Do you miss the Cube? It's been over a month since Apple yanked the eight-inch "brain-in-a-box" from its product line, but since the company was thoughtful enough not to erase the product's presence from its web site, we bet there are still a few mourners out there who load up the Cube page to look longingly at the pictures and read the technical specs over and over again. (Personally, we keep revisiting the page just to see Apple's use of the phrase "rounded circles," which amuses us to no end. We're big fans of redundancy who like it when things are repetitive.)

Well, if you've been walking around with a Cube-shaped hole in your heart for the past month, cheer up-- we've got terrific news for you! No, it's not the return of the Cube; we know a lot of you are still keeping hope alive, since Apple's extraordinary notice of the product's cancellation hinted that it might come back to us someday, but that day has not yet arrived. Instead, the Cube is making its presence known from beyond the grave by infecting newer product lines with its own trademark affliction. You guessed it, baby: Cube Cracks are back, and this time it's personal!

Check it out; just two weeks after Apple shelved the Cube, Steve unveiled the splashy new Quicksilver Power Mac G4, right? Well, as faithful viewer dzhim! pointed out, Mac OS Rumors reports that several purchasers of those slick new systems have discovered the same crack-like mold lines that marred early Cubes. While they don't pose any structural threat, they can apparently look ugly as sin. According to MOSR, "a single early production run" with visible mold lines "managed to get through quality control unnoticed." Hmmm... seems to us that after the whole uproar over Cube cracks, Apple's quality control team would be extremely sensitive to and wary of similar mold line problems in other products. Does it really sound likely that they somehow missed a slew of "cracked" Quicksilvers coming off the production line?

Rather than believe that Apple's quality control personnel have been drinking heavily while on the job, we've chosen to interpret this turn of events as a sign that the Cube is trying to contact us from The Other Side. Clearly those mold lines were ectomorphically induced after pristine and perfect Quicksilvers had passed inspection and gone into boxes. But is this a message of hope, signalling the Cube's eventual return, or is it a portent of supernatural vengeance upon the Cube's enemies? Only time will tell. In the meantime, if you've got a "cracked" Quicksilver, contact your dealer-- it sounds like Apple is quietly sending out replacement plastics for people who complain.

If you're a big fan of the recent "Apple-Adobe Rift" rumors, enjoy them while you can, because they may evaporate come the end of next month. For the uninitiated, conspiracy theorists postulate that Adobe is dragging its feet on porting Photoshop to Mac OS X because Apple has secret plans to release its own image-editing software, allegedly called iPhoto. Certainly the delay in bringing a Carbonized Photoshop to market is at least slightly suspicious, given the fact that Adobe managed to demonstrate a quick and dirty port of the product on a pre-release version of Mac OS X way back in May of 1998-- and yet the company stuck to Illustrator, GoLive, and InDesign when it gave its Expo Carbon demo a few weeks back.

Come Seybold, though, we may once again be treated to a glimpse of Photoshop on Mac OS X-- and this time, we might not be four years away from getting the shipping product. Faithful viewer The M@d H@tter pointed out a Think Secret article which claims that the Carbonized version of Photoshop 6.5 is just about ready to hit beta, and should be plenty finished enough to be shown at Seybold at the end of September. In fact, Seybold is probably a better venue at which Adobe could take the wraps off of a Carbonized Photoshop, anyway, since the entire audience at that show generally eats, sleeps, and breathes Photoshop. Whereas the Macworld Expo crowd consists of a wide cross-section of Macophiles, Seybold attendees are Photoshop-based life forms from the planet Gaussian Blur.

In case you've forgotten, while Steve is expected to be in Paris gearing up for the Apple Expo, his sidekick Phil Schiller will be delivering a keynote at Seybold, where he's likely to introduce the crowd to the newly-shipping Mac OS X 10.1. Did you notice who's slated to follow Phil on the keynote agenda? The first Tuesday keynote slot is still labeled as "to be announced," but we've already seen that Phil's batting lead-off-- and next in the line-up is Adobe CEO Bruce Chizen. Dare we expect a Photoshop-on-Mac-OS-X demo immediately following Phil's 10.1 announcement? Oh, we dare, Sparky. We dare plenty.

Things still aren't all sunshine and teddy bears as far as Photoshop for Mac OS X is concerned, however. Even if Adobe does announce and demo the product next month, Think Secret claims that the Carbonized Photoshop 6.5 won't actually ship until next year. Given that the vast majority of graphics professionals aren't even going to consider switching to Mac OS X until they can rely on their most important tool running natively, Apple's got a long journey ahead of it before the whole industry is Aquafied. (Now, about that Carbonized version of Final Cut Pro...)

If you were worried that Microsoft might settle its antitrust case, thus robbing longtime "Redmond Justice" viewers of the climactic finish we so richly deserve, you can rest a little easier today. Faithful viewer Pastor Mac pointed out a New York Post article which indicates that settlement talks between Redmond and the government are "going nowhere." (Yes, but are they going nowhere fast? We need details, people!) Likewise, another widespread concern among fans of the antitrust show-- that the Bush administration would be too soft on everyone's favorite monopoly abusers-- appears unfounded; the same article indicates that new antitrust chief Charles James is a "tough guy" who's "playing hardball" with Bill and the gang. Sounds like we're in for as much drama as we'd hoped.

So how is Microsoft responding? In the most obvious way imaginable, of course; a few days ago, the company appealed to the Supreme Court to have the case thrown out completely. While everyone knows that's about as likely to happen as Bill Gates suddenly sprouting a conscience, some shame, and a decent haircut, Microsoft has also asked the Court of Appeals not to kick the case back to a lower court until the Supreme Court refuses to step in. Meanwhile, since the company's punishment will therefore be delayed, it'll be perfectly free to ship Windows XP in October without fear of reprisal. It's obscenely obvious as far as stall tactics go, but no one has ever accused Microsoft of being subtle.

What? You think that Microsoft actually is being a little subtle? Just a teensy-weensy, itty-bitty little bit subtle? Well, everyone's entitled to an opinion... except that one, because it's just flat-out wrong. Perhaps you haven't yet seen this ZDNet News article, which indicates that Microsoft "has given PC makers the go-ahead to ship Windows XP as much as one full month before the operating system's official October 25th launch date." If you need to ask, yes, it's a scheme to get as many copies of Windows XP into the field as possible before the courts finally manage to get a punishment lined up, and yes, it's about as subtle as a Key Lime iBook blasting MP3s of John Philip Sousa marches in a room full of sleeping mole-people. But that's what's so gosh-darned lovable about those guys, right?