Apple Classics
The Power Mac G4 Cube
At 25.4cm tall, the G4 Cube was only 3mm taller than the new Mac Pro – it was the original tiny powerhouse
Often, you’ll see the Power Mac G4 Cube referred to as the pre-cursor of the Mac mini – a smaller, screenless Mac, less flexible than its counterparts, but impeccably designed. But anyone who’s taken an interest into just how Apple build computers into such small spaces will know that the new Mac Pro owes it a huge design debt, too.
Standing just 25.4cm tall, the G4 Cube was only 3mm taller than the new Mac Pro – it really was the original tiny powerhouse. Like its bigger Power Mac sibling, the Cube had a G4 processor, and the actual computer sat in the grey metal cube section which was just 18cm on each side with a clear acrylic casing surrounding it. In a reverse of how the new Mac Pro’s case slides off its core like Darth Vader’s helmet, removing the Cube from its case meant flipping it over, grabbing a hidden handle, and gently sliding its core out from the thin metal shell under the clear case – you felt a bit like Jack Bauer taking apart a nuclear bomb in 24.
Inside, both the Mac Pro and the Cube share the concept of a ‘thermal core’ – Apple made a very big deal out of the Mac Pro’s turbine-like fans and massive heatsink, stretching from the very top of the machine to the bottom, surrounded by components. The G4 Cube was the same, but with a key difference: it was entirely passive cooling. There were no fans nor moving parts, so it relied on convection alone to clear out the heat, which caused overheating problems in some units. But it was silent. It was barely there. It made even the ludicrously quiet new Mac Pro seem like a horrible, gauche, noisy beast.
Well, okay, the hard drive and optical drive made noise, so maybe we’re romanticising too far there. But it really was the template for the Mac Pro – it’s just that, 13 years later, Apple was able to bring Jony Ive’s vision to life – though admittedly with the same sense of ‘It costs how much!?’