5 ms·

I remember when this came out watching the big unveiling and absolutely LOVING it. And then. My god, that price. It was so stupidly expensive it really deserved

I remember when this came out watching the big unveiling and absolutely LOVING it. And then. My god, that price. It was so stupidly expensive it really deserved to fail. I don't understand how they could think that would sell many units. It was a super cool looking, super small, super quiet machine that could've really worked well for many people. From the Wired article: "That didn’t happen. For one thing, the price was prohibitive—by the time you bought the display, it was almost three times the price of an iMac and even more than some PowerMacs. By and large, people don’t spend their art budget on computers."

smnrchrds 6y ago
How much was it?
- weare138 6y ago
  I found the old press release. The base price was $1,799 for the 400Mhz G4 and $2,299 for the 500Mhz. Adjusted for inflation it's equivalent to $2,783 and $3,557 in today's money. https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2000/07/19Apple-Introduces-Revolutionary/ https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2000/07/19Apple-Introduces-Re...
  - puranjay 6y ago
    That's...not as expensive as I had expected. In my country, after taxes, a 16-inch Macbook Pro starts at nearly $3k
    - serf 6y ago
      >In my country, after taxes, a 16-inch Macbook Pro starts at nearly $3k yeah, but the world is now filled with workstation style laptops that can be optioned to 5k+. When the Cube came out it was staggering from a relative personal computer standpoint. (viewed from the lens of HPC, it's all insanely cheap.)
    - weare138 6y ago
      The big issue was how underpowered it was for the price. It was the same price as a good desktop Mac at the time but with all the limitations of the iMac.
      - masswerk 6y ago
        Mind that the iMacs of the time were considerably underpowered G3s with not the best graphics. The Cube was in another league.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- dhosek 6y ago
  It had a base price of $1799. The contemporaneous iMac was $799. Even a G4 Tower had a lower starting price of $1599. There was definitely a design premium on the cube.
JKCalhoun 6y ago
I suppose the irony is that, had it delivered on quality, it might have lived on as a high-end niche machine for Apple. But when the flaws in the acrylic started being reported, it seemed the emperor was not yet ready for his closeup....
ogre_codes 6y ago
I felt the same. I think at the time I was using the (also awesome looking) "Lampshade" iMac which wasn't as fast but wasn't nearly as expensive either. The conceit on the cube was that people would pay a fat premium for a completely silent, nice looking computer. I'd have paid a premium, but not that much. Correction: The Lampshade Mac was a couple years after the cube. Brought much of the good design aspects of the cube with only a moderately eye watering price. I bought mine as a refurb.
- WWLink 6y ago
  The lampshade iMac was my favorite Apple design ever. The only problem - at least with the first ones, was they were TERRIBLE. We bought one for my brother as a birthday gift. It had an 800mhz g4 , a 15" screen, and a 60gb (I think?) 5400rpm(?) hard drive that was so loud I could hear it a mile away (maxtor probably). Sadly stolen. I totally would've kept that computer after he was done with it! It was sooooo cooooool looking!
reaperducer 6y ago
it really deserved to fail Did it "fail?" I'd like to see some sales figures on that, and not just the latter-day revisionist history echo chamber that is the internet these days. I don't understand how they could think that would sell many units. This was during the era when "selling units" wasn't what Apple was trying to achieve. In the time between Steve Jobs' return and Tim Cook taking the helm, Apple was about producing interesting, cutting-edge, quality products for its loyal fanbase. Today, you can measure Apple's success by units sold, because that's how Mr. Cook rolls. But at the time of the Cube, Apple was a different company.
- mcculley 6y ago
  I have only seen a few in person. They all had cracks from the heat.
  - armadsen 6y ago
    I own two of them. Both work perfectly. One has (minor) cracks, the other doesn't. In any case, I don't think the cracks are really from the heat, it's just something about the plastic. They crack in exactly the places you'd expect, mostly around the load bearing screws.
    - mcculley 6y ago
      I may have wrongly assumed heat because we mostly didn't touch them and used them for build servers. It's still hard for me to imagine it was anything other than the heat.
- strictnein 6y ago
  > Did it "fail?" I'd like to see some sales figures on that, and not just the latter-day revisionist history echo chamber that is the internet these days. The sales numbers are in the article. They pulled the plug after one year.
masswerk 6y ago
I got me one with the digital Trinitron CRT (which is, BTW, one of the best CRTs ever, while just at 17", and looks just great in its transparent case) and it was perhaps 12% more expensive than my regular office G4. But for this you got the small footprint (as this was my home machine, this was of some importance), no fan noise and really good speakers, and it was even a bit faster than the standard G4. The only drawback was the rather loud factory fitted HD, but if you wound down the HD (which could be done at that time by the press of a single UI button), it was perfectly silent. I simply don't understand the myth of the prohibitive price. Just check the price lists. [1] BTW, I've it still in my office and it's still running flawlessly on OS X Tiger an System 9.2.2. (At one point, rather early on, the capacitive start button failed and was replaced. Otherwise no issues in two decades.) [1] Edit: Mind that the Cube had a special type of a digital RGB connector for the monitor and worked only with the dedicated CRT and the LCD displays. Both displays weren't exactly cheap and you couldn't just use a cheap 3rd party display as a replacement, which added to the price.
- FabHK 6y ago
  > capacitive start button Yes, that's inaccurate in the article, isn't it? "because it had no On button, a stray wave of your hand would send the machine into action" You didn't "wave your hand", you touched the button. The button wouldn't move, but you did have to press it. (Maybe they changed that from prototype to production? But it definitely wasn't an issue I remember). > I simply don't understand the myth of the prohibitive price. It was pretty expensive at the beginning, but IIRC it came down pretty soon.
  - masswerk 6y ago
    Actually, the button even worked at a distance of a couple of millimeters. I think, the original one was even more sensitive, which was the flaw, as it became too sensitive with time. Think ghostly turning off, while working. The replacement one had none of this issues. As it happens, the monitors had USB connection and an on/off button on the front bezel, which was much more practical than the one on the main unit. Because of this, I (and probably most of the owners) used the one on top of the Cube rarely. This was more a design gack. But yes, it was definitely a button, while an unusual one. > It was pretty expensive at the beginning, but IIRC it came down pretty soon. That might be correct. I didn't buy mine in the very first month. Another slight flaw: the material of the transparent cables which came with the Cube is subject to chemical decay and turned a bit sticky. Interestingly, the process stopped and even reversed somewhat. Ah, polymers, always worth a surprise…

smnrchrds 6y ago

How much was it?

weare138 6y ago
I found the old press release. The base price was $1,799 for the 400Mhz G4 and $2,299 for the 500Mhz. Adjusted for inflation it's equivalent to $2,783 and $3,557 in today's money. https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2000/07/19Apple-Introduces-Revolutionary/ https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2000/07/19Apple-Introduces-Re...
- puranjay 6y ago
  That's...not as expensive as I had expected. In my country, after taxes, a 16-inch Macbook Pro starts at nearly $3k
  - serf 6y ago
    >In my country, after taxes, a 16-inch Macbook Pro starts at nearly $3k yeah, but the world is now filled with workstation style laptops that can be optioned to 5k+. When the Cube came out it was staggering from a relative personal computer standpoint. (viewed from the lens of HPC, it's all insanely cheap.)
  - weare138 6y ago
    The big issue was how underpowered it was for the price. It was the same price as a good desktop Mac at the time but with all the limitations of the iMac.
    - masswerk 6y ago
      Mind that the iMacs of the time were considerably underpowered G3s with not the best graphics. The Cube was in another league.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
dhosek 6y ago
It had a base price of $1799. The contemporaneous iMac was $799. Even a G4 Tower had a lower starting price of $1599. There was definitely a design premium on the cube.

JKCalhoun 6y ago

I suppose the irony is that, had it delivered on quality, it might have lived on as a high-end niche machine for Apple. But when the flaws in the acrylic started being reported, it seemed the emperor was not yet ready for his closeup....

ogre_codes 6y ago

I felt the same. I think at the time I was using the (also awesome looking) "Lampshade" iMac which wasn't as fast but wasn't nearly as expensive either. The conceit on the cube was that people would pay a fat premium for a completely silent, nice looking computer. I'd have paid a premium, but not that much. Correction: The Lampshade Mac was a couple years after the cube. Brought much of the good design aspects of the cube with only a moderately eye watering price. I bought mine as a refurb.

WWLink 6y ago
The lampshade iMac was my favorite Apple design ever. The only problem - at least with the first ones, was they were TERRIBLE. We bought one for my brother as a birthday gift. It had an 800mhz g4 , a 15" screen, and a 60gb (I think?) 5400rpm(?) hard drive that was so loud I could hear it a mile away (maxtor probably). Sadly stolen. I totally would've kept that computer after he was done with it! It was sooooo cooooool looking!

reaperducer 6y ago

it really deserved to fail Did it "fail?" I'd like to see some sales figures on that, and not just the latter-day revisionist history echo chamber that is the internet these days. I don't understand how they could think that would sell many units. This was during the era when "selling units" wasn't what Apple was trying to achieve. In the time between Steve Jobs' return and Tim Cook taking the helm, Apple was about producing interesting, cutting-edge, quality products for its loyal fanbase. Today, you can measure Apple's success by units sold, because that's how Mr. Cook rolls. But at the time of the Cube, Apple was a different company.

mcculley 6y ago
I have only seen a few in person. They all had cracks from the heat.
- armadsen 6y ago
  I own two of them. Both work perfectly. One has (minor) cracks, the other doesn't. In any case, I don't think the cracks are really from the heat, it's just something about the plastic. They crack in exactly the places you'd expect, mostly around the load bearing screws.
  - mcculley 6y ago
    I may have wrongly assumed heat because we mostly didn't touch them and used them for build servers. It's still hard for me to imagine it was anything other than the heat.
strictnein 6y ago
> Did it "fail?" I'd like to see some sales figures on that, and not just the latter-day revisionist history echo chamber that is the internet these days. The sales numbers are in the article. They pulled the plug after one year.

masswerk 6y ago

I got me one with the digital Trinitron CRT (which is, BTW, one of the best CRTs ever, while just at 17", and looks just great in its transparent case) and it was perhaps 12% more expensive than my regular office G4. But for this you got the small footprint (as this was my home machine, this was of some importance), no fan noise and really good speakers, and it was even a bit faster than the standard G4. The only drawback was the rather loud factory fitted HD, but if you wound down the HD (which could be done at that time by the press of a single UI button), it was perfectly silent. I simply don't understand the myth of the prohibitive price. Just check the price lists. [1] BTW, I've it still in my office and it's still running flawlessly on OS X Tiger an System 9.2.2. (At one point, rather early on, the capacitive start button failed and was replaced. Otherwise no issues in two decades.) [1] Edit: Mind that the Cube had a special type of a digital RGB connector for the monitor and worked only with the dedicated CRT and the LCD displays. Both displays weren't exactly cheap and you couldn't just use a cheap 3rd party display as a replacement, which added to the price.

FabHK 6y ago
> capacitive start button Yes, that's inaccurate in the article, isn't it? "because it had no On button, a stray wave of your hand would send the machine into action" You didn't "wave your hand", you touched the button. The button wouldn't move, but you did have to press it. (Maybe they changed that from prototype to production? But it definitely wasn't an issue I remember). > I simply don't understand the myth of the prohibitive price. It was pretty expensive at the beginning, but IIRC it came down pretty soon.
- masswerk 6y ago
  Actually, the button even worked at a distance of a couple of millimeters. I think, the original one was even more sensitive, which was the flaw, as it became too sensitive with time. Think ghostly turning off, while working. The replacement one had none of this issues. As it happens, the monitors had USB connection and an on/off button on the front bezel, which was much more practical than the one on the main unit. Because of this, I (and probably most of the owners) used the one on top of the Cube rarely. This was more a design gack. But yes, it was definitely a button, while an unusual one. > It was pretty expensive at the beginning, but IIRC it came down pretty soon. That might be correct. I didn't buy mine in the very first month. Another slight flaw: the material of the transparent cables which came with the Cube is subject to chemical decay and turned a bit sticky. Interestingly, the process stopped and even reversed somewhat. Ah, polymers, always worth a surprise…