Follow Up--Yesterday's G4 Cube Editorial

We received a fair amount of mail that was heavier on yeas than nays. Several pointed out two other selling points that I embarrassingly overlooked, i.e. portability and quietness. The latter is particularly important to the executive desk upon which I think many will sit. Other "yeas" pointed out that many people other than executives will buy the G4 Cube for all the reasons we mentioned. I am sure that is true. Dana Baggett reminded me that the original Mac was intended to be for "...the rest of us..." and not techies and that the Cube fits this vision. Maybe bosses will finally once again feel compelled to wrest control of their own desk from the tyranny of the CIO. One reader, a designer, thanked me for highlighting that the Cube is functional art. I think that is true of all of Apple's products today but the Cube is the current epitome of Apple's vision of being at the junction of art and technology.

The "nays" mostly compared the Cube on a straight power/feature/value basis to a Power Mac non-cube G4, either not agreeing with my point or missing my point that the Cube is a different product line and should mostly appeal to a different group of people from those needing or attracted to a Power Mac non-cube G4. For example, "Not expandable and more expensive than the G4. I have to buy an adapter to use my monitor. What the hell were they thinking?" Actually, the Cube has a regular VGA port but it will need an L-shaped adapter to use an older Apple monitor--maybe the cube will come with one.

Here's the Newsweek interview with Steve Jobs on the G4 Cube, "...a brain in a beaker...."