Mikey Campbell
Exactly one week ahead of Apple's Sept. 12 special event, drone pilot Duncan Sinfield takes to the skies to offer one last look at Apple Park before the company is expected to hold its first ever product unveiling at the campus's Steve Jobs Theater.
Construction is steadily progressing at Apple Park in Cupertino, with landscaping changes being surprisingly noticeable considering Sinfield's latest flyover comes less than two weeks after his last highlight reel hit YouTube late last month.
This week's video shows a nearly complete main "spaceship" structure, with no sign of scaffolding or machinery on the building's exterior. Desks can be seen in some windows, as well as seating in common areas and the central cafeteria. Landscaping work is also nearly finished inside the main ring. It appears contractors have in the last week removed the protective shielding from a small pond that will sit among a grove of local fruit trees in the ring's courtyard.
Standing on a man-made hill near the circular office building is the Steve Jobs Theater, where Apple plans to hold next week's special event. As seen in the clip, construction crews have largely vacated the area, leaving employees to mill in and around the enclosed glass foyer. Inside, underneath the massive carbon fiber canopy, a wide open space is flanked by two curved staircases leading down into the 1,000-seat theater below.
Apple is slated to unveil a slew of new devices at the Steve Jobs Theater next week, including a flagship "iPhone 8," an LTE Apple Watch and fifth-generation Apple TV with 4K HDR capabilities.
AppleInsider will be at Apple Park on Tuesday, Sept. 12, with live coverage of the event.
Marko Zivkovic
Wesley Hilliard
Christine McKee
Malcolm Owen
William Gallagher
Andrew O'Hara
53 Comments
The air quality in California is shit
Considering California is 163,696 sq miles, that's a foolish statement. A geographic location has to be relatively small for its entire area to be "shit." Today Cupertino has a PM of 2.5 and AQI of 54, which only gets it a moderate rating. So far, for 2017, it's never gotten below moderate and has had a Good rating 97.33% of the time.
Now consider that over 50% of CA is protected land and you have a lot nature perseveres cleaning the air than in many other heavily industrialized states. Of course, we have forest fires that will add pollutants in certain areas from time to time, but what do you expect—pave over the entire Sierra Nevadas?
The closer it gets to finalization, the more beautiful it looks from the outside.
Having said that I wonder how this works out inside and in every day life. If it would function as a museum I'd say any day. As offices I'm curious. People are generally messy compared to the cleanliness of the architecture (and sometimes beyond comparison), also psychologically they tend to give their working space a "home"like touch. I'm curious whether this "entropy" has been considered/fits into the concept, or whether Jony will patrol the offices saying "you're using it wrong" to staff daring to put up a picture frame on the desk, or putting a post it up against a wall ;)
I wonder if the above ground area would be a good place for showcasing new products. Events typically start at 10am and so there would be plenty of natural light from 360° shortly after noon to make products in the cases glow. However, these plans only show that as Lobby, not an Exhibition area.
They aren't required to make it one or the other, and it's clearly going to be the primary lobby before the event, but I suspect downstairs may be too. The temporary storage area is probably where the tables or cases with products will be stored and then set up during the show so the media can see it immediately afterwards.
Perhaps controlling the light downstairs is the better option, and taking items up those two elevators may be be cumbersome since they aren't the large service elevators that located behind the stage. In fact, their circle design makes me assume they are glass. Also not the locations of the bathrooms with their dual access from the exhibit space and the auditorium, with what I assume will be an easy method for blocking access back into the exhibit area while not removing sufficient exit points in case of an emergency.