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"When asked about its recent acquisition of Io, the fourth-largest moon of Jupiter, a representative of Apple was quoted as saying: 'Apple buys smaller celestial bodies from time to time, and we generally do not discuss our purpose or plans.'"
 
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At some point, Apple might buy nice properties not to use, but to trade to other companies whose facilities sit on land they want.

For example, Apple wants a(more) piece(s) of property contiguous to its new campus adjacent to the San Jose Airport (SJC), but the current occupant(s) doesn't want to go through the hassle of uprooting operations cause by selling to Apple and moving to essentially a similar space somewhere else. But if Apple buys a nice(er) place and offers it in trade to that/those companies, it may help make a deal happen.
 
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Apple is sure buying up a lot of real estate for a doomed™ company.

Close to my take on this too... seems Apple is up to something big (or several things) with all this real-estate expansion going on. Probably the rumored car project and hopefully some things we haven't heard of yet.
 
Been in that fab. It is a small one, so R&D would be a good use of the plant, but the land on 1st Street would be worth a lot.
That building has a lot of history. It was a research fab for many semiconductor outfits over the past thirty years.

One real interesting thing is it's right next to Samsung's brand spanking new American Headquarters building. Putting the Apple logo in front of that building is a nice thorn in Samsung's butt.

This place could also be a clandestine meeting and technology sharing facility where you don't even have to walk on the sidewalk but enter via a back gate between the lots.

Hoist the Jolly Roger!
In the spirit of the legendary confidential projects done on Bubb Road across 85 from The Loop -- yup, can see that!

Wonder if they still have the Jolly Rodger flying above the Bubb Road buildings these days.
 
Notice that MR posted a Google Street View image of the building and not the Apple Maps Flyover imagery (which is available for this location). Judging by what I'm seeing in Flyover, Apple might want to do some additional construction to fix the exterior of the building because the walls don't appear to be level. Not to mention the strange trees out front.

I'm sorry to beat a dead horse but I just couldn't resist.

Screen Shot 2015-12-15 at 5.26.09 PM.png
 
That building has a lot of history. It was a research fab for many semiconductor outfits over the past thirty years.

One real interesting thing is it's right next to Samsung's brand spanking new American Headquarters building. Putting the Apple logo in front of that building is a nice thorn in Samsung's butt.

This place could also be a clandestine meeting and technology sharing facility where you don't even have to walk on the sidewalk but enter via a back gate between the lots.
Yeah, in the 1990's, the big semiconductor companies found out that it's a lot cheaper to put fabs in places like Oregon, Idaho, Ft. Collins, Colorado Springs, Rio Rancho, Puyallup, Chandler, East Fishkill, Orlando, among others than to keep buying and using land in California. I remember an empty lot off of 1st Street that had this 400 square foot shack on it, and someone sprayed "$350K Fixer Upper" on it back in 1995. I suppose that shack is worth about $1.5 million now.
 
Anyone know if this is a sign that Apple are planning to make their own chipsets from scratch or continue basing them on ARM technology? It'd be a huge blow to ARM if they were planning to go it alone.
 
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