The G4 Cube: “Holy Shit, Steve’s done it again!”
Introduced at the July 2000 Macworld Expo, there is little denying that the G4 Cube was one of the coolest looking Apple products ever made (well, the ones without the stress fractures at least). But I thought this promotional video for the Cube was interesting for a couple reasons. First, there is an almost comically liberal use of the term “Super Computer” here. I mean, I love the Cube as much as anyone, but who did Apple think was buying that spin? The way they throw around “Giga-flops” you would have thought Cube sales would have set records based on orders from NASA alone.
But the really unique thing here comes at the very end of the video when Lee Glow (from TBWA/Chiat/Day) drops the “S-Bomb”, the only curse I can recall hearing in an Apple-sanctioned video.
Other things to watch out for:
• Watch how often the first guy (Lee Glow) blinks (was he lying?).
• Watch how little the second guy blinks (is he lying?).
• Notice how Hiroki Asai steals Steve’s trademarked “Boom“.
• DVDs apparently rise up “just like magic” at the top of the Cube (not like a toaster, despite what you might think)
• Apparently an 8-year old can install RAM in the Cube in about 15 seconds.
• WTF does Lee’s story about his 1st grade boat painting have to do with the Cube?
I still own a cube. I dropped about £2k on it when it came out, and everyone I showed it to couldn’t believe that it was a computer.
My brother and I used to run Photoshop and Final Cut on it, and it took about 2 days to render anything!
Its still going strong though. I recently upgraded to a much faster HDD and put the full 1.5gb of PC100 RAM in it! Its now at my parents house though, they used it just as a web browser, photo and email machine and personally, I dont think its all that slow!
Probably my favourite Apple design ever.
Technically, according to US Commerce Department rules, any G4 qualified as a “Supercomputer,” and was banned from export to certain countries (including China, ironically). This was true as late as 2003, when I bought a PowerBook G4. I think the formulation has been changed, but back in 2000, the G4 was a monster. And if you recall, the University of West Virginia created the 2nd (3rd?) fastest computer in the world in 2003/04 by clustering a bunch of G4 Macs.
Wouldn’t it be cool if today’s (2/27) big Apple announcement was the resurrection of the Cube? In aluminum this time. I don’t see it repacing yhe PowerMac – lacks expansion and customization – but it might actually make the mini a successful platform.
Construction flaws aside, this is the last great design effort Apple put out. Everything since then has been sterile and, quite frankly, plain in my mind. The Cube will always be one of the great gadget designs ever.
Actually, the U of WV supercomputer, Big Mac, was made of G5s, not G4s.
does apple still make videos like these? the last one i think i saw was for the introduction of the PowerMac G5… now all we get are those apple geniuses touting their iPhone multi-touch capabilities with their black turtlenecks.
I thought they started with G4s and upgraded. But then, it’s actually VaTech, so what do I know?