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Apple Dumps the Cube
bac_mit writes: "I guess we all saw this coming with the dismal sales, but Apple has finally decided to stop
making the cube. There's an article about it here. It's always sad to see a beautifully designed product die." A year ago, the Cube was being hyped like crazy. What happened?
The Cube failed because of the poor placement between the Pro G4 and low end G3 iMac models. The problem was that if you could afford a low end cube you could get an iMac for less and a monitor. And if you could afford a cube you could also probally afford a Pro G4 with the added expandability. The cube was great while it lasted. Perhaps some day it'll return.
But what of the iMac girl? Yes, only Japan could come up with somethinglike this.
Yep the cube can run gigabit - gigabit ethernet has been standard on all desktop macs for over a year now.
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Let's hope that, as rumored, the Cube is being killed to make way for new stuff at MWNY.
But I don't have an iMac residence. Like most people I have a hodge-podge of items that I have aquired over some time, and I'm not spendthrift or wasteful enough to replace everything with Good Design. I want items that are simple, inobtrusive, and sure, reasonably attractive. I must admit, beige is an ugly color -- I'd like black more. But I like a computer that is a very boxy box, because that's all it is -- it ain't art. My shelves aren't colorful or pretty either, nor my tables, and there's stuff everywhere. I don't live in a commercial. An iMac wouldn't make my residence/work any more beautiful.
More plants and better lighting. That's the kind of design that never goes out of style.
I'm not saying Jobs stole the GUI -- someone had to bring it to market, and God knows Xerox wasn't up to it. Apple did a lot of important grunt work of making the GUI practical. But it wasn't like Jobs was in mortal combat with the forces of CLI, and should he have lost the world would have been plunged into CLI darkness forever.
I think that's the point... You could leave the computer in your living room, or your family room without it looking like a college dorm room. The cube had class. I can only hope that Apple is readying something to take it's place.
>at university.
I don't know about him, but Raskin's Master's thesis was on the subject. Also check out
http://home.san.rr.com/deans/lisagui.html
--including mockups of the Lisa's GUI from *before* the visit . . .
hawk
gigabit ethernet has been standard on all desktop macs for over a year now.
Just to qualify that a little: it's standard on all PowerMac G4 models, and it was an option for the G4 cube. It has never been available on the iMac
http://store.apple.com/
Unlike most of the posters here, I actually have a Cube in my home -- it's my wife's machine, which she uses for 'net stuff and work-at-home layout & image work. She didn't want an iMac because she already had a flat-screen display, and she didn't want a G4 tower because she didn't want to take up the space in her small office.
The machine is a delight, to be honest. Utterly, completely silent and, when combined with a flat-screen display, a very calming experience to use. No low-level buzzing droning in the background. Just a quiet box on the corner of her desk.
Expandability? She had an external CDR from an earlier machine, and a USB scanner works just fine. Because of the internal 802.11b card, she doesn't have to worry about network wiring. She currently has half a gig of RAM in it. And with OS 9.1, it's been rock-solid. It's a great machine.
So what happened? As others have said, the price kept a lot of people away. If the Cube had been a sub-$1K system, Apple would have cannibalized their (more profitable) iMac sales, but they wouldn't have been able to keep the Cubes on the shelves.
I know others have said it, but no one has given it enough importance: Apple is a high-margin dinosaur in a low-margin market. Computers are commodities, and Apple's attempt to decommoditize their systems by making them "unique" in some way just isn't going to work for the masses.
If they're content with selling to the ever-dwindling Mac-loving $80k income crowd, that's fine; they should then abandon all hope of reaching the rest of us who want the best computing for the lowest cost. I have been using PC's since 1984, and although I have often thought, "That's a cool looking case!", that thought never once even influenced my decision on what to buy.
Most people don't care about cute when it comes to computers. A computer is a tool that you ignore when you're not using it. About the only useful innovation Apple had they didn't execute well enough on: the fanless case.
Cheap, reliable, compatible: AMD chips, ABIT motherboards, brand X RAM, WD IDE hard drives. A computer more powerful than the Cube for less than half the cost. No-brainer.
They really should give up on hardware. Apple's true strength lies in software and user interfaces, but I don't expect the market for end-user software to be fruitful for very long, so in the end it looks like they'll be SOL anyway.
[ home ]
insert ice cube joke here
When I saw this story on the register I thought about submitting it to Slashdot(considering the Cube's physical appearance) with the headline "Cube is toast". :-)
I see even classic Slashdot is now pretty much unusable on dial up anymore.
If solar cell and battery technology ever advance enough you probably could have a small quiet computer and LCD monitor without power cables and with some sort of RF or IR link between them.
I see even classic Slashdot is now pretty much unusable on dial up anymore.
If you use UPS it'll arrive pre-crashed anyway. :-)
I see even classic Slashdot is now pretty much unusable on dial up anymore.
Maybe that's what kept Alexander Calder from building a "mobile" computer. :-)
I see even classic Slashdot is now pretty much unusable on dial up anymore.
How about a dodecahedral computer, floating in the air, and rotating with a floppy or DVD drive at the front? You'd have to make sure your disk was rotating at the same rate as the computer as you slide it in.
-- Ed Avis ed@membled.com
Daimler-Benz and Chrysler were both rather marginal auto companies that got their main revenue from selling adequate-and-cheaper vehicles in one of the three global markets (Europe, North America, and Japan). They merged roughly 55/45 so that their larger adequate-and-cheaper market competitors (GM, Toyota, Volkswagen, and Ford) wouldn't drive them out of buisness.
Steven E. Ehrbar
The Cube didn't have cracks. It did have mold seams. The one legit hardware problem was the touch sensor's sensitivity to RFI, which was fixable through the addition of a gasket. Anyone who sent their early Cube in got the gasket put in.
No, what did the Cube in was its narrow audience. It was too expensive to end up in many homes, given that the 30% slower iMac cost many hundreds less. And it was slightly more expensive than the low-end G4 tower.
Expandability wasn't much of an issue except for the minority of users who want to drive multiple video devices. Intel PC users seldom realize how little PCI slots get used in Macs. Nowadays, practically all the Mac peripherals that get purchased are 1394 and USB, even extra hard drives (including RAID arrays!). Save for old-timers bringing over a chain of SCSI devices from their old Macs, about the only use PCI slots get lately is those extra video cards.
Ultimately, despite making anyone who used one drool, it was too expensive (and high-end) for the home and reception-desk market, and lacked a quantifiable advantage over the modestly cheaper towers in the business market.
Actually, I have both a TV and a radio. You see, one's good for some things, and one's good for other things. Having both gives me a choice. Up until OS/X came out, using a Macintosh would have meant I didn't have a choice -- I'd have to use a GUI even if it made the job more difficult.
Of course, OS/X came out several years too late to matter. There are free Unixes all over the damn place, running on cheap and even obsolete hardware.
But your point is valid. Why don't TV's have built-in radio tuners?
--
Proud member of the Weirdo-American community.
If it wasn't for the Macintosh, I'd never have discovered Linux. It worked like this:
- Apple abandons the Apple II line in favor of the Macintosh.
- I abandon Apple and go to the IBM-PC, which still has a useful CLI interface in the form of Microsoft DOS.
- In the drive to compete with Apple, Microsoft abandons DOS in favor of Windows. At first (v3.x), this is just annoying, but later (Win95 and after), it really gets shoved down your throat.
- I abandon Microsoft as soon as a friend introduces me to an early version of RedHat Linux, which still has a useful CLI.
- Six years later, I wonder how the hell I ever got along without bash. I occasionally hear that Apple and Microsoft are still in business, but it's no longer relevant.
So thank you, Steve Jobs! If not for your insistence on twiddleware, I'd probably still be buying Apple products.--
Proud member of the Weirdo-American community.
>Also the reason for one button, is because most commands
>will only need one button, and if you want more options,
>you have to hold down the cntrl, option, or apple key, or
>any combination of them while you click.
Agreed, the number of mouse buttons is a non-issue. A scroll wheel wouldn't hurt but it is not necessary. And actually, most home PC users I've met don't even know what the second mouse button is for.
Some people saw the dump coming. This Artificial Cheese article predicted the cube's departure before Apple made their announcement.
The Cube should really have been marketed towards the 3D Gamer / LAN Party go'er. A nice 3D chipset (Radeon, Nvidia) and a 20 gig hard drive. Try to make the price point as low as possible and they would have sold like hotcakes for LAN Parties. I used to think a Mac sucked for games (1 button? What is that!), but then a group of all Mac gamers showed me that if it can use USB... it can use a USB 3 button mouse :).
:) )
(I still want one for LAN Parties and Linux..
-Tom
In September came out with their most unique computer in atleast a decade. It was fanless, had an entirely different shape and form and was running with a top notch processor. Yet what happened?
Well #1, and I think this goes for all of Apple's line, the lack of the new exciting OS to go with the new exciting hardware caused people to hold back from buying new computers. The fact was that Apple had a very bad release despite releasing great equipment. They took a loss for that quarter.
#2. Typical of Apple, they had problems getting the machines into the hands of the users. Alot of folks I knew ordered them and discovered they were not coming when they expected. Then there were issues with the powerbuttons and expectation of upgrades and a struggle with the atypical monitor cables and such.
#3 In the end, business users did not need the quiet elegant but limited expanssion machine. It was closer to the old Mac Classic design then the Mac II and in comparison to the Powermac G4's this just wasn't a business machine. Probably they should have worked to get it into college dorms and such. But the price is just too high compared to the iMac and the pc compatibles.
In the end it is a shame. I also wanted a Cube. Hopefully they will find a way of dropping the price (iCube?) on a similar technology.
d
What happened is that they were overpriced. Without the built-in monitor, it had less value than an iMac (which itself is pretty spartan) but it cost more(?!?!?!). I never heard of anyone I know, buying one of the cubes.
It had so little market. If you need a beefy Mac that might need future expansion, get one of the mini-towers. If you need cheepness and very moderate expansion (either via USB, or more likely, via other computers on your LAN) get an iMac. If you need _____, get the cube. Nobody knows what the _____ is.
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As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
If you think about it, the machine was basically a G4 with the power supply pulled out... and if you ever saw both (the cube & the supply) you can imagine how that supply would fit right where the heat 'chimney is'. I wonder if they were going for a cube with the power supply inside but couldn't get enough convection current going without a fan... so they had to pull it out!
Anyway... So the main issues as I see them:
1. The cube idea is not new. (nextcube, cobalt servers, etc.)
2. The ONLY innovation on the machine, the ultra-cool touch power button, but unfortunately is susceptible to RF glitching. that sucks!
3. The main appeal of the machine, it's 'look', was marred by poor manufacturing quality (many of the cubes had visible, highly refractive seams)
4. To have a complete system, you had to have a huge mass of cabling going into a very small opening at the bottom and then steeply angling into the machines ports... just bad design.
One way they could have really improved the cube is to include a vid card that has s-video out and pitch the machine as an entertainment device with full DVD/CD/3D-Sound/Gaming capabilities and:
-Put the power supply back in the cube, with a fan!
-And get rid of those stupid orb shaped speakers... they look cool, but aren't practical.
Happy Birthday USA!
-t
I would love to see some real world test that actually compared a fast production PPC chip with the current in production PPC chips with Altivec.
Jumpstart the tartan drive.
______________________________
rooooar
I'll admit it. The Cube is the coolest sexiest looking computer I've seen yet (well next to some old Crays of course), especially when combined with a nice Cinema display, and those funkadelic matching speakers.
But the cube is not expandable, and, I'm sorry, but... too expensive for being not expandable. The lack of incremental upgradability means it'll be outdated on my desk that much sooner.
Or maybe its' just the thought of paying so much money for something so small.
Titanium looks cool? I'm not sure what you mean.
It looks silvery and shiny, like most every other metal.. perhaps not quite as shiny, not ulike Al.
Where did you see charcoal black Ti?
Okay. I thought you were referring to some bizarre alloy, or something.
In it's pure form, Titanium is only slightly lighter than Iron, and quite a bit heavier than Aluminum. I believe a Ti alloy is used in most cases.
but.. I have to say, regarding Titanium.
Is anyone else sick of the 'titanium' buzzword that everyone is in love with?
I saw this guy on TV, selling titanium kitchen knives. He talked about how strong it was, because it was developed for the space program, etc....
Titanium is very strong for it's weight... but that's it. Steel is still stronger (or at least, not as brittle). Also, from a knife point of view, titanium may never rust, but it's very porous, and although it may hold an edge for a logn time, it will not be a very sharp one. You cannot approach the razor-sharpness of good steel with titanium.
I have a space-age titanium backing on the LCD portion of my vaio z505le. Didn't take much jostling in the backpack to put a huge shiny gouge in it...
The slot-loading iMacs don't have fans, either.
Hrm. I'm less happy about this whole convection cooling idea than I was to begin with.
My Powerbook G3 (Bronze keyboard) almost caught fire once. Smoke came out through the keyboard. It was pretty hot while I was using it (my fingers were hot from the keyboard venting), but not once did the fan switch on.
It got sent back to Apple (three days before the end of the guarantee), and came back with a new logic board. Unfortunately, it hasn't been quite right since. I think the near-fire stressed out the other components.
Mac OS X freezes after 1 to 5 minutes. Yellow Dog Linux kernel-panics after a similar period. Mac OS 9 takes a few hours to freeze (just very casual use... not usual MOS9 crashing). (These are all clean OS installs, by the way.. no third-party stuff installed)
So, something's wrong.
Anyway, I was running MSN Messenger through Virtual PC for a while on my slot-loading iMac. I popped out for a little while to pick up a pizza. I came back, and there was a 'warm' smell coming from my iMac. It then shut down and refused to start for about six hours. On closer inspection, I noticed that a lot of the clear plastic is now browny yellow.
Both of these units were used in ventilated areas, with free space surrounding them. The Powerbook episode happened in a modern air-conditioned office, on a clean, flat desk. This is in England, by the way -- not the hottest country on Earth!
Anyway, I'm all for this fanless operation concept, but only if there is a fan, and it's threshold is set reasonably pessimistically.
The Cube just filled me with dread after my experiences. Last thing I would do is buy one of those unless I'd upped my insurance and bought a good halon system =)
So the first thing I do, like any good mail order weenie, is go looking around on Pricewatch, various Mac-specific web sites etc looking for what the prices are for various kinds of hardware. Well, it turns out that just about every new Mac is priced within about $5 of the online Apple Store. That seems strange, especially considering that most of the big online retailers have their own "we'll throw in 256M/a printer/a scanner/a bunch of media" incentives. The simplest explanation for this seems to be that Apple prohibits its authorized dealers from advertising or competing on lower price, but still allows bundles for differentiation. Well, at least this makes price comparison shopping for new hardware very easy....
Now it's time to go looking for used machines and hit the auction sites. Well, in order to do that, I gotta understand what the specs of the various boxes are. So after a few evenings of trying to understand how the prices and specs work out, here's what I conclude:
So where does this put the Cube? Well, that's the problem. What I really wanted was a headless iMac. The Cube seemed pretty close because of its small size, no fan, and limited expandability. But it has a G4 and allows decent video resolutions, so Apple priced it like a "pro" system.
I think there would be a huge market for a headless iMac. But an important part of the iMac is low cost. And people who want a non-tiny monitor are just the people that Apple wants to squeeze for as many dollars per unit as they can get. As long as Apple has control over all the hardware that can run OS 9/OS X software, they'll probably continue to segment their market, sometimes with artificial limitations, to maximize profit from customers who are less price sensitive.
In general, PC hardware manufacturers can't do this. I can plop a GeForce 2 MX in Ye Olde Celeron 450 if I want video resolution. I can put a Maxtor 1394 card in any old PC. And if nVidia or Maxtor decides to artificially cripple their low-end cards to try to make more high-end sales, their competitors will eat their lunch. In fact, the only big player who has much luck with this kind of market segmentation is Intel (Celeron/P3/P4/Xeon), and AMD is...eating their lunch.
All this could change at MWNY, but I bet there will still be significant limitations designed into whatever new iMac is announced.
Granted, the G4 towers are a lot bulkier than the Cubes, but OTOH they are also amazingly quiet. I've been pleased with my dual 450 G4 in that regard -- it's the quietest computer I have, even quieter than my Powerbook (which, while it has a fan, only rarely turns on the fan).
For that matter, the iMacs are also very quiet. My family-in-law has an iMac DV, and it's also very decent (though it does crash a lot... ;-P ).
My Duron 800, though, is just *loud*...
Ethelred
Everyone wants to be Ethelred. Even I want to be Ethelred.
It's pretty odd that Apple did the Cube at all, really. Anyone remember the original four-box strategy that they implemented to prevent themselves from going overboard on models, like they used to?
In the old days, Apple had Quadras, Performas, Centrises and Classics, and no one could tell from the name or even case design which Mac was which. Futhermore, within each line (Centris/Performa/Quadra) there were myriad variations that made little sense, and often there was overlap. This confused both customer and sales team, and caused a lot of trouble.
Enter the four-box strategy:
Consumer portable: iBook
Consumer desktop: iMac
Pro portable: PowerBook
Pro desktop: G3/G4
This strategy worked just fine, and then Jobs got a wild hair and decided to add the Cube, which was neither cheap enough to be a Consumer box (like an iMac) nor powerful and expandable enough to be a Pro box. Sure, it looked great, but it was just a bad decision (unless they had cut the price dramatically, but then they would have run into problems with the Cube cannibalizing iMac sales).
They should stick to a simple product line, like they started to do, much in the same way that carmakers recycle chassis designs and parts to keep things simple and costs down.
For all the coolness of the Cube, it was simply a blunder IMO.
Ethelred
Everyone wants to be Ethelred. Even I want to be Ethelred.
I quote to you Hastings's Law: Adequate and cheaper wins against better but more expensive.
Isn't this more a theory than a law? Anyway...
Regardless of how many units are sold, "adequate and cheaper" cannot sustain an industry long term. To me it seems "better and expensive" is what actually drives most progress. But volume is what drives costs down.
I'm also not convinced the problem with the Cube was one merely of price, though that was clearly a major issue. It was at a really strange place in the product line. I don't think consumers knew who it was targeted at.
The Cube has exactly two things going for it: it looks cool, it is silent
Well, another major one is that it takes up very little space at 8" cubed. This means that it can go in places that are not practical for other computers.
- Scott
--
Scott Stevenson
WildTofu
Scott Stevenson
Tree House Ideas
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coming.
:)
This is one of those cases where it seems like everyone on the web was in on one big secret that Apple didn't discover until they started looking at quarterly reports and doing the math.
Notice that everyone likes the look of the Cube, the silence of the Cube, and in general the concept of the G4 Cube. I know that I personally have been lusting after an old NeXT Cube for years now, despite the fact that the hardware is so hopelessly out of date and there's really nothing for me to do on OpenStep. The concept of a computer in a Cube form factor is just so appealing to me that I'd be willing to spend the $400 or so that it costs to pick up a decent NeXT Cube used.
However, if you're going to create a silent cube computer, you have to realize that those are perks. Those are "neat things". Those are *not* important enough issues to justify a purchase at full new retail price for 99% of customers.
Sure, you read here about how Joe Sixpack bought it for his wife and she loves it, or how Fred Smith bought it to add to his stereo as a digital computer component and thinks it's pretty fantastic. Most of us do not have $1800 or $2000 or whatever a decent Cube costs these days (or did cost, heh heh) just to throw away on a whim based on a cutesy design.
Someone here mentioned Rolex and Bentley. These products are *extremely* high priced within their markets, but they are also the acknowledged *BEST* at what they do. The layman thinks "high-end watch", he thinks ROLEX. That makes a Rolex watch 1) a quality piece of equipment and 2) a status symbol.
Any Apple based computer these days is only a status symbol for a small subset of the community. I think Apple had starry-eyed visions of Dot-Com millionaires eating up Cubes like chocolate to put on their glasstop desks right next to their expensive LCD panels and stack of $400 motivational tapes. It just didn't happen. Within the computing industry, Mac owners are more often reviled than revered. Macs are seen as a toy, or at best, as a tool for an artist or graphics designer.
There aren't enough image-conscious artists or graphics designers to buy Cubes. Most of them are still probably holding onto their 9600s for the 6 PCI slots.
Which is the other issue - the Cube is NOT the best in its class. No, it is not "in a class of its own", it's a personal computer. There are much better machines in terms of functionality and quality of components than the Cube - even within Apple's own product line!
That's the one-two punch. The bonuses of the machine are not worth enough to most people in and of themselves, and the machine does not contain amazing whiz-bang hardware to drive the purchases. If the Cube had been the fastest piece of hardware Apple manufactured by a measurable amount and been delivered at a cost of only a few hundred dollars more than the G4 Tower (to make up for the lack of expandabiltiy, etc... even though it'd be the fastest, it would be a static configuration), I think it would have sold very well.
If the G4 Cube was delivered as-is but at a price point closer to the iMac than the G4 Towers, I think it also would have sold.
It was neither. It didn't sell.
In 10 years I'll probably buy one on eBay for $400 to sit next to my (at that point) 20 year old NeXT cube in the museam of cool machines that could've been.
Watch the rate of roll on that Cobra III, Commander Jameson...
Yes, I too had a mis-spent youth.
P.S.: I wonder how many Merkins will understand any of this?
I'm old enough to remember when discussions on Slashdot were well informed.
"I am sure ms did this with NT4 as well to force me to upgrade to w2k."
It's not that simple - before making comments on Microsoft's NT based operating systems, at least know something about them.
It would be quite difficult to re-write the HAL (Hardware Abstraction Layer) in NT4 to allow for USB support. Since Win2K was developed after the uptake of USB, it's HAL was written to include USB from the start. Yes, Win2K is based on NT4, to some degree - but making such a major change to an operating system already in production (I'm talking about NT4 here) would have been deemed too dangerous.
>-And get rid of those stupid orb shaped speakers... they look cool, but aren't practical.
I don't know what you mean by practical, but they sure sound great. I've never heard such clarity from such a small driver before in my life, and I'm used to the sound I get out of my Magneplanars.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
I'm writing code. Having the extra RAM has cut way down on the paging when I build an app or launch it under the debugger.
As for maxing it out, I expect that when I do so next year it will cost me about $200 for two more sticks of 512Meg PC100 RAM.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
>You are fucking insane. 1.5GB of RAM for it to be your damn MP3 player?
I said it was going to be my digital audio server. That's not necessarily limited to MP3's.
It will probably also take over the tasks of being my incoming mail/news server which my NeXT slab is doing now.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
I'm using one every day, it's my primary development system. For the first time in my entire career, there is NO FAN running in my office. It's wonderful to be able to really hear my music while I'm working.
The critical thing for getting any mac to perform is giving it enough memory. This cube on my desk was recently given an extra half-gig of RAM bringing it up to 704Meg, and the difference was astounding.
As for the alleged cracks, what I see in this case are a few mold lines which cast shadows that look like cracks under certain lighting conditions.
Sometime next year when I buy a G5 machine, I know exactly what I'm going to do with the cube. It's going to get a 100gig disk, have its RAM maxed out at 1.5 gig, and it will go next to my stereo and become my digital audio server. It will probably remain in that role for ten years or more.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
Not if Microsoft gets their way..
While cute, the cube is also extremely practical in terms of desk space for those who do not need a lot of expansion options. It's noiselessness is also very practical, especially for musicians.
I don't know why you hate beautiful things, but for most people it's worth more to be surrounded by beauty than by ugliness, and they are happy to pay for it.
... I'm glad to see the Cube bite it . It is capitalism's way of rolling up a newspaper and smacking Steve Jobs on his sometimes artistically elitist ass.
I love what Apple is capable of achieving in form, but it remains one of their most obnoxious tendencies to assume that form is a means unto itself. When function goes out the door - which it did in the case of the gorgeous but functionally impractical Cube - it is all but impossible to generate meaningful demand. A small population of design purists will buy anything Apple releases. They should have known better and released a more expensive Cube produced in smaller quantities (like the 20th Anniversary Mac from a while back).
This same elitist streak in Apple led to the 'innovation' of their sleek, gorgeous one-button mouse. I, along with the majority of other Apple Power Users, threw the dang thing away and plugged in (the horror) a 3 button Microsoft Mouse instead. I like the look of the Apple mouse better, but since I actually need to USE the thing, and since my usage entails more than simply surfing the Internet and single-clicking, I'm forced by practicality to use a functionally superior product from a company that remains mostly oblivious to aesthetics and originality.
After all these years, Steve Jobs' vanity continues to lead Apple to repeat their early blunders. With absolute certainty, the one thing we can all look forward to in the future of Apple under Steve Jobs' leadership is repeatedly making the most gorgeous mistakes in the computer industry.
A computer.. If you wave your foot over the thing it shuts down..
I wouldn't go so far as calling an Apple 'beautiful.' Sure, it's an interesting design, but my PC is under my desk; I rarely see it and use it even as a footrest. The cube was sleek and interesting, but i don't think it would make as good a footrest as my sturdy beige midtower would!
To be more serious, though, I think that Apple's desire to be different is a vice as well as a virtue. People think of Macs as somewhat of a curiosity, but don't really consider them for heavy use. The interface is nice, the design is fluid, but it's like those PT Cruisers... some people like them, others hate them. I think that they're hideous; who on earth would want to buy such an ugly beast? Wherever you go, people notice your PT Cruiser, just like people notice your VW Beetle. It's a novelty, and not many people drive them. It's awfully conspicuous at times because of the amount of marketing put into such things as Beetles and Macs. Though you don't drive around your Apple iMac or Cube, I think the same mentality applies. In fact, I find that the same people who love their Macs also love their VWs. Interesting.
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Or a sphere, floating in the air...
Brings a whole new meaning to the term, Bernoulli Drive.
[
The cube failed because it was too goddamned expensive. Apple products were worth the price when they outperformed comparable PCs, and were a million times as stable as PCs. Now that AMD processors and a huge amount of competition in the DRAM market has dramatically lowered the cost of high-end PCs, and Windows 2000 is almost as stable as UNIX, there is no longer a reason to pay Apple's prices for a workstation.
What a strange idea - do you buy things based on whether you like them, or based on whether you think they're targeted at you?
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I guess resistance isn't quite so futile after all.
The Cube is just another option, and obviously not one that caught on, but remember the Newton? It failed miserably, and now we all use palmtops.
I just think it's interesting that people are down on the Cube, when Apple was trying to give people an option other than the standard pizzabox, tower, or laptop decision. It didn't work this time, but I applaud any computer manufacturer that at least attempts to improve the status quo in hardware design.
Read the EFF's Fair Use FAQ
For those of us who don't have all kinds of space, the Cube was an excellent idea. From what I've heard, Apple was expecting to sell a whole lot of Cubes in Japan, for example.
The fact that Apple mispriced the Cube, making the G4 tower a much more cost-effective bet, and that they mistimed it by releasing it before OS X was available, doesn't take away from the fact that they had the right idea in a small form-factor CPU that actually looked nice.
Read the EFF's Fair Use FAQ
Because he was lying. The simplicity of this argument is only reflective of the way in which Apple has fused itself around the core of Steve Jobs - even when Steve wasn't necessarily at the centre. It's the Apple Myth. Just because Steve said it's so doesn't mean it's gospel. Alot of people who were there say different - it just took them months to convince Steve, so he decided it was all his idea.
toeslikefingers.com - because
God, here we go again. Bill Atkinson and Jef Raskin deserve alot of credit. In fact, I seem to recall Bill had been doing research on GUIs at university. The best book I've read on it was Infinite Loop, which says that they were already set on a GUI, and took Steve over to PARC to convince him, too. He wasn't the guy who 'stole' it, nobody was. It's all Official Apple History, not actual history.
toeslikefingers.com - because
Sun ELCs had the computer at the back of the monitor. The main board just slid out of the top for replacement/repair/upgrade.
Cable-wise you had the power cord, the network cable and a wire between the keyboard and the computer. The mouse plugged in to the keyboard.
It was a nice, tidy arrangement. I still have a couple in my basement.
Maybe so, but then so is Murphy's Law.
To me it seems "better and expensive" is what actually drives most progress.
True, but there needs to be at least a segment of the market that actually needs (or at least wants) the better and expensive product. For example, if you were to invent an improved floppy disk drive, at this point you would not be likely to sell many... especially if it is expensive. Current floppy disk drives are adequate for the purposes for which people need them.
Another example: gourmet hamburger restaurants seem to have a hard time. I really enjoy eating at Fuddruckers and I don't mind paying extra for the quality... but McDonalds is cheaper and considered adequate by most people, and Fuddruckers has trouble competing.
[The Cube] was at a really strange place in the product line.
Yah. Folks who needed the absolute top performance (including the best expansion capabilities) would buy G4 tower Macs, not the Cube; folks looking for a decent computer that doesn't cost too much would buy an iMac, not the Cube.
another major one is that it takes up very little space at 8" cubed.
IMHO, it is a stretch to call that a "major" one. How many people will pay a premium price for a computer because it has an 8" by 8" footprint? (Answer: not enough.)
steveha
lf(1): it's like ls(1) but sorts filenames by extension, tersely
Other Macs, with far better price/performance, outsold the Cube. The Cube has exactly two things going for it:
it looks cool
it is silent
Well, other Macs look cool enough, and are quiet enough, and cost less for what they do.
And, by the way, while you can make money by selling a product that is expensive but really cool -- consider Rolex watches, or Bentley cars -- a few visible cracks in clear plastic just may be enough to disappoint the folks who are motivated to buy such products.
The Cube is the only Mac that remotely tempts me. A truly silent box would be a nice thing. If I ever decide to buy a Mac, I'll probably get a used Cube, perhaps on eBay. Apple may not make any more new ones, but there will still be a few around.
steveha
lf(1): it's like ls(1) but sorts filenames by extension, tersely
The Register had a story on this a day or so ago. Seems a real shame, and a shame also that Motorolla can't get the G4 to scale like they thought they could.
Sun, and others doing Unix on 68K had to design their own MMUs, since Motorola did not have an MMU for the 68000.
Even with a custom MMU, you were limited to swapping, not paging, on a 68000, because it did not save enough information on a bus error to resume or restart in the general case. You needed a 68010 if you wanted to do paging.
The first PC that was widely available with memory protection sufficient to support Unix was the PC/AT, which used the 80286. The 80286 has a built-in MMU which is quit excellent at supporting a swapping system. If you were insane, you could even make System V Release 3 run on an 80286 (we did that at Interactive...porting from the 3B2 source...man, that was one pain-in-the-ass port!)
The 1984 Mac used the 68000, which did not have an MMU available from Motorola. Comanies like Sun, Fortune, Callan, etc., that built 68000-based Unix systems designed their own custom MMUs, which, like that in the 80286, supported swapping, but not paging. They did not do paging because the 68000 does not save enough information in the bus error stack to recover from a general page fault.
I'm ignoring it because I forgot about it. :-)
IBM? Weren't they the ones who created OS/2? You know, the best desktop OS between CP/M and (possibly) OS X? They certainly made huge waves with THAT now, didn't they?
:-)
IBM could not, can not, and will not ever understand the desktop market. They just don't get that part of the market. (they're not much better in most other area either, but that's another story) If I were Linus, I'd be saying to IBM "Thanks, but we don't want your support--we want to survive!"
Can OS X be the next revolution? Maybe. It should be--it has the potential at least. Personally I'm hoping for it as hard as I can.
Incidentally , you're wrong on one important point: Given the current state of computers, innovation _is_ a pretty box, and a pretty box with no fan and interesting ideas about space is doubly innovative. In the case of the cube, it just wasn't innovative enough to compensate for its flaws.
"People who do stupid things with hazardous materials often die." -- Jim Davidson on alt.folklore.urban
The Atari 400/800 could in fact display 16 colours simultaneously from a palate of 256. However, through the magic of VSI programming, you could change the 16 colours that were set to be displayed partway through the TV scan, and effectively have 256 onscreen at once.
Trust me--I've still got printouts of the code I wrote to do it.
Also, someone else pointed out that the C-64 only had 8-bit/4-channel sound. The Atari had this as well, but allowed one to gang together two channels into a single 16-bit channel. (hence, two 16-bit channels from 4 8-bit ones) I vaguely remembered that the C-64 could do the same, but I could easily be mistaken.
"People who do stupid things with hazardous materials often die." -- Jim Davidson on alt.folklore.urban
Damn damn damn! Somebody moderate this up--it's the funniest thing I've heard all day!
Mind you, it's been a slow day...
"People who do stupid things with hazardous materials often die." -- Jim Davidson on alt.folklore.urban
I didn't say "became," I said "began." It was the beginning--the bleeding edge that MS (and IBM) stole from. Regardless of who won, it was the Mac first.
"People who do stupid things with hazardous materials often die." -- Jim Davidson on alt.folklore.urban
Well this is silly flamebait, but I'll rise to it anyways.
Since day one, Macs have used SCSI. Networking was built in from ages before PC NICs were common. They helped develop the first (only?) modern desktop processor.
The PC still uses an extension of IDE devices. LANs have become common in the last year or two. The x86 processor line (and AMD spinoffs as well) STILL have 8088 codes in them!
Now tell me which is more advanced again? Which one is future-looking?
"People who do stupid things with hazardous materials often die." -- Jim Davidson on alt.folklore.urban
I don't know how many here actually remember the original release of the Mac, but there are some substantial similarities between that product and this one. Why did the Mac survive while the cube didn't? Therein lies the key...
Those were the days of the Atari 800, the C-64, and even Apple's own ][+ (e, xe, c, whatever). The Atari and C64 had the ability to do 256 colours at about 320x200 (with some seriously clever programming) and had 16-bit sound! Then came the Mac. Lunky, clunky, tiny B+W built-in monitor, bad sound, and this goofy interface. (Remember this was the first home compute with a mouse, and the original mac mouse was _ugly_ to use even after you got used to it)
But it worked! It caught on. It singlehandedly began the next wave of computing, despite its severe limitations. Why?
1) Apple had the money to support it for more than eight months or so.
2) It was absolutely unique! There was nothing like it out there, and what it was offering was a whole new experience.
3) They could _deliver_ the damned things when the orders started rolling in.
4) There was no real concept of a standard platform. You bought your computer, and bought the software for that platform. When the largest company only had 15-20% of the market, there was less feeling of picking the 'right' or 'wrong' platform--just the one you wanted.
Now we have (or rather, had) the cube. Although it was intriguingly sexy, it lost out on all of the above points. Apple cannot afford to keep flogging the things until they start selling. Furthermore, they can't get production up to match demand anyways. The fact that they're perceived as being a (nearly) dead company vs. Microsoft is a huge handicap as well.
But the killer is this: The cube isn't unique enough. It's beautiful, it's advanced (fanless case? It's already becoming the Next Thing--except to see fanless desktop processors from Intel and AMD again in about 18 months), but underneath the skin it's still Another Mac--just like the G3/G4 Macs which are still available, better machines, and cheaper to boot.
Apple has been a computer _design_ company from day 1. This design just wasn't revolutionary to overcome its flaws.
"People who do stupid things with hazardous materials often die." -- Jim Davidson on alt.folklore.urban
This works even better with flat screens, which aren't so bulky.
I'm thinking of a flat panel attached to a thick base.
Thing that always amazes me about Apple is that they have such well thought out hardware designs, yet they can never seem to turn that into commerical success. Their OSes have also been well made compared to the other mass market system out there.
I look at MOSR like this (as I'm sure its keepers do as well) -- unfiltered possibilities. Even they admit not everything they say is true, and I'm sure they'd be the first to tell you that not everything they say is to be taken as gospel.
So I still read it -- I just don't count on seeing everything they talk about appearing at my local MicroCenter.
/Brian
The cube was essentially a G4 iMac with no monitor. Apple, in their infinite wisdom, failed to market it as such, and took a bath on it because of it. If they'd marketed it as the system they'd developed, we wouldn't be having this situation right now.
/Brian
I'm sure they're moving on to more interesting shapes. A dodecahedral computer, that'd be neat. Or a sphere, floating in the air... Of course, if you lost power, crashing would take on a whole new meaning... I guess it's true every technological benefit introduces new problems!
--------
Never call a man a fool. Borrow from him.
people who seriously factor the appearance of a computer into their buying choices are idiots ... It's like buying a furnace or water-heater for its looks.
You don't have a girlfriend, do you?
If he does i bet shes not shallow, vapid and stupid, all characteristics of people with consumer-centered (read:fucking pathetic and offensive) priorities...
... a normal person likes attractive objects, be those clothes, vehicles, residences, members of the appropriate sex, or, yes, even computers.
Hmmm
The original fellow seems just clueless, and when he starts dating he'll figure out in short order that in normal society it is expected that one pays at least moderate attention to the aesthetics of one's existence -- but you, now, display an altogether different level of fear and loathing. My diagnosis is advanced sociopathy manifesting itself as an alleged rejection of mainstream values in an effort to disguise your inability to relate to polite society -- what does your therapist say?
Hahah, no really, the other day my grandma was sitting at my OS9 Mac and she tore me a new one because she couldn't run bash on it.
Hilarious.
What happened?... what do you mean, "what happened?" Don't you know anything? The Cubes were highly vulnerable. The cracks, ok, that was one problem, but the real problem was that they weren't ready for the Enterprise. In use, the Cubes proved to be vulnerable to both Enterprise and Voyager class starships. Finally, I guess they decided that change was necessary.
Never attribute to intention what can sufficiently be explained by stupidity. They were unreliable and defect-prone exactly because they were poorly engineered and pushed out the door without sufficient quality control. Equipment unreliabily is quite simple to acheive without going to the trouble of being unorthodox, and it's quite possible to be unorthodox while remaining careful about your engineering. The two NeXT cubes running in my basement, while based on different principles, testify that this unorthodox design can be implemented well.
Quite frankly, people who seriously factor the appearance of a computer into their buying choices are idiots.
I myself thought this until the day I borrowed a friend's VAIO and went to a cafe, and a woman sat next to me and said "that's a really sexy machine."
Dell doesn't get you laid :)
The problem was they tried to sell too many.
History recap. Apple, after Jobs came back, decided that there were 4 markets they could go after. There was the basic computer (iMac), the Advanced for professionals (G4 tower), the Laptop (the iMac laptop and g4 titanium), and the executive. For businesses, the cube was a brilliant idea. They had something for the clerks (iMac), something for the techies (G4 tower), and the cube was their attempt to go after the executives that otherwise wouldn't touch an Apple. This could've been a real coup. Sell them to the execs. The boss really likes it (esp. if you pair it up with a flat-display), hates the incompatibilities with PCs and so moves the company to Macs. Brilliant. I know of several execs that did that.
The problem was that it was never supposed to be for the masses. Yes, it's cool looking. Yes it's silent. Yes I want one. But it's not expandable (which is a much smaller deal than everyone makes it out to be.... your average computer buyer will never upgrade anything aside from RAM), and it was widely panned. If they had marketed it at executives exclusively (ala the 20th Anniversay Mac), they could've done gangbusters, and possibly raised their market share. Alas...
"Sometimes a woman is a kind of religion, she can save your soul & set you free from all your sins" - Bad Examples
The first macs used the 68000 processors and they supported memory managment and preemptive multitasking. Infact the mac was the only microcomputer that was capable of running unix back then. In 1984 this was very impressive for a micro-computer. I believe sun's first workstation used the same processor.
:-)
Infact if it was 1984 today, I would buy a mac and see if i could get a copy of MS-Xenix or a pirated copy of sun's BSD unix which could run after some modications.
old-ass mk6800 code is by leaps and bounds better then old 8086 code because of these features. The poster was refering to the 68000 and not the powerpc which came later.
http://saveie6.com/
"Since Apple hardware tends to be slower and smaller (in memory, storage, etc) than PC hardware of the same price, does this mean that PC users will look forward to 700 mhz machines with 3 gig HD and 64 mb RAM in 5 years? "
The very first macs in 1984 had motorolla 68000 chips in them. They were very fast back then and are still used to this day in high speed routers by cisco and in the palm pilots. I believe sun's first workstations used the 68000 due to its speed. The dragon ball processor in the newer palms is a modified 68000. The processor supported preeemptive multitasking and memory managment for true multitasking. The motorolla processors were by great bounds and leeps faster as well.
Lets see when Intel brought these features to the x86 series? Oh about 5 years later for like 5 grand. The first 386's were also nearly worthless when multitasking due to serious bugs. The second generation 386's fixed the problem. It wasn't untill around 1990 before intel had a prefect modern processor that could run Unix, NT, OS/2 and other 32 bit apps with reliable memory managment and preemptive multitasking at an affordable price. Old 16 bit code with no memory management/cooperative multitasking is why windows 3.1 crashed so often. I admit apple never used the features of its chip, but at least the libraries were better then windows 3.0 and windows 3.1 at the time making macos more stable and easier to develop on.
Also untill recently, powerpc processors outperformed intel ones by a %50 margin comparing megahertz to megahertz. So the old megahertz to magahertz dabate wont work. It was only after intel stole oops I mean borrowed riscs functions from other processors and overclocked its pentiumII's that the gap closed a little more. A 733mhz G4 processor is about as fast as a gig athlon. If you do photoshop work its even faster due to a special graohics core engine in the g3 and g4 processors. I recently saw an article here on slahsdot which compared linuxPowerPC to LinuxIntel running standard unix apps. On average the powerpc is about %25 faster then a similiar p3 at the same megahertz.
Now lets do a comparison:
q.) Who was the first to market a.) PC
q.) But who was the first to use a gui and mouse? a.) Apple
q.)Who was the first to use a 1.2 diskette? a.) apple
q.) Who was the first to include a preemptive multitaksing capable processor with advanced memory managment support? a.) apple
q.) Who was the first to include a risc processor? a.) apple and intell is not finished with the IA64 yet to comepte on newer chip designs
q.)Who was the first to include nic cards on all machines a.) apple
q.) who was the first to use scsi? a.) apple
q.) Who was the first to support USB/Firewire? a.) apple
q.)who was the first laptop maker to include a touch pad for mouse movements? a.) apple
Oh, by the way I haven't used a mac in years and I am using WIndows NT4 while I am typing this so I am not a mac zealot!
If PC's will be like Mac in 3-5 years, I'm going back to my Vic-20. "
Well, while apple was the first to include a limited one button mouse, tiny b&w screen, small speaker, my old XT resembled more of your Vic-20 then a modern pc today.
http://saveie6.com/
Ah yes, let's beat that dead horse some more. You must mean stuff like Microsoft Office, the Adobe and Macromedia suites, development tools, Corel Draw, Canvas, Word Perfect, Strata 3d, Netscape, etc. Oh wait, all those DO exist on the Mac.
Are there programs that exist on PC but not Mac? Yes. But please don't pretend you can't get work done on a Mac.
2001-07-04 04:04:15 Mac Cube shelved (articles,apple) (rejected)
Gets re-jected
Another article here
"Never bullshit a bullshitter" All That Jazz
An enormous bolder could roll down and smash their Cupertino offices, destroying all their code, forcing them into bankruptcy and I would get 50 e-mails saying it was "good news for Mac users."
OSX was delayed so many times, it was almost renamed WindowsXP. But every delay was "good news for Mac users."
What's next? iMacs begin exploding on startup- but it's good news for Mac users.
More seriously, though, at least this means they'll be able to make the next iMac more kickass w/ less worries of cannibalizing sales of other models.
The Cube comes in a 450/500MHz version, which is comparable to the G4 Tower... Before the current crop of 466/533/733MHz models were released. The newer models feature 133MHz RAM/bus, gigbit Ethernet, 4x AGP and other slightly enhanced items.
With the pricing the way it was, it made a lot more sense to get a G4 Tower in the latest flavor, and in the end, have room to add in features. I'm planning on using the Mac for video editing, and the prospect of adding drives in a RAID or a video processing card (like the RTMac from Matrox) was all too likely.
The price/performance/expandability of the Cube just couldn't compare to the G4 Tower, and in the end - like others have said, it came down to "style" vs. having a real tool. I still want a Cube. I'd buy one if the price came down a few hundred dollars. I'm sure I can find a use for it even if it's not my primary system.
So, I ended up getting a G4 Tower w/466MHz G4, 256MB RAM, 30GB drive - with the 133MHz bus/RAM, gigabit Ethernet for $1500. A Cube at 450MHz, 64MB RAM, 20GB drive - with a 100MHz bus/RAM and "only" 10/100 Ethernet and a slower AGP slot was $1000-1200. Both have the same ATI Rage Pro AGP video card. For $300 more, the Tower makes a LOT more sense.
Cause my new Toaster seems to crash an awful lot
I was never sure if you should use the cube as a computer or as a foot warmer.
As the proud owner of a G4 Cube, I think your analysis has some flaws. Let's address them:
The cube idea is not new. (nextcube, cobalt servers, etc.)
No, it's not new. However, Apple's is the prettiest, most elegant implementation of the idea that I've ever seen. Dammit, it's just plain cool.
The ONLY innovation on the machine, the ultra-cool touch power button, but unfortunately is susceptible to RF glitching. that sucks!
Innovation? What about the fact that it's totally fanless? What about the fact that it's darn tiny? What about the ceramic wireless antennas that are an integral part of the case? What about the ease of access to the internals? With a single handle, you can pull out the whole core of the machine so that everything's accessible. No screws, no latches, just a handle that you push down (to unlock it) and then pull. Can your computer do that? Oh, and I have no idea what "RF glitching" you're talking about. I've never had any problems.
The main appeal of the machine, it's 'look', was marred by poor manufacturing quality (many of the cubes had visible, highly refractive seams)
Ah, the infamous cracks. My Cube happens to have all of them. You know what? You can't see them. Even when I'm sitting right next to it and staring at it I can't see them. The light has to catch them just right while you're looking really closely. Berating such a minor cosmetic flaw seems like nitpicking in my book. It's still the most beautiful computer I've ever seen.
To have a complete system, you had to have a huge mass of cabling going into a very small opening at the bottom and then steeply angling into the machines ports... just bad design.
Simply not true. I've only got two cables going into my cube. Power with a really slick angled connector, and monitor with a nifty hinged connector for that steep angle. Everything else is internal or daisy-chained off of my monitor. It's definitely a complete system, too. I've got a DVD drive (internal), flat panel monitor (connected to the cube), ethernet (via internal AirPort), speakers (off of the monitor), keyboard (off of the monitor), mouse (MS Intellimouse Explorer off of the keyboard), and a CD-RW (off of the keyboard). If I want to add a printer/webcam/whatever, I just attach a USB hub to the monitor. There's still only two cords going into the cube. Heck, there's not even a power cable for the monitor. The display gets the DVI signal, USB, and power via that single cord.
As for your "improvements", they'd ruin the machine. Adding the power supply and fan would make it larger and noisy. As for the speakers, they rock. Small footprint with great sound. Personally, I think the Cube failed due to overinflated expectations for it. Everybody wanted a superbox and missed the point.
As I write this, I'm sitting at a small uncluttered desk looking at an incredibly vivid LCD screen. The tiny Cube sits off by my right hand, glowing gently. The only sound I hear is the click of the keys and the sound of my own breathing. It's the most serene and transparent computing experience I've ever had. That's why I love my Cube.
This
Perhaps it's time to switch metaphors.
Apple is trying to be Bose. Design for the sake of design, even when it leads to sometimes questionable functionality (think Bose's idiosyncratic sound coloration). Pretends to be high-end, but really people buy it because they like the looks. Meanwhile the rest of the industry has moved on to boom boxes. Never mind the sound quality, they're cheap, you can stuff any kind of media you like into them, and it usually plays OK.
The difference is that, in the computer market, the boom box equivalents have nearly overtaken the high-end stereos, while still managing to retain their cheesy origins.
Get your teeth into a small slice: the cake of liberty
The cube had "microfractures" around where the screws went into the plastic, and they grew to be less-micro over time. I don't think apple ever admitted it, though a lot of people thought there should have been a recall. I've only seen a couple cubes, but the one that used to be on display at my local compusa did indeed have the cracks around the screw holes.
;-)
I also heard that the thing got hotter than fuck, which I know is an issue with some of apple's other machines too (*cough*titanium*cough*).
Oh well. They still make the coolest hardware. And I still want an iBook...
___
___
The way to see by faith is to shut the eye of reason. --Ben Franklin
Maybe Apple realized that they are supposed to be a computer company, not an art company. They have been focusing on the design of the box rather than what is inside, and unfortunately, people loved it with the iMac.
Whenever I see a pre-built computer these days, they always have cases with extra useless decoration and crap on the inside.
Tim
Omnia vestra castrorum habetur nobis.
Apple has always been an innovative system builder with a strong emphasis on design, playing at being Ferrari while the rest of the industry was happy playing at being Ford - the Mac Classic, the 20th Anniversary Mac, the iMac, even today's standard G4's all have design features that have critics and users alike begging for more.
Unfortunately, the Cube also had its share of faults. Its fanless silence, case design and touch sensitive on-off switch were all great but were all problematic - the units overheated often, cases became cracked and the switches sometimes failed. Apple buried its head in the sand over these for a while, but it was inevitable that the writing was on the wall for the Cube, not least of all because of all the negative press that these failures generated.
Will Apple stop being innovative in terms of case design? Not likely while Steve Jobs is still at the helm, and a good thing too. Without the influence of Jobs and Apple we'd probably all be stuck with a CLI. That's not to say that CLIs are a bad thing but Apple bought the GUI to the mass market, and the mass market appeal of an easy to use PC made PCs cheaper for all of us.
"Accept that some days you are the pigeon, and some days you are the statue." - David Brent, Wernham Hogg
I don't know about prices in US. But here in Brazil, G4/TheCube price was prohibited. A wonderfull machine, with a amazing price.
Taiwan importings made PC prices fall down since 1992, and then apple became here no more than a expensive-but-graphically-good computer-house, just like other computer-houses, we call them here griff-machines.
Since i-Mac and brand-new-Dell-factory in south-brazil, the so called grif-machines became accessible to home consumer. But G4/TheCube was too expensive, as I said before prohibited.
I'm sorry about discontinuation, PC are getting more and more beautiful due to Apple's new design. Hope new inovatives designs shows up soon.
-=-=-=-=
I know life isn't fair, but why can't it ever be un-fair in MY favor!?
I myself thought this until the day I borrowed a friend's VAIO and went to a cafe, and a woman sat next to me and said "that's a really sexy machine."
Oh, come on, I obviously wasn't talking about portables. Towers go under the desk, nobody sees them. I rarely even have a cover on mine. A portable goes out in public; it's like a watch or a car. At least a little attention to appearance is called for.
As for the engineering, it would have been vastly more expensive if they had worked out the bugs first. Unlike the NeXT box, they weren't starting from a clean sheet, with the freedom to choose the most reasonable design, they were told to cram a tower into a cute little fanless cube, consequences be damned. The chips were too hot, the hard drive was too hot, and they couldn't afford to design new ones. The NeXT box's unorthodoxy resulted from freedom to create a superior machine (at a higher price), not a command from on high to be superficially weird and different for marketing purposes while using standard components to duplicate standard functionality.
--
Being non-standard for the sake of being different is not good design. These things had a poor cost-performance ratio and upgrade capacity exactly because they were made to be cute. They were unreliable and defect prone exactly because they were unorthodox.
Quite frankly, people who seriously factor the appearance of a computer into their buying choices are idiots. It's like buying a furnace or water-heater for its looks. While idiots might seem like an ideal target market, you have to beat the competition to get to them, and Apple's marketing isn't aggressive enough.
--
I had a Cube for several days. I took it back. Why? The system may be fanless quiet but the hard drive wasn't and the sound of the drive meant I couldn't keep the unit on my desktop. With the new quieter drives Apple is using this year that wouldn't have been a problem.
But because of the length of the USB speaker cable, I couldn't have the unit on the floor and still have the speakers on my desktop. Besides it really is supposed to sit on the desktop.
I would have kept it (most Mac users don't put expansion cards or 2nd drives in their Mac anyway) if only the drive was quiet enough to sit on the desktop. A beautiful machine but some practical aspects just didn't quite mesh.
Look, I love macs (for a lot of reasons). I believe a computer is a tool, and you should use the best tool for the job, and reward the companies making the best tools by using their products..
I mean i really, really like apple... but some of their machines just suck (especially right before jobs came back in)... like the performa line. The 6400x-6500x's are just awful machines, I cant tell you how many problems I've had with them, or how awful it was to install ram in an 8100, 8500, etc.... but when they get it right... the g3's, ibooks, imacs (the first was awful to install ram in, but after that its cake) are just great computers.
But a computer is really a tool... and for the most part, for most users, i really think having a mac is the best way to go. Are there exceptions? Yep... but macs are a great tool for most jobs.
Hardcore gamers: If you just want to play the biggest games out there... no big deal. Quake, Starcraft, tomb raider, unreal, deus ex, etc are all there... and now that they have write combing on the macs the macs can actually outperform pc's. BUT alot of stuff just doesnt get ported, so the PC is the way to go. Is it a nicer experience installing, playing and maintaining your games on your Mac? Yes. But all the niche games are on the pc..
Corporate Use: For a small business, macs are great. The machines last forever, not much maintenance and the major accounting programs are there. Can have problems with with niche credit card software and other certain things, like if you want your mac to use some obscure bar code reading accounting package..
And corporate use... you can get by on a mac generally. Powerpoint, excel, all those are there... but it can be a hassle dealing with network issues, and speciality programs (like visio, etc)..
.
Graphic Design: You can get by on a PC doing this... but the mac just makes your life so much easier in so many ways, it's not worth going into. There is a reason most professionals use the mac for it..
.
Web Design:The mac just rocks. Golive, Dreamweaver, BBEdit, etc... Are there some times when a PC is easier? Yes, if you need to use things like interdev for checking in code, etc. But for actual production, the mac is the way to go..
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Databases:Personal preference really, there is something to be said for getting a mac webstar server up and running with lasso and filemaker pro or something else... secure and stable and quick to setup... but SLOW. It just is boys and girls. A server running PHP and mySQL will run circles around it. BUT it is a good thing MacOS X comes running apache with perl, php and mySQL installed, no?.
For database coding, it is personal preference. You can do perl and php coding easily on the mac, or the pc..
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Vertical Markets if you're a kitchen and bathroom designer or a cabinet shop, or a machining shop... you'll want a pc. Would a mac last longer, be easier to use and learn, and have less problems? Yes. But the software you want doesnt exist on the mac. TrueVision (a kitchen design software, one of the biggest) and others only run on the pc... and virtual PC on the mac wont cut it because you need dongles..
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Home Use:For general use, the mac. It just rocks, doesnt screw up, and is easy to learn. But some people will get annoyed with the fact that certain browser plugins arent there for the mac, and while there are ports of all the IM clients out there, they really dont equal the pc versions..
In closing... the best tool for the job. PC's have their place, and macs do too.