Okay, so just what is this MacCube thing, anyway? Everyone with a Mac and a pulse is yammering on about Apple's rumored new device, but reports about what's actually inside the box-- and who it's for-- vary more wildly than the mercurial Uncle Steve's mood swings. In that sense, we're definitely getting a "Columbus" vibe off this whole situation; remember that? One report claimed it was a set-top box that would be the centerpiece of Apple's "Golden Convergence" strategy. Another stated that it was a tiny portable device that could play DVD movies. Steve himself, when asked point-blank in public by a baffled reporter, announced that it was Apple's upcoming antigravity technology. So everyone knew "Columbus" was coming-- but no one knew it was the motherboard for the iMac, whose announcement smacked the world upside the head like a translucent blue-green two-by-four dipped in Surprise Sauce and served up with a side of "What the?!"

See the similarities? The MacCube was first reported by Mac OS Rumors to be a new enclosure for the professional-market Power Mac G4-- until Apple's lawyers allegedly told the site to yank the story. Then AppleInsider declared that it was actually a new consumer-targeted box (essentially a monitorless iMac). But according to several reports, the MacCube is stackable, which wouldn't be a terribly useful feature for most consumers... though it'd be a real boon to businesses using them as servers. Ah, but the fourteen-inches-on-a-side dimensions are a bummer, in that case, because as faithful viewer Duane Letourneau points out, wouldn't it be great to stack them side by side in a standard nineteen-inch rack space? Oh, wait, now you can-- because according to the latest AppleInsider update, the length of a side has just miraculously dropped to a svelte eight inches (now that's an effective diet!), suddenly making these cubes look more and more suited to server tasks. So basically the MacCube is a professional workstation aimed at the consumer who needs stackable servers for a rack. Sounds like a plan!

No-- wait-- sorry, we got that wrong. Faithful viewer Greg Hill notes that Spencer Katt's latest column reports that Apple's "iBox" is meant "to compete against Microsoft's upcoming x-box." So it's a game console. That fits with reports from faithful viewers Pastor Mac and Nitro, who both note that Nintendo's upcoming gaming system, code-named "Dolphin," will be PowerPC-based-- and Nintendo has decided to call it "StarCube." Suppose Apple's got a co-branding or otherwise collaborative effort going on there? Oh, but wait-- let's not forget that one rumored codename for the MacCube is "Trinity"-- and that, according to faithful viewer Bill Wilson, the company Play has its own cube called Trinity, which is a broadcast-video editing workstation. So maybe that's what Apple's going to unveil on Wednesday: a cobranded Trinity video cube with Apple industrial design. Dizzy yet?

As for the official AtAT stance on the MacCube's real identity, well, we say everyone else is wrong, wrong, wrong. Thanks to a Go2Mac article sent along by faithful viewer Steve Pissocra, we're firmly convinced that the MacCube is an Apple-branded microwave oven. Case closed.