July 3, 2001: on this day, Apple suspends production of its Power Mac G4 Cube, which became the first major failure since the return of Steve Jobs to the company.
The Power Mac G4 Cube was an attempt to redesign Apple. Since Jobs’s return to Cupertino, the colorful and cutting-edge iMac G3 and iBook G3 have fulfilled their mission and captured the attention of users, making Apple computers stand out from the rest.
But Jony Ive aimed to create a new design for Apple, offering an austere, sleek, quasi-industrial aesthetic that continues today. Jobs also had a strong liking for this cube-shaped computer, from his time on the NeXTcube outside of Apple.
Transparent cube built for speed
No one denied that, made in the form of a cube of transparent plastic, Power Mac G4 Cube looked amazing. Its cooling system worked almost inaudibly on air convection, and the power was turned on with a touch button.
Performance-wise, the Power Mac G4 Cube was simply brilliant with a 450MHz G4 chip, 64MB of memory, and a 20GB hard drive in the base model for $1,799. A more expensive exclusive variant with a more powerful processor and more memory cost $2299. But there was no monitor included.
Although Jobs called it the coolest computer ever, Apple sold about 150,000 units—only a third of what the company had planned. In addition, the incredible design had its drawbacks, and when customers began to report microcracks appearing on the transparent plastic case of the G4 Cube, Apple’s image was dealt a crushing blow.
Apple’s July 3, 2001 press release stated that the G4 Cube would be put on hold.
A couple of months later, Apple introduced a new product called the iPod.
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