Mike Peterson
Apple Park looks like a ghost town in new drone footage due to recent coronavirus-related work-from-home policies and government mandated stay-at-home orders.
In early March, Apple began to encourage employees to work from home whenever possible in an effort to curb the spread of the coronavirus. Since then, government shelter-in-place orders — both at the local and state levels — appear to have essentially shut down Apple Park.
Footage shot by drone pilot Duncan Sinfield and posted to YouTube shows the visible and eerie effects of those mandates. The massive Apple Park campus appears abandoned as all non-essential employees remain at home in the San Francisco Bay Area.
It's likely that there are still employees on the premises, however, since California's statewide stay-at-home order exempts people in critical roles such as database administrators or IT personnel.
The video also clearly shows off the Jony Ive-designed, rainbow-colored stage that was constructed to be part of Apple Park's formal opening event in May 2019.
Aside from this most recent video, Sinfield has a large library of Apple Park drone flyovers on his YouTube channel, including many clips tracking Apple Park's construction that depict the campus as similarly empty.
Andrew Orr
Marko Zivkovic
Christine McKee
Malcolm Owen
Amber Neely
4 Comments
I had incorrectly assumed that the rainbow structure was a temporary.
Im happy they decided to go with the Rainbow...and not a 50 meter inflatable statue of Oprah.
I would give my left nut to see Tim Cook doing solo karaoke under the rainbow as the drone flies over...
That structure is utterly amazing. I think even Frank Lloyd Wright would be humbled by the majesty, scale, and coherency of the design that was seeded from the brilliant mind of Steve Jobs. I’d love to get a tour of the inside of the ring, i.e., beyond just the visitor’s center.