A powerful little "everything you need in this cute little box" computer that is attractively priced, reasonably powered and easy to hook to all these digital devices everyone is buying would fly off the shelves.
THAT'S who "needs a cube".
Actually, if Apple wants to move into the enterprise space then they need something like this. Monitors vary based on an individuals job but by-and-large cheap boxes with no expansion work fine. By separating the two, companies keep costs down and flexibility up. That's why I bought 5 cubes/15" studio displays.
The towers are fine, but also overpriced a bit, and desk space is expensive. Furniture to accomodate towers and CRTs would have cost more than the cubes/LCDs. The cubes are fantastic. I wish I could still buy them. They're even pretty easy to administer. Just flip them over and pull them apart.
The fact that they are silent are another key element for an office...
It's not completely realistic or detailed. Or photorealistic. Just a quick isometric thing. Just thinking with the pen tool a little...
Don't get TOO hung up on the color, shading, base, port layout/location, etc. It's just something to give a rough idea.
Imagine all the stuff I outlined earlier: acrylic base/shell, glossy white body, no sharp edges anywhere, tray-loading drive, front-mounted USB, FireWire and headphone connection, ports in back, etc.
thank you mr cates....i like the idea of the apple being the power on button...keeps the front lines cleaner..and a glowing apple would be cool...good start my man, still mr ives will do something to the idea that none of us could have imaged that will rock our socks off...
you have a good mind for this stuff...you should send mr ives a letter asking to be an intern or apprentice...i'm sure he probably only gets a few dozen of those every day....still, apple would be silly not to make a widescreen iBook and would be foolish not to retry a cube design...especially with components getting smaller and cooler
eMac--schools, old people
iMac FP--maybe just because the iMac is soooo connected to apple now...i like the iMac FP, but i think the cube done right and at a good price could take it's place
Cube--single processor and minimal upgrade path--for: consumer, students, businesses, most work areas that are not listed in PM...
PM--two or four processor with lots of upgrapde path directions--for: design studios, 3-d stuff, music and movie studios, high end-high speed stuff (you know who you are), maybe gamers who are insane about the newest stuff
so the PM still keeps 3 lines, the eMac is still bottom, entry level (though the specs are getting quite nice on it) and the iMac and the cube fight it out for the middle ground....
g
give me clear smoked gray or the clear sage green for the cube...white is ok, but the cube should grab you and still be beautiful and subtle...apple should bring back a little color (just no freakin flower power cube or i throw a stick at SJ)
give me clear smoked gray or the clear sage green for the cube...white is ok, but the cube should grab you and still be beautiful and subtle...apple should bring back a little color (just no freakin flower power cube or i throw a stick at SJ)
I still have a B&W laying around so all color is not lost. I do agree that the minimalistic color schemes Apple has been using lately is a bit drab, but I sure do like the products. Asthetically speaking....soon, response time as well.
I am not a big fan of the all-white products. The two lines are clearly defined - white and metal, although I do remember the not-too-distant days of the Ruby, Sage and SE edition iMacs.
The Cube was drab too, color-wise; it could've been a real interesting beastie....with smoked gray shielding....
I think some color will make it's way back into the Apple line soon enough.
Maybe it's just me being a little crazy, but I see shades of the Mac Classic (AIO, 9" screen) in pscates' mockups.
Exactly! pscates' design would make a really fitting case for the rumored 20th Anniversary Mac . Combining the orignal Mac Classic and the Cube...the two ends of Apple's design spectrum!
It's not completely realistic or detailed. Or photorealistic. Just a quick isometric thing. Just thinking with the pen tool a little...
Don't get TOO hung up on the color, shading, base, port layout/location, etc. It's just something to give a rough idea.
Imagine all the stuff I outlined earlier: acrylic base/shell, glossy white body, no sharp edges anywhere, tray-loading drive, front-mounted USB, FireWire and headphone connection, ports in back, etc.
That looks like a heightend iBox. Not that that's a bad thing.
I'd like to see the PM's all go dual/quad and the Cube be a single processor prosumer Mac. Just like what thegelding said.
In fact, I also agree with him on the colors. Subtle, unobtrusive. I'll even join you in thowing things at SJ if he comes out with a flower-power Cube.
OK, but a few changes then. Keep the slot loader and lose the feet, or have very minimal feet. Air should be drawn from front to back by a fan that dominates the entire rear execept for a thin vertical portion where the graphics card exits. Ports should exit at the side in a thin row not unlike that on current iMacs, flush, same color, and neat, not recessed. Some nice slotting on the back and thin vents can recycle the air. A big fan will move more than enough air, while still turning slowly. I say make the chassis out of finned Aluminium and cover it with translusent plastic. Via heat ducts, the CPU AND the PS can use the entire chassis as a giant heat sink -- air will pass between the fins and the platsic outer housing as well as having internal air vented in from the small thin vents all along the base, and out through the rear.
Amorph, Pussycat and Matsu are the holy trinity of bring back the Cube and how it should be done. All three of their thesis should be stapled to Mr. Jobs head. (How did this guy ever make the Mac successful?)
Lemon Bon Bon's statements are sometimes monumental!
I love my Cube and wouldn't trade it for anything I've seen yet from Apple or anybody else.
As far as a Cube Redux, this is a no brainer. Just slap a 970 in it and offer it to all the developers at the WWDC this June. Then at the show formerly known as MWNY, offer it for sale to the public, available on the day of the show.
Dual 970 Powermac's announced to be available in September.
How many do you think they'd sell in three months?
i myself would be happy with ibook finish but i was just talking to a friend (she noticed me on this site and started asking questions on macs).
now she's the kind of person who apple needs to attract as first time user. she's young and doesn't know much about pc's, all she cared about was that she remembered the coloured imacs. she was so disappointed when i told her they no longer made them because she said she'd love one for her room, as she just hates the beige box of a pc they usually are.
and i know if she had the money and the opportunity she might well buy a coloured mac machine. becuase she knows nothing about clock speed, couldn't care less, didn't really want to know, all she wanted was the cool coloured computer.
now thats what they should do. most people don't have much clue on clockspeed etc and the arguement pc died hards have against macs, about them being behind the times (which yeah is true but...) so none of that would stop her buying one.
she just wants a cool computer that goes on the internet and the general stuff, music, dvds, schoolwork.
they'd sell so much better to the first time users.
even my mum commented on the price difference being worth it because they look nice.
and if they too offered a first time buyers solution pack (advertised heavily i add, and not hidden away on the website) with mac os x for dummies or some such similar book plus some other useful things like scanner and printer and maybe low res digital camera/webcam, then people'd buy it. perhaps even throw in a choice of game. or a three game pack to get them going.
this is where apple goes wrong, the new users they want to attract want style and simplicity (as mac's try to advertise as) instead of beige boring and fiddly windows.
and with a bit of good advertising, developement and some special offers, they could make the new cube bigger than the original imac (which is what most pc people i know remember the most).
paul...make a translucent ruby one....have a nice photo of it with a beautiful 20" apple LCD with nice red chili peppers on the screen....then in the ad have under the photo:
Muy Caliente!!
The All New 970 Cube
The Re-Birth of Cool on the outside
With a blazingly fast new chip on the inside
maybe in a second ad you have the ruby and the sage side by side:
caption is:
Red or Green?
this would only probably work here in new mexico were everyone knows the question of red or green relates to red or green chili sauce on your mexician food...
Releasing an affordable ($999-$1499) Cube would be an ideal step for Apple to gain some marketshare, but I think alot of us keep forgetting the business aspect. I think Apple ought to release a Cube for home use and one for business use, both relatively affordable. The Cube for home use can contain the new 970 whereas the Cube for business use is maybe a tad larger (and for a few more pennies) with a slightly different design and is able to house dual 970. I think Apple needs to rekindle their more serious, hard-working computers, just as they have for their PowerBooks. I know they should keep their PowerMac towers with little competiton, but not everyone can afford one of these machines. I think a serious machine between an eMac (or iMac) and the PowerMac should be considered.
I realize the fact that many businesses won't even turn heads with a new product such as this since so many have become dependent on Windows, but if it were to save them a tremendous amount of money in terms of software, tech support, and other issues such as these, then I think it might turn their heads enough to make a risk and go for it.
Releasing an affordable ($999-$1499) Cube would be an ideal step for Apple to gain some marketshare, but I think alot of us keep forgetting the business aspect. I think Apple ought to release a Cube for home use and one for business use, both relatively affordable. The Cube for home use can contain the new 970 whereas the Cube for business use is maybe a tad larger (and for a few more pennies) with a slightly different design and is able to house dual 970. I think Apple needs to rekindle their more serious, hard-working computers, just as they have for their PowerBooks. I know they should keep their PowerMac towers with little competiton, but not everyone can afford one of these machines. I think a serious machine between an eMac (or iMac) and the PowerMac should be considered.
I realize the fact that many businesses won't even turn heads with a new product such as this since so many have become dependent on Windows, but if it were to save them a tremendous amount of money in terms of software, tech support, and other issues such as these, then I think it might turn their heads enough to make a risk and go for it.
Just spilling out ideas here. Flame away.
A Cube for buisness would be better if it were smaller, less powerfull and less expabdable. Most computers in buisnesses do not have external devices, other than a monitor, hooked up to them. The graphics requirements for most buisness applications are modest, as are the memory requirements. If more is needed then the PM is always there.
pscates, that's nice, but a question: how do you access the internals you all are so desperate to upgrade? With a tray-loading drive and ports on the sides, you can't have the removable core.
I wish all of you who demand tray-loaders and PCI slots and 16 different plugs scattered on every side would just buy a tower and leave the Cube alone. Jeez, before the Cube came out everyone screamed that what they really wanted was a headless iMac with a G4, and when the Cube was introduced they said what they really REALLY wanted was an expandable tower in a smaller form factor.
about the tray loading difficulty, couldn't you just have a tray/arm slide out from within. to avoid the core removability you could have a cover that moves out of the way to come out and then cd put on but then retracts so far into the box that it avoids edges, so it can be removed as part of the core inside. and yes i know you don't want to get blinded by the lasers, but it could have a mechanism meaning it moves when opened and slids back somehow when the cd tray/arm retracts back, therefore when retracted cd hole is covered over.
just a thought. don't ask me about the real life mechanics of my idea. in theory it sounds good to me, but i'm no engineer or even a hardware expert.
could it work? might it be a good idea if it did? after all it would get rid of any problems people have about wanting titchy minicd's and yet still mean a removable core.
I had a nicely expandable, removable design posited earlier in the thread, if anyone wants to mock it up. In fact, there are bits and pieces of it in pscates' rendering. I solved (well, handwaved) the problem of making the core accessible with ports on the sides, too.
Comments
Originally posted by pscates
A powerful little "everything you need in this cute little box" computer that is attractively priced, reasonably powered and easy to hook to all these digital devices everyone is buying would fly off the shelves.
THAT'S who "needs a cube".
Actually, if Apple wants to move into the enterprise space then they need something like this. Monitors vary based on an individuals job but by-and-large cheap boxes with no expansion work fine. By separating the two, companies keep costs down and flexibility up. That's why I bought 5 cubes/15" studio displays.
The towers are fine, but also overpriced a bit, and desk space is expensive. Furniture to accomodate towers and CRTs would have cost more than the cubes/LCDs. The cubes are fantastic. I wish I could still buy them. They're even pretty easy to administer. Just flip them over and pull them apart.
The fact that they are silent are another key element for an office...
It's not completely realistic or detailed. Or photorealistic. Just a quick isometric thing. Just thinking with the pen tool a little...
Don't get TOO hung up on the color, shading, base, port layout/location, etc. It's just something to give a rough idea.
Imagine all the stuff I outlined earlier: acrylic base/shell, glossy white body, no sharp edges anywhere, tray-loading drive, front-mounted USB, FireWire and headphone connection, ports in back, etc.
you have a good mind for this stuff...you should send mr ives a letter asking to be an intern or apprentice...i'm sure he probably only gets a few dozen of those every day....still, apple would be silly not to make a widescreen iBook and would be foolish not to retry a cube design...especially with components getting smaller and cooler
eMac--schools, old people
iMac FP--maybe just because the iMac is soooo connected to apple now...i like the iMac FP, but i think the cube done right and at a good price could take it's place
Cube--single processor and minimal upgrade path--for: consumer, students, businesses, most work areas that are not listed in PM...
PM--two or four processor with lots of upgrapde path directions--for: design studios, 3-d stuff, music and movie studios, high end-high speed stuff (you know who you are), maybe gamers who are insane about the newest stuff
so the PM still keeps 3 lines, the eMac is still bottom, entry level (though the specs are getting quite nice on it) and the iMac and the cube fight it out for the middle ground....
g
give me clear smoked gray or the clear sage green for the cube...white is ok, but the cube should grab you and still be beautiful and subtle...apple should bring back a little color (just no freakin flower power cube or i throw a stick at SJ)
Originally posted by thegelding
give me clear smoked gray or the clear sage green for the cube...white is ok, but the cube should grab you and still be beautiful and subtle...apple should bring back a little color (just no freakin flower power cube or i throw a stick at SJ)
I still have a B&W laying around so all color is not lost. I do agree that the minimalistic color schemes Apple has been using lately is a bit drab, but I sure do like the products. Asthetically speaking....soon, response time as well.
I am not a big fan of the all-white products. The two lines are clearly defined - white and metal, although I do remember the not-too-distant days of the Ruby, Sage and SE edition iMacs.
The Cube was drab too, color-wise; it could've been a real interesting beastie....with smoked gray shielding....
I think some color will make it's way back into the Apple line soon enough.
Such a 'back to the future' design would be perfect as the 20th Anniversary Mac. I'd buy one!
Of course, this is coming from someone whose encounter with a Mac Classic and a laser printer in the eighties launched a career in Desktop Publishing.
Originally posted by Frank777
Maybe it's just me being a little crazy, but I see shades of the Mac Classic (AIO, 9" screen) in pscates' mockups.
Exactly! pscates' design would make a really fitting case for the rumored 20th Anniversary Mac . Combining the orignal Mac Classic and the Cube...the two ends of Apple's design spectrum!
Originally posted by pscates
Here, gelding
It's not completely realistic or detailed. Or photorealistic. Just a quick isometric thing. Just thinking with the pen tool a little...
Don't get TOO hung up on the color, shading, base, port layout/location, etc. It's just something to give a rough idea.
Imagine all the stuff I outlined earlier: acrylic base/shell, glossy white body, no sharp edges anywhere, tray-loading drive, front-mounted USB, FireWire and headphone connection, ports in back, etc.
That looks like a heightend iBox. Not that that's a bad thing.
I'd like to see the PM's all go dual/quad and the Cube be a single processor prosumer Mac. Just like what thegelding said.
In fact, I also agree with him on the colors. Subtle, unobtrusive. I'll even join you in thowing things at SJ if he comes out with a flower-power Cube.
Originally posted by Lemon Bon Bon
Amorph, Pussycat and Matsu are the holy trinity of bring back the Cube and how it should be done. All three of their thesis should be stapled to Mr. Jobs head. (How did this guy ever make the Mac successful?)
As far as a Cube Redux, this is a no brainer. Just slap a 970 in it and offer it to all the developers at the WWDC this June. Then at the show formerly known as MWNY, offer it for sale to the public, available on the day of the show.
Dual 970 Powermac's announced to be available in September.
How many do you think they'd sell in three months?
...
g
matsu??? i thought you hated slot loading?
is they MUST do them in a choice of colours.
i myself would be happy with ibook finish but i was just talking to a friend (she noticed me on this site and started asking questions on macs).
now she's the kind of person who apple needs to attract as first time user. she's young and doesn't know much about pc's, all she cared about was that she remembered the coloured imacs. she was so disappointed when i told her they no longer made them because she said she'd love one for her room, as she just hates the beige box of a pc they usually are.
and i know if she had the money and the opportunity she might well buy a coloured mac machine. becuase she knows nothing about clock speed, couldn't care less, didn't really want to know, all she wanted was the cool coloured computer.
now thats what they should do. most people don't have much clue on clockspeed etc and the arguement pc died hards have against macs, about them being behind the times (which yeah is true but...) so none of that would stop her buying one.
she just wants a cool computer that goes on the internet and the general stuff, music, dvds, schoolwork.
they'd sell so much better to the first time users.
even my mum commented on the price difference being worth it because they look nice.
and if they too offered a first time buyers solution pack (advertised heavily i add, and not hidden away on the website) with mac os x for dummies or some such similar book plus some other useful things like scanner and printer and maybe low res digital camera/webcam, then people'd buy it. perhaps even throw in a choice of game. or a three game pack to get them going.
this is where apple goes wrong, the new users they want to attract want style and simplicity (as mac's try to advertise as) instead of beige boring and fiddly windows.
and with a bit of good advertising, developement and some special offers, they could make the new cube bigger than the original imac (which is what most pc people i know remember the most).
Muy Caliente!!
The All New 970 Cube
The Re-Birth of Cool on the outside
With a blazingly fast new chip on the inside
maybe in a second ad you have the ruby and the sage side by side:
caption is:
Red or Green?
this would only probably work here in new mexico were everyone knows the question of red or green relates to red or green chili sauce on your mexician food...
I realize the fact that many businesses won't even turn heads with a new product such as this since so many have become dependent on Windows, but if it were to save them a tremendous amount of money in terms of software, tech support, and other issues such as these, then I think it might turn their heads enough to make a risk and go for it.
Just spilling out ideas here. Flame away.
Originally posted by SoopaDrive
Releasing an affordable ($999-$1499) Cube would be an ideal step for Apple to gain some marketshare, but I think alot of us keep forgetting the business aspect. I think Apple ought to release a Cube for home use and one for business use, both relatively affordable. The Cube for home use can contain the new 970 whereas the Cube for business use is maybe a tad larger (and for a few more pennies) with a slightly different design and is able to house dual 970. I think Apple needs to rekindle their more serious, hard-working computers, just as they have for their PowerBooks. I know they should keep their PowerMac towers with little competiton, but not everyone can afford one of these machines. I think a serious machine between an eMac (or iMac) and the PowerMac should be considered.
I realize the fact that many businesses won't even turn heads with a new product such as this since so many have become dependent on Windows, but if it were to save them a tremendous amount of money in terms of software, tech support, and other issues such as these, then I think it might turn their heads enough to make a risk and go for it.
Just spilling out ideas here. Flame away.
A Cube for buisness would be better if it were smaller, less powerfull and less expabdable. Most computers in buisnesses do not have external devices, other than a monitor, hooked up to them. The graphics requirements for most buisness applications are modest, as are the memory requirements. If more is needed then the PM is always there.
Originally posted by Matsu
Eeek! I meant tray loading.
must...post...after ...matsu
slot loading
however instead of having a whole tray slide out
why not have a very thin arm with a knob? slide out
on which the cd can sit
that way the drive can be oriented in any way
horizontally or vertically
I wish all of you who demand tray-loaders and PCI slots and 16 different plugs scattered on every side would just buy a tower and leave the Cube alone. Jeez, before the Cube came out everyone screamed that what they really wanted was a headless iMac with a G4, and when the Cube was introduced they said what they really REALLY wanted was an expandable tower in a smaller form factor.
just a thought. don't ask me about the real life mechanics of my idea. in theory it sounds good to me, but i'm no engineer or even a hardware expert.
could it work? might it be a good idea if it did? after all it would get rid of any problems people have about wanting titchy minicd's and yet still mean a removable core.