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Prior to the release of Apple's sales figures last week, I was beginning to develop an unscientific impression that the Cube's fortunes were taking a turn for the better. People were talking and writing appreciatively about the Cube. Even better, more people were talking about buying Cubes. Then the bombshell dropped. Sales down 59% in the quarter, in which a miserable 12,000 units were sold. (compared with 300,000 iMacs and 250,000 G4 Towers). Steve Jobs says there are no plans to discontinue the Cube, and I hope he is being forthright, but it certainly isn't encouraging to see sales figures like this. 
I could understand why the Cube got off to a slow start. Apple miscalculated the price point by rolling it out with a list price $100 higher than the lowest priced G4 tower. Apple never publicly confirmed or explained its marketing target strategy for the Cube, but a broad consensus held that it was aimed at upscale professional types as sort of the functional objects d'art for toney offices. If so, that was a dumb plan. It's hard to imagine that there are enough people who fit that profile to constitute a viable market, and you have to assume that a sizable proportion of those that there are would be business oriented types likely to be influenced by corporate IT departments, and consequently in the Windows camp. That said, I always thought that the storm of criticism over the Cube's price was more than a bit overblown. At the original $1,799 price point for the 450 MHz unit, the Cube was no bargain, but it wasn't just another computer either. The real problem I think, wasn't so much the price of the Cube, but the price of Apple's LCD monitors. It seemed ridiculous to get a tiny, jewel-like Cube and then pair it up with one of the hulking great Apple Studio Display 17 in. CRTs, the latter being the only reasonably priced monitor Apple sells these days. So when you added the price of Apple's cheapest LCD display to the Cube's price, plus a modest RAM upgrade, you were getting mighty close to $3,000 for the base 450 MHz Cube/15 in. LCD display combo, which is serious money for a desktop computer setup these days. However, even though Apple subsequently dropped the price for the low-end Cube to $1,299 and the 15" LCD display to $799, thereby reducing the sticker shock to a more manageable $2,098 for the combo, the sales figures seem to indicate that it didn't help much. Perhaps the reason is that potential customers still perceive the Cube as being premium-priced. There's an old aphorism: "give a dog a name." For example, last week I wrote a short, and somewhat controversial piece comparing Apple's prices to those of Dell PCs. One reader indignantly wrote telling me that it was unfair for me to be comparing the "expensive" Cube to a Dell 8100 tower. Much more appropriate, he counseled, would be to use a G4 Tower for the comparison. The thing is, the Cube is now the lowest-priced modular desktop Mac by a substantial margin. The base Cube, as noted, sells for $1,299. The cheapest G4 Tower is still $1,699. The Cube/15 in. Studio Display combo now actually offers a pretty attractive specification for the money, compared with Apple's current hottest property -- the Titanium PowerBook. Base Cube: $1,299.00 + 15" Studio Display = $2,098
Bundled Software:
Base Titanium PowerBook - $2,599.00
Bundled Software:
In summary, the Cube gives you 50 MHz more clock speed, twice as big a hard drive, two more RAM slots, twice as much video RAM, a set of real Harmon Kardon satellite speakers, two FireWire reports instead of one, and a digital ADC port as well as a VGA port. All this for $501 less than the price of the 400 MHz TiBook. Weight:
Of course, the Cube isn't a PowerBook, and for folks who need or want a laptop computer, the comparison is not terribly relevant, but for those of us who use a PowerBook mainly as a desktop substitute (me for instance), taking a good, hard look at the relative value equation is a worthwhile exercise. And while the Cube isn't really portable, it is luggable, and Willow Design, the Canadian specialist in Mac backpacks and cases, makes a very nice Cube carry case that will accommodate the Cube, its peripherals, and the 15 in. Apple Studio Display. 
This whole rig with case has a combined weight in excess of 30 lbs., so you won't want to be hauling it around to school or business meetings on a regular basis, or carrying it on flights as hand luggage, but it is still a reasonable proposition to take on road trips in a car or as checked luggage. Not something you would really want to do with an iMac or G4 Tower and CRT display combination. So why aren't Cubes selling? Perhaps it's because of the "expensive toy for yuppies" perception. Perhaps it's also because the Cube is a bit of a jack of several trades and master of none. It's fairly powerful, but not suited for really high end work because of its lack of expansion potential. It's sort of portable, but not in the same convenient way that PowerBook is portable. It's not super expensive, but it's not bargain priced like an iMac either. In short, the Cube has an identity crisis, and even people who like it are often inclined to admire and then move along and buy something with a more precise market focus. The irony is that, at least in my estimation, the Cube is the perfect computer for the sort of things that probably the largest proportion of Mac users actually do with computers. I already mentioned the growing cohort who have adopted PowerBooks and iBooks as essentially portable desktop computers. I would also be interested in knowing what proportion of Power Mac Towers actually have any of their open PCI slots filled. I doubt that I'm the only one that has drawn these conclusions, but unfortunately, it seems that while there is a belated surge of interest in the Cube, only a paltry few of us are acting on it. That may be due to a wait-and-see sentiment, in hope that Apple might speed bump the Cube, or drop the price again, or in apprehension that the rumors of the Cube's death may be less exaggerated than Steve Jobs is willing to let on, and that the Cube may be headed for oblivion. Personally, I am still on the fence as to whether my next computer will be a Cube or a TiBook, or possibly the new iBook that may be released next Tuesday. This is partly due to the state of my personal finances, and several other factors not related to the computers themselves, but by fall, and perhaps well before that, and I expect to have a new system, and there's a strong likelihood that it could be a Cube.
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