The ‘coolest computer ever’ Steve Jobs made and the reason it flopped – Latest News | Gadgets Now

20 years ago this month, Apple launched a computer called Power Mac G4 Cube. Back then Apple co-founder Steve Jobs told The Wired that “we have made the coolest computer ever”. Jobs said that the Cube was incredibly sturdy, just beautiful and “there has never been anything like that” before calling it “stunning.” The Cube was cool in the sense that it didn’t have a power button and it could switch on by just the wave of a hand. This is how Apple described the computer, “the Power Mac G4 Cube, at less than one fourth the size of most PCs, represented an entirely new class of computer delivering high performance in an eight-inch cube suspended in a stunning crystal-clear enclosure.”

Jobs was supremely confident about the Cube being a success and said that “every designer is going to buy one.” However, a year later after its launch, Apple officially announced that it was putting the Cube “on ice.” In an official press release, Apple said that it had decided to suspend the production of Cube “indefinitely.” The official reason given was this: “Cube owners love their Cubes, but most customers decided to buy our powerful Power Mac G4 minitowers instead.”

The Wired report, however, states that the Cube suffered from multiple issues. For starters, it was really expensive and cost more than three times of the iMac. Apart from the plastic that was used in the Cube had certain flaws as well. There were cooling problems as well and overheating issues with the Cube. Jobs was confident that the Cube will sell millions of units but Apple reportedly sold just 150,000 units of it. Jobs soon realised that the Cube wasn’t going to be a success and in just under a year, he and Apple decided to confine “the coolest computer ever” to the history books.

Apple CEO Tim Cook, in 2017, called the Cube “a spectacular commercial failure, from the first day, almost.”