Apple has suspended production of its radically designed Power Mac Cube computer, just under a year after launching it alongside its brightly coloured iMac range.
The Cube drew critical praise for its design but failed to convince the buying public to take it home. Sales of the eight-inch Cube had been three times lower than Apple expected, despite packing the power of a business class Mac into a simple, well-formed space.
After seeing sales of nearly 30,000 Cubes between October and December, the company managed to sell only 12,000 of the computers between January and March.
Yesterday Apple said that there is a small chance it will reintroduce an upgraded model of the Cube - which the company had billed as a "moviemaker, digital jukebox, game player, and internet surfer" - but there are no immediate plans to do so.
"Cube owners love their Cubes, but most customers decided to buy our powerful Power Mac G4 minitowers instead," said Philip Schiller, AppleÕs vice president of worldwide product marketing.
Sales of the more popular iMac desktop PCs have also slowed over the last year, although Apple returned to profitability in the last quarter, on the strength of its notebook offerings.
The company said it will continue to provide support for those who have bought a Cube.
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