Is it just me, or have the Power Mac Cubes really held their value well or what? I mean they were not cheap to begin with, and even now, it is hard to find a good one under $600. They may not have done well by Apple's standaerd, but they do seem to get top dollar on secondary markets.
--DDTM
Yes cubes hold their value, they are not that easy to find. The only thing worse than someone selling a 450MHz cube for $600+ is the people who buy them to use as a computer (people who buy them for collection i understand) but if you want a new compueter, pay a bit more and get a 1.25GHz emac. All macs retain value longer than the PC. A 5 year old PC will be lucky to sell for more than $50, but a 5 year old B&W G3 can still be sold for $350-400 if it is really nice.
Here's my random thought for the day on Cubes: with the recent proliferation of small, silent or low noise Mini-ITX based PCs for the living room, some in a cube form factor, perhaps the Cube was simply ahead of its time, in the same way the Newton was.
Newton's still hold their own in regards to value as well. A 6 year old newton 2100 can still sell for over 100 dollars or more with nice accessories. Try selling a palm IIIx for over 100 dollars.
The cube's motherboard is, in a way, our equivelent of mini-itx, in that it is the smallest, reasonably modern motherboard we have for hacking projects. I have one that would be in project by now except I've been busy with a house. Collectors, don't be horrified that I would cannibalize it- the exterior isn't in good shape.
The Newton's continued premium prices can be explained by the fact that, while quite slow and useless by todays standards, the Newton 2100 is the best apple PDA ever made; therefore, while shopping for a Mac-native PDA, the pick of the bunch is the 2100. An equivalent Palm or PocketPC(Win CE?) is probably the worst of that line, or at least too old to be considered worth buying, therefore it will not hold any value at all(at least by comparison).
Anyone follow me?
yeah, but I never understood (fully) why Apple left the market and never came back. The iPod is an excellent example of the fact that folks like technology they can put in a pocket. The only thing missing is the core PDA functions and a phone.
--Could it be that they feel any PDA that does not include a phone is not marketable (and given the fact that no two carriers use the same network (almost), the different 'flavors' they would have to provide is not feasable?
--DDTM
im totally in love with my cube, i prefer it to my imac because i have a nice 24inch monitor with the cube
I beleive people have speculated that the reason why Jobs dropped the newton was because he resented it. It wasn't his baby after all, i think it was amielo's or scully's baby. People have said that Jobs just didn't like the fact that something like the newton was incepted without any input from him so he just killed it and ignored the whole issue.
Thats all speculation though, no basis in facts. But to me it kinda makes sense.
I always wanted an emate with the firmware and cpu of the newton 2100. now that would have kicked booty.
jobs had a score to settle with scully who kickd him off the lisa project. so he killed scullys pet project
I have no idea why the Newton was killed off, but I can tell you right now why Apple hasn't returned to the market. Sales of PDAs *suck*.
Jobs has been quoted as saying that Apple *did* in fact produce a PDA recently, but they decided to kill the project before it was released because PDA sales weren't strong enough.
This is backed up by the fact that SONY is pulling out of the US market with their line of PDAs. There won't be any more Clies in the 'States pretty soon because SONY just isn't selling enough.
At the recent D: Digital Festival, Steve Jobs sits for a rare interview.
http://online.wsj.com/article_email/0,,SB108716565680435835-IRjfYNolaV3nZyqaHmHcKmGm4,00.html
Another thing to consider is that only about 150,000 Cubes were sold when Apple discontinued them. So part of the reason they hold their value is due to the age-old market forces known as "supply" and "demand".
Sort of the megalomaniacial version of "Not Invented Here" syndrome.