In practical terms, the closest analog Apple makes to the Cube today is the Mac mini, which it’s made in various iterations since 2005, and which has has been a lot more successful than the Cube was - for good reason. It’s much more versatile, genuinely minuscule, and development of wireless peripherals and data connectivity technology has helped, as has the mainstream shift to reasonably-priced flat screen monitors, which were just beginning to gain traction in the desktop world a decade ago - and, as we’ve noted, they were still prohibitively expensive during the Cube’s short time on the market.
The Cube concept was seductive, but it left a fair bit to be desired in practical execution. For me, while I admired my Cube, I soon determined that it wasn’t quite what I needed - not the compact desktop laptop substitute I’d been hoping for, and of course it didn’t have the option of battery power. I ended up swapping it after about six months for a year-old but immaculate Pismo PowerBook. A good decision as it turned out.
