[suhail]

The Cube is made out of circuit layers, and all the layers are connected together.

It would have been more encouraging to buy a Cube if the different layers were removable for upgrade. Example, when FireWire-2 comes out, I should be able to pull out the layer that holds the old FireWire and replace it with the new one. Even the layer that holds the CPU should be replaceable.

This way, many people will have a good reason to buy a Cube without the PCI slots.
I personally wouldn't need PCI slots if the Cube layers were upgradeable.

Here is a diagram:

I think the cube would sell better if it had a thinner profit margin layer.

Listening, Apple? Volume=$$$$.



------------------

[iPaul UK]

Phaedrus: I'll second that!

How many more Cubes would Apple sell if they doubled the RAM and price the cube at $1499?

[suhail]

Yeh, we all know the Cube should be about $300.- cheaper and all the G4 line should at least come with 128MB RAM.

But still the Cube is not upgradeable and you can't trade it in. When it becomes old, its time for eBay. Or even when FireWire-II or USB-II comes out, you can't have them.

One of the biggest reasons for Apple's slow sales, apart from prices, is the fact that there are too many used Macs in the market. You know, from people buying a G4 to replace their BW G3s.

If Apple had a trade in plan, where they'd take the old G3s off the market, for say $700, less people would buy used and more people would buy new. Especially with the knowledge that they can trade up.

In my original topic, is one example of Apple's restriction on upgradability. It would have not been hard for Apple to make the Cube upgradeable. Especially when the Cube is already made out of portions that could have been made removable, at least for a third-party to upgrade. See now when this Cube goes back in the market as used, Apple loses a sale, but if it was upgradeable or tradeable, they would at least make money, and both customers would be happy.

Happy customers, encorage friends to buy. Schools like to upgrade, especially to trade-in when the time comes. Gateway has good trade-in programs, that's why most Schools and Colleges around here use Gateway.

If Apple told Schools "You can buy iMacs now for a little more money than the PC market, but when the time comes, we'll just pull out your old motherboard and plug in a new one, no need to move monitors, CPUs, and networks. And you get the quality and ease of use of Apples."

If the cube were priced at $1300, I might have bought one. But with last year's powermac G4 400s selling for $1300 at outpost.com, you would have to be insane to buy a cube. For the price of a new cube, you can get a G4 450 tower with more RAM. It doesn't help Apple that their new G4s are the same speed as the old. If last year's G4s are 400-500, and this years are 400-500, then why not buy last year's models and save hundreds of dollars? As a direct result of Apple's failure to increase performance, their old hardware is cannibalizing sales of their new hardware.

Originally posted by suhail:
The Cube is made out of circuit layers, and all the layers are connected together.

It would have been more encouraging to buy a Cube if the different layers were removable for upgrade. Example, when FireWire-2 comes out, I should be able to pull out the layer that holds the old FireWire and replace it with the new one. Even the layer that holds the CPU should be replaceable.

This way, many people will have a good reason to buy a Cube without the PCI slots.
I personally wouldn't need PCI slots if the Cube layers were upgradeable.

Here is a diagram:

Why the heck did apple waste so much energy in developing the Cube? It's a very cool product but it serves who? No PCI slots, minimal expansion, high price. Who needs its. I don't know anyone who owns/wants to pay for one. Now apple announces a profit warning and it's stock goes in the toilet. Come on Apple focus on the core!!!!!! We need good consumer machines, good professional machines and a reasonable price tag.

[imacman11]

The Cube is basically the iMac of the G4s.
Enough said.

[MiniMan]

Originally posted by [email protected]:
Why the heck did apple waste so much energy in developing the Cube? It's a very cool product but it serves who? No PCI slots, minimal expansion, high price. Who needs its. I don't know anyone who owns/wants to pay for one. Now apple announces a profit warning and it's stock goes in the toilet. Come on Apple focus on the core!!!!!! We need good consumer machines, good professional machines and a reasonable price tag.

I think that says more about who _you_ know that it says about Apple... I know 5 people who've bought one in the last month....
Yes, Apple needs consumer machines and pro machines, but that doens't mean the Cube can't meet one or more of these roles.
The Cube will come down in price, the sales will go up - these things always happen with computer hardware... As for expansion, what do you need that can't be attached via Firewire, USB or Ethernet..??

Originally posted by [email protected]:
Why the heck did apple waste so much energy in developing the Cube? It's a very cool product but it serves who? No PCI slots, minimal expansion, high price. Who needs its. I don't know anyone who owns/wants to pay for one. Now apple announces a profit warning and it's stock goes in the toilet. Come on Apple focus on the core!!!!!! We need good consumer machines, good professional machines and a reasonable price tag.

Well... it serves me. I live in a dorm here at Northeastern University. I really don't have room for a full sized tower, so the size is great. I don't need expandibility (I own a FireWire PB, which has worked out great... I just need a desktop for internet server applications among other things). I can leave it on 24/7, despite the fact it will be right next to my bed, becuase it has no fan. And... now thanks to the $300 rebate it is right along the lines of what I'd expect to pay.

Bottom line is... Apple should sell products that range the whole gamut, in price and performance. Adding to the "product grid" is great, offering more choice. If you want a cheap computer, buy a $799 iMac. If you want the best performance, spend a bunch more and get a Dual-G4. If you right in the middle... you can now buy the Cube.

I would not have bought the Cube before the rebate, thanks Apple. This solves my other problem... now I don't have to figure out how to get my 21" monitor from home to fit on this tiny desk NU gave me

[CyberDave]

Originally posted by Mac Boy:
Well... it serves me. I live in a dorm here at Northeastern University. I really don't have room for a full sized tower, so the size is great. I don't need expandibility (I own a FireWire PB, which has worked out great... I just need a desktop for internet server applications among other things). I can leave it on 24/7, despite the fact it will be right next to my bed, becuase it has no fan. And... now thanks to the $300 rebate it is right along the lines of what I'd expect to pay.

Bottom line is... Apple should sell products that range the whole gamut, in price and performance. Adding to the "product grid" is great, offering more choice. If you want a cheap computer, buy a $799 iMac. If you want the best performance, spend a bunch more and get a Dual-G4. If you right in the middle... you can now buy the Cube.

I would not have bought the Cube before the rebate, thanks Apple. This solves my other problem... now I don't have to figure out how to get my 21" monitor from home to fit on this tiny desk NU gave me

Since you mentioned that you live in a dorm at Northwestern University, I assume that you are a student there as well. I feel obliged to mention that the $300 rebate on a Cube/monitor purchase DOES NOT apply to sales made at educational resellers or or the Apple Store for Education. But when you can get a Cube plus Apple 17" for $2000 educationally priced that still beats real-world prices, the point is somewhat moot. Though another $300 off would have been sweet. (I work at a campus bookstore and we had started making an ad for the rebate before we learned that the rebate does not apply to us.) On a side note, we have only sold one G4 Cube (+ the 15" flat) in the over two months we've had the Cube on display. Apple seriously needs to rethink the pricing on these things.

Dave Corder

The Cube has been mismarketed, mispriced, and is a little before its time, but it is one hell of a good design. It will be around for a long, long time, and Cube+LCD combos will probably replace the high-end iMacs within 18 months. How many people now paying 1500 for the iMac DV SE would gladly pay $1800 for a G3-500 equipped Cube plus 15" LCD? A lot. Apple just miscalculated the initial launch, that's all... a marketing blunder, not a technological or design mistake.

Give it a year or two, and Apple will be selling more Cubes than you can shake a stick at. Just my 2 cents.

[jaguarandi]

Originally posted by helios:
The Cube has been mismarketed, mispriced, and is a little before its time, but it is one hell of a good design.

If you call a design that slowly self-destructs (cracks) over time, sure.

It will be around for a long, long time, and Cube+LCD combos will probably replace the high-end iMacs within 18 months.
How many people now paying 1500 for the iMac DV SE would gladly pay $1800 for a G3-500 equipped Cube plus 15" LCD? A lot.

Unless Apple Drops the price of their 15" Studio Display (which they've only done once in the last 30 months), you're looking at an $800 cube. Price cuts will come in the future, but not that deep.

I like the idea of the Cube eventualy replacing the iMac, though. A Cube and a flat-panel display take up less room than an iMac (and weigh less to boot). A 'low end' Cube like you descibed could put the iMac out of business, but would make more sense in the long run (as one of the number-one complaints about the iMac is the small monitor).

One thing that would be killer is a Cube with interchangable color panels. People don't have to wait for a specific color - they could just slide in whatever color they wanted. Moving the Cube to a different room? Buy a new $20-$30 set of panels to match the decor!

/e

Originally posted by CyberDave:
[B] Since you mentioned that you live in a dorm at Northwestern University, I assume that you are a student there as well. I feel obliged to mention that the $300 rebate on a Cube/monitor purchase DOES NOT apply to sales made at educational resellers or or the Apple Store for Education./B]

No, that's NorthEASTERN. They're easily confused. I actually was close to not applying here becuase I originaly looked up NorthWESTERN on a college info CD by mistake and thought "this doesn't sound like a school for me." No offense, of course, since I assume you go there.

Yes, I noticed that about the Education Store, so I did not even bother with it. I think it came out to about $40 less with the education discount (when you factor in the rebate for a standard order). Since I had already placed by order minutes before, I didn't bother trying to change it.

Doesn't really matter now... my Cube has been shipped. Apple was right on the money with their 5 day shipping projection, and that was with several build-to-order options (sprung for RAM, Radeon, and AirPort), plus 17" monitor and another AirPort for my Pismo.

I'll be on the lookout for any cracks...

[CyberDave]

Originally posted by Mac Boy:
No, that's NorthEASTERN. They're easily confused. I actually was close to not applying here becuase I originaly looked up NorthWESTERN on a college info CD by mistake and thought "this doesn't sound like a school for me." No offense, of course, since I assume you go there.

Yes, I noticed that about the Education Store, so I did not even bother with it. I think it came out to about $40 less with the education discount (when you factor in the rebate for a standard order). Since I had already placed by order minutes before, I didn't bother trying to change it.

Doesn't really matter now... my Cube has been shipped. Apple was right on the money with their 5 day shipping projection, and that was with several build-to-order options (sprung for RAM, Radeon, and AirPort), plus 17" monitor and another AirPort for my Pismo.

I'll be on the lookout for any cracks...

Oops, my bad. Guess I didn't read the original post carefully enough. Strange how my school has "eastern" in the name and I got messed up...Anyway, I actually go to Eastern Washington University in Cheney, WA and I don't have a clue where Northwestern or Northeastern is. :-) Enjoy your Cube. I certainly enjoy my tricked out spankin' new G4/500 DP. Too bad the dorm Internet access here at EWU sucks. Damn cable modems. There are times when I get faster speeds using my 56k modem and a local ISP than I do with the Ethernet hookup in my dorm room. *grumble grumble grubmle*

My only question is why you bought RAM from Apple? I paid about $250 for 256 MB from Crucial (a division of Micron, about as direct from the manufacturer as you can get) with free overnight shipping as part of a promotion they were running. Apple would want well over $350 to add this amount to my system. Talk about price gouging...$150 to add an additional 64 MB. Good grief.

Dave Corder

[Gregory]

LCD prices are expected to drop 30% in the near future. So new LCDs for $599 (or less) will show up. A G3/500 Cube for $999?

Unless when they create chips they have to have different performance specs and speeds in a batch, I'd just drop all the sub-500 and go with one size fits all: 500 mhz. Make life simple.

My system use to crash once a day, poof! and when I added RAM, found that the Apple RAM once pulled my crashes were also gone. Marginal. Ouch! And I thought poor software, extensions, maybe hardware. NOT. Crucial, TechWorks - but OWC shipped the RAM in a FedEx envelope! Not good idea, good price but.

When style counts. Silence. No noise interference. No background hum. Can you imagine a lab of 100 computers with disk drives and fans and then... silence! And reducted ELF from LCDs and even fans and motors create ELF... x100.

The Cube promo w/ $300 off should have been there on day one to encourage adopting. There was some good press reviews etc - and a lot of questions about price and lack of upgrades. The lack of RADEON and people waiting... thanks to ATI and Steve's reaction. HE may have felt "self-justified rage" and revenge, but it hurt consumers, Apple stock too much more.

Cube should have shipped - esp at price it was - with the RADEON - with 128MB RAM - make it attractive in price as it was in style. Not an "either/or." Not a "trade-off."

Gregory

Originally posted by jaguarandi:
If you call a design that slowly self-destructs (cracks) over time, sure.

Oh puhleeeze... Cut them a little slack why dontcha? Those are just growing pains. The design is outstanding.

Myself, I'd prefer an elliptical cross-section instead of square - but that's nitpicking, and I'm sure they'll get around to that eventually. (Curves are where it's at, long-term. )