would need to grow a bit to stay in balance with a larger display. (A larger base would presumably help with the G5’s heat dissipation). Add a slotted drive (without the drawer), integrated speakers, a Bluetooth multi-button, scroll-wheel mouse and wireless keyboard and you’re there.

 

[Analog Kid]

Re: Screw the iMac and the Cube, I want the headless Pizzabox back!

Originally posted by AhmedFaisal
For a year now I have been hoping that Apple would finally come out with a revival of the legendary 7100 PowerMac. Nope. I want a Mac for my home entertainment system in the living room but I don't need a dumb iMac with a screen attached to it nor do I want a huge PowerMac G5 or a Cube either. I want a slim flat Pizzabox. By the end of this year I will buy one, but its going to be a PC the way things are going with Apple. Since stuff like VLC finally works on Opendarwin as well I will just run OpenDarwin with Gnome on it. www.hush-technologies.com offers this fanless beauty. If only it were a Macintosh... *sigh*

Ahmed

Sounds to me like you want an Xserve... It's not fanless, but it fits the form factor you're talking about and it's an amazingly attractive pizza-box.

 

[the_mole1314]

This is REALLY interesting. I havn't heared anyting about this yet, so I'd bet that we won't see 'return of the cube', but I bet that the iMac will get a somewhat new form factor. That's just my guess. My channels don't say anything.

 

[Analog Kid]

The cube as a headless iMac makes a lot of sense. I don't think the problem with the original cube was that it cost that much to manufacture but that it had to get priced between the iMac and PowerMac to differentiate itself.

Here's the rub-- If this turns out to be true, I'm guessing it'll be a G4.

I don't think they can put a G5 in a fanless cube, and I think it's going to stay fanless. Once you water cool it, or do whatever you'd have to do (for any G5 iMac, not just a cube shaped one), I think it would force it out of the consumer space.

It might be the last G4 iMac, but if it shows up early next year I think it's going to have to stay G4.

 

[kristianm]

Re: Re: Screw the iMac and the Cube, I want the headless Pizzabox back!

Originally posted by Analog Kid
Sounds to me like you want an Xserve... It's not fanless, but it fits the form factor you're talking about and it's an amazingly attractive pizza-box.

I thought the Xserve was extremly loud, even compared to the old G4's. The new iMacs are quiet, but not really silent. They have a fan which makes a bit noise.

 

[bikertwin]

Everyone's saying how expensive the Cubes were. Just how expensive were they?

 

[themadchemist]

why does apple have to make it so hard to decide! I would possibly buy a cube over a g5 tower (esp. if the cube had a g5 in it)!

 

[stockscalper]

And to be announced at Mac Expo Jobs is changing the name of the company to the NeXT Apple

 

[mrnoone]

new imac

I think we are going to see something very close in design to the current imac... people seem to like the swivel monitor.

HOWEVER, does anyone remember the patent apple had a few months back for an LED case that can change color?

Check out this link for something similar.
http://www.thinkgeek.com/gadgets/electronic/5da2/images/

I think you will be able to change the color depending on your mood or if an event triggers a color change... for instance, if you get new mail... it will turn red or something. You could have it be a different color in the morning verses the evening. Or a different color for difference users (fast user switching).

Just a thought....
~Ryan

 

[ipiloot]

Originally posted by stockscalper
And to be announced at Mac Expo Jobs is changing the name of the company to the NeXT Apple

BTW! Not that bad idea as it sounds first. I think that it'd be good idea to label the rumored multiprocessor Pro workstations with the NeXT theme. NeXT Mac?