AppleInsider Staff
Not too far from Apple's Campus 2 project, a temporary structure is rising for the company's September 9 event, and new aerial shots captured by an amateur photographer using a flying camera drone offer a closer look at the mysterious white box that has generated considerable buzz.
Apple's white box
The large white structure is being erected next to the Flint Center for the Performing Arts, on a square within the De Anza College campus in Cupertino, Calif., which is located just 1.5 miles from Apple's Infinite Loop headquarters (or nearly equidistant from Campus 2). The included photos and video were captured by a DJI Phantom 2 Vision+ drone, offering a unique perspective on the mystery building.
Apple's 3D Flyover in Maps depicts the site as usually being bare pavement encircling two patches of grass and a central fountain.
Overhead images (below) reveal that the fountain is still exposed in the rear, while the front courtyard area is enclosed in a large, ventilated temporary structure.
Many have speculated that Apple built the structure as hands-on venue where event attendees will be able to inspect the new products it releases, which are expected to include iPhone 6 and, according to rumors, a new wearable product category.
Building large temporary structures is common among large companies hosting major events. Oracle pays to build a large pavilion used to feed attendees of OracleWorld in the middle of a major downtown street in San Francisco, an effort that requires repainting lane markers and redirecting traffic.
Google similarly attempted to build a large temporary structure to showcase Glass via a floating barge, but because the project ran afoul of environmental and planning regulations, the company was forced to tow its barge out of the San Francisco Bay and to the remote outpost of Stockton, where the structure is being dismantled. Other barges in the program were also scuttled without ever being used.
Back to Flint Center
Apple hasn't used the Cupertino Flint Center venue for introducing new products since the late 1990s. The space is notable in Apple's history for serving as the first public introduction of the Macintosh in 1984.
The Flint Center auditorium has the capacity for seating nearly 3,000 people, compared to the smaller Yerba Buena Center for the Arts Theater in San Francisco, which seats only 755 but has served as the venue for unveiling iPods and iPads in the past.
Last fall, Apple presented its new 64-bit A7, iPhone 5s and iPhone 5c at an event in its own theater at the company's Infinite Loop headquarters. It then followed up with an event for new iPads and Macs at Yerba Buena.
This May, Apple's iTunes head Eddy Cue remarked "later this year, we've got the best product pipeline I've seen in my 25 years at Apple," adding, "I believe the products we've got coming are great."
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104 Comments
It's probably covering Thor's Hammer!
Apple showing up Google: This is how you do barges! (First and foremost, you build them on land.)
Posted this on another thread: [quote name="Dick Applebaum" url="/t/182088/apples-iphone-based-augmented-reality-navigation-concept-has-x-ray-vision-features#post_2589281"]Ha! Here's a drone image of Flint Center and the mystery building: [IMG ALT=""]http://forums.appleinsider.com/content/type/61/id/48053/width/500/height/1000[/IMG] http://************/2014/09/04/drones-eye-view-of-flint-center-highlights-the-mysterious-structure-apple-is-building-next-to-theater-venue/#more-339098 AI is still screwing with [I] nineto5mac.com [/I] urls -- just substitute [I] nineto5mac.com [/I] (with digits replacing nine and 5) for the asterisks ... Maybe for something like this: [VIDEO]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akS3iFt9VvA[/VIDEO] [B][U]Benjamin Twine[/U][/B] Let me tell you about my best friend Well he's got hair down to his knees He gets along fine doing just how he please And I believe that we first met Around three years ago Well it feels like a lifetime funny how fast it goes And I remember how this one time Well I stole his sister's car And he didn't even mind no he jumped in for the ride We'd got miles away from anywhere When the panic soon kicked in We'd got it back safe and sound no one asked us where we'd been Ohh Oh Oh Ohh Oh Oh Let me tell you why his sister Why she didn't second guess She was going out of line, putting on her favorite dress And oh by God she knows she's worth it Any boy would tell you so Well a girl like that is worth her own weight in gold Ohh Oh Oh Ohh Oh Oh Now I made a promise to myself once That I would wake up by her side My best friend said that that would be the day I died Ohh Oh Oh Ohh Oh Oh Ohh Oh Oh Ohh Oh Oh Ohh Oh Oh Ohh Oh Oh Ohh Oh Oh Ohh Oh Oh[/quote]
Assuming its not just some monster stage, my guess would be homekit hardware demonstrations with house-of-the-future rooms. Not sure why else they would need something so large.
1) Even the tops of this temporary structure looks very Apple-ish. 2) It looks like we have three main buildings for the attendees and then what looks like two auxiliary buildings that perhaps are for unloading and setting up of whatever they are putting in the other buildings. 3) I love that AI is doing their own videos but that music is awful. [QUOTE=Dick Applebaum"]http://************/2014/09/04/drones-eye-view-of-flint-center-highlights-the-mysterious-structure-apple-is-building-next-to-theater-venue/#more-339098 AI is still screwing with nineto5mac.com urls -- just substitute nineto5mac.com (with digits replacing nine and 5) for the asterisks ...[/QUOTE] I discovered a solution you can use. Convert any character in the [U]to5mac.com[/U] string to its hex value to trick Huddler. This will be seen by a browser as acceptable code. I like switching the (.) period to %2e but any character will do, save for the number 9 because the hex value is %39 which Huddler will then remove since the %39 joins with the to5mac.com string. e.g.: http://9to5mac%2ecom/2014/09/04/drones-eye-view-of-flint-center-highlights-the-mysterious-structure-apple-is-building-next-to-theater-venue/#more-339098 [quote name="dugbug" url="/t/182092/exclusive-aerial-footage-of-apples-mysterious-white-box-next-to-iphone-6-event-site#post_2589310"]Assuming its not just some monster stage, my guess would be homekit hardware demonstrations with house-of-the-future rooms. Not sure why else they would need something so large.[/quote] A stage for music just seems weird to me. I don't see any reason, even if this was an iTunes-based event, for Apple to spend this much time and effort to either have one song or host a concert after a major Apple event. Plus, there would be no reason to cover it up if it was just for a band.