Apple's G4 Cube: beautiful, silent — and discontinued within a year

The Power Mac G4 Cube launched in July 2000 as Apple's design statement: a clear plastic cube housing a G4 chip, completely silent, with no fan and no expansion. It sat between the iMac and the Power Mac tower, starting at $1,799. Reviews praised the industrial design, but the price drew comparisons to a full tower that offered far more for the money.

Sales never matched the ambition. Apple sold roughly 12,000 cubes in the first quarter — not enough to cover the tooling and marketing. The sealed case meant no second drive bay and limited memory, and the silent cooling that was the cube's signature also capped its performance. Customers who wanted power bought the tower; customers who wanted value bought the iMac; the cube fell between.

In July 2001, a year after launch, Apple announced an indefinite halt to production. The line's lifetime revenue reached about $212 million, roughly 5% of Apple's total, against an estimated $247 million operating loss. Philip Schiller said the cube had been created for a specific audience that turned out to be smaller than expected — Apple chose to stop rather than discount.