I just love how MacNN cites commentary and articles in their own sister website.

But the ONLY problem anyone had with the cube was the price (or, if you want, the price vs. options ratio). If it were sold for $1000-$1200 rather then $1700, it would have sold a ton more.

Electronista reports...That's always an eyeroller for me. That's like Fox TV only reporting Fox News content. Somehow, it's less believable!

Exactly. Price, and nothing else, killed the cube.

Apple made a "small" miscalculation. The miscalculation that people would pay more because it was smaller :)

Oops

It wouldn't be the first time though. Remember the 20th anniversary mac?

I hope they don't make those mistakes again.

There is a definite market now for a small, expandable, tower-like enclosure in apple's product line. This will probably surface when we least expect it to, since there are PC versions out there now. Imagine a C2D iMac like box configurable slots and graphic card and add your own display, keyboard and mouse, sort of a grown up Mac mini or a MacMaxi, if you will. Socketed motherboard would be nice for updating and choice of enclosure material, as well

Apple made a "small" miscalculation. The miscalculation that people would pay more because it was smaller :)

Oops

It wouldn't be the first time though. Remember the 20th anniversary mac?

Well, that was different. They thought people would spend 3x the money for a cool looking, futuristic computer to celebrate Apple's 20th anniversary ($7500 for a computer? Are you kidding me????? They set it up for you though). It wasn't about small as much as the cool factor.

But still the same mistake. As opposed to a lot of their other mistakes (1000 different Performa 6000 models??? The Performa itself??? The eMate? The MacTV? Oh, I really don't want to go on....)

The 20th Anniversary model was never intended to be anything other than a design showpiece, sort of like a Detroit show car. (I worked for several years with the husband of one of the system designers.)

Meanwhile, about a year ago, I picked up a 20th Anniversary Mac, free, from an engineer at work. I think it had originally been bought for competitive analysis.

A bit of cleanup, installing OS and applications, and it went to a local family that can't afford anything close to a modern computer.

Works great, and they do like the Bose sound system that's built in to the system.

---you want a new " Cube " ?

Put a three inch clear Lexan pedestal under your Mac Mini

When the Mini first came out, I thought that Apple had done just that ...reinvented the Cube. And this time around they got the price right.

It was certainly the price that prevented me from getting a Cube, but I recall that after it had been out a month or two there were a lot of complaints about hairline cracks appearing in the case, especially in the corners. While the price was Apple's biggest mistake, I think the cracks scared off the hard-core design fans who could afford a Cube.

I'm eye-to-eye with dewd on this one (btw, that's my favourite saying from the 'get a Mac' commercials) - look at the Mac Mini and there's your new Cube. Just smaller. Even smaller.

If they want to make it a REAL cube again, they have to make it twice as high. The basis for one side of the cube will always be the diameter of a CD/DVD, as you can hardly go smaller than that without dropping the optical drive.

So, there. Maybe this patent covers some idea they have for a future Mini revision. For some strange reason MacNN and many of the zealots seem to think "Patent filed = actual product just around the corner". Most of the time Apple (and other companies) just patent stuff to put a tab on their ideas, whether that's gonna lead to some actual product or not.