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The Power Mac G4 Cube is housed in an 8 inch cube, in the same plastic as the Power Mac G4 desktop machines. However, unlike its larger siblings, the new Mac has no fan, and is, according to Apple, ‘virtually silent’. It comes in two configurations, with either a 450- or 500MHz PowerPC 7400 (G4) chip, and either 64- or 128Mb of RAM. Both machines come with USB, Firewire, DVD, Ethernet and modem as standard, and can have up to 1.5Gb of memory installed.

In his keynote speech, Jobs referred to the Cube as ‘possibly the most beautiful product we’ve ever designed’ – a comment that garnered applause from an enthusiastic Macworld audience. Apple vice president for industrial design Jonathon Ive claimed the engineers had done a ‘brilliant job’, managing to squeeze the cube to the smallest possible size while creating

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a cooling system that doesn’t require a fan – thus reducing the noise produced by the machine.

However, the price of this compactness is expansion: The Cube has no slots inside, except for a dedicated AGPx2 slot for the RAGE 128 Pro graphics card. There are also no audio in or out ports on the machine, which relies on a pair of matching speakers designed by Harman Kardon supplied with it for audio out. These speakers connect via a USB port. These speakers also have an analog headphone jack on them.

The machine also features a new easy-access system for getting to its internal features. Users wanting to install extra memory or an Airport card simply turn the machine over, press a button to release a handle, and pull the whole of the machines internal structure out of the box. All slots are then easily accessible.

Uniquely, the slot for the DVD drive is on top of the Cube, with DVD’s effectively ‘dropping’ into the machine. The Power Mac G4 Cube also comes with Apple’s new professional USB keyboard and mouse, and with a pair of matching Harmon Kardon designed speakers. The 450MHZ model, with 64Mb memory and a 20Gb hard drive, costs $1799, while the 500MHz version with 128Mb RAM and a 30Gb hard drive is $2299. UK pricing and availability details have yet to be announced for either product. The high end configuration will only be available through the Apple Store online.