What happened to the Cube?

What happened to the Cube? Most people would agree that:
Too expensive
Not easily upgradeable
No conventional audio in/out
Not enough sales

Basically, Apple mis-judged the market for the Cube.
 
about 2000 $ initially if i remember correctly.
so it was quite alot. it looked nice though :)
 
The other reason it failed was that the PowerMac of the time, with most of the same specifications and features, cost marginally less and was more expandable.
 
kainjow said:
It cost too much. They waited a few years, changed it around, and gave us the mini. :D
Click to expand...
It's a pity though that they lost a few things from the Cube design.

e.g. It was trivial to open up the Cube - no plaster knife required.

Kap
 
There were also tonnes of reported problems with cracks in the acrylic and all kinds of other hardware faults.

Though its relatively low sales have created amongst cube owners a sort of cult-within-a-cult; they're a very close-knit community and are constantly upgrading them and things.

They were also very popular in TV and Movies, because they looked so swanky :)
 
...and many people blamed those hardware issues by inadequate cooling...

People loved that the machine had no CPU fans, but I think their fear of overheating was greater.
 
They're still around in some form. Have a friend who's a die-hard Cubist. Went through a complete upgrade on it, but he's gone through a number of fans that he's had to use to keep it somewhat cool.

And by fans, I mean desk fans.
 
I have two, had three. I've upgraded the CPU, the RAM, the video card, the hard drive, about to upgrade the VRM and probably tap out at 1.6ghz here soon enough. I've changed the case on one to the all-aluminum Powerlogix "supercube" case, but kept the other one in the stock case. And I've added Airport to them all. As well as added superdrives to them.

Not upgradeable?

Yeah, I can't change it to USB2 and Firewire800.

When it came out, it failed big time because it was just too darn expensive. 1.8k to 2.2k for something that was quickly outpaced by it's Powermac brethren.
 
texanpenguin said:
There were also tonnes of reported problems with cracks in the acrylic and all kinds of other hardware faults.
Click to expand...

I understand that their total simetricity resulted in the production line packers inserting them upside-down in their shipping boxes. This lead to a certain number of failures during shipping before they where even sold.
 
aicul said:
I understand that their total simetricity resulted in the production line packers inserting them upside-down in their shipping boxes. This lead to a certain number of failures during shipping before they where even sold.
Click to expand...
Upside-down in a shipping container? Of course, those were destined for Australia! I'm sure they all arrived just fine. I'm not aware of ANY problems that could be caused by a computer shipping upside-down.
 
I personally think that the people the Cube was aimed at, was already well (and better) served by the PowerBook. It had all the expandibility of the Cube (i.e. none unless external) as well as the cool design factor PLUS it came with a screen.

But really the Mac mini shows where the Cube should've been placed: Lower in price.
 
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