New Photos Offer an Inside Look at Apple Campus 2

[MacRumors]

Apple shared some updated photos and information on its spaceship-shaped second campus with employees, which French site MacGeneration managed to get a hold of. The photos give a detailed view of the exterior building, and give us one of our first glimpses at its interior.

Apple Campus 2 has been in development for more than two years, and is nearing its completion date. We've seen a series of monthly drone videos cataloguing progress at the site, and as of December, much of the main ring-shaped building is finished, with Apple now working on landscaping.

Just recently, Apple installed the glass panels for the atrium of the main building, which will be used as a cafeteria for employees. Along with the cafeteria, there will be vast outdoor eating spaces covered with greenery native to California.

The floor-to-ceiling doors of the atrium are each made from 10 glass pieces and are similar to the giant glass doors that were introduced in Apple's San Francisco Apple Store. The doors open an entire side of the building to let in light and air for an outdoor feel.

To install the doors, Apple has used cranes outfitted with suction cups to hold the glass in place while it's secured into the building.

The ceiling of the ring-shaped building is equipped with a series of skylights that will let in natural light, while cutouts in marble walls will house speakers in some areas. Close attention has been paid to the smallest of details, and Apple says in just one access tunnel, it's taken 60 workers five months to lay small tiles on the curved walls. Ledges extending out over windows block light, as do built-in window shades.

Outside, full-sized trees and other plants are being installed. Ahead of being added to the campus, many of the trees were grown at a local nursery. Apple has said more than 3,000 species of trees will be on the campus, including many fruit trees.

Apple plans to finish construction on the campus in the first quarter of 2017, though landscaping work will extend into the second quarter of the year. Apple CEO Tim Cook has said employees will begin working at the campus in early 2017.

Article Link: New Photos Offer an Inside Look at Apple Campus 2

 

[44267547]

You could probably spend a day or two touring this mammoth sized building. I would fly out to Cupertino just to tour it (If it were allowed).

 

[Jimmy James]

Looks like a fantastic facility to work in. I wonder if they will allow employees to help themselves to produce from the fruit trees.

 

[Frosties]

Can't shake the feeling that here stands our non-released products. A great product is this buildning but I hope creativity will come forth from it.

 

[keysofanxiety]

A building of absolute beauty. You'd be hard pressed to dread going into work.

 

[TechZeke]

With an HQ like this, I expect more updates across product lines, more innovation, more experimentation/R&D.

 

[pat500000]

A building that takes off to outer space.

 

[BerMuc]

A building of absolute beauty. You'd be hard pressed to dread going into work.

Unless you use the freeways around it...

 

[fate0311]

It's the new AIG.

 

[stevie grant]

They need all that to sell phones?

 

[blinkytoo]

All that space just to make iPhone designs. I remember the time when Apple made professional computer equipment! Those were heady days. I thought they would never end. Oh well, same story with democracy. But thats another thread.

 

[jgelin]

Now if only they could put this much design effort into giving us a new iPhone form factor.

 

[RealityM]

Can't shake the feeling that here stands our non-released products. A great product is this building but I hope creativity will come forth from it.

I share your optimism and your realism. Tim Cook only has so much bandwidth and hours in the day. If he is thinking about the million details that go into planning and building a million square foot building, then this takes away time spent planning and building upgraded Macs.

 

[bbbggg]

Those huge ledges outside the windows are going to be great when birds **** all over them

 

[gugy]

Must be cool to work on such environment. Maybe that's what Apple needs to start innovating again.

 

[Smeejis]

I never paid attention to the early stages of this mammoth. Does anyone know how much this thing cost to build?

 

[2457282]

I wonder if Apple has extra glass panels stored away? I ask because as I look at these pictures, I can see that at some point something will happen to cause a panel to break. When it breaks, these custom built glass panels can not be bought at the local hardware store, so I hope they have a few extras laying around. Otherwise, this looks impressively good. Need more inside photos.

 

[ksnell]

A building that takes off to outer space.

Maybe Elon Musk can pilot it and Tim can take a hike...

 

[tuzzanti]

You bet your a$$. They used their internal design teams to design this thing. I had read how much detail they went into even designing custom windows and tables. Also, Apple is trying to move away from the Amazon Cloud to their own data centers which is going to delay new features and functionality surrounding iCloud and why we are seeing so many outages and will for awhile!

Because Apple doesn't have a similar organizational structure to most large companies, they are becoming their own bottleneck. Instead of allowing different divisions or departments to operate independently everything must go through THE "Design" or "Development" team. This produces higher margins and has allowed them to reduce duplicated efforts but limits their output. As you can see, their choosing to abandon products like their Airports and Time Capsules instead doing a re-organization to work on more concurrent projects.

I really don't think Tim Cook is the right guy to fix what will soon be a sinking ship. Apple is on a downward spiral like Microsoft was but Microsoft's business model allowed them to flounder for years until they could fix the sinking ship which they are doing and doing well. Apple does not have that luxury. If Apple screws up on the iPhone like they did on the Macbook, Apple will drop like a rock. The company is one product miss away before losing 25% or more of its value!

Lets hope the MacBook isn't an example of future releases. When you have a majority of your products over 365 days old with limited recurring revenue from services.... your in trouble!

Tim

Can't shake the feeling that here stands our non-released products.

 

[CopyChief]

When this was in the design stages, to me it seemed amazing, incredible, awe-inspiring.

Now (maybe there's a reality distortion field dampener on here somewhere...) it seems ostentatious.

 

[Amy Pond and me]

The building is great but the gulf between the brand's image and the value of the products it releases is widening by the day. That campus will look empty if only watch bands and luxury mobile phones are released in consistent way.

 

[asleep]

Most innovative design Apple has put out in years.

 

[iamgalt]

All that space just to make iPhone designs. I remember the time when Apple made professional computer equipment! Those were heady days. I thought they would never end. Oh well, same story with democracy. But thats another thread.

That's not fair at all. I would think at least 35% of that building is for new watch bands.

 

[blacktape242]

pretty amazing right there.

on a lighter note, it will probably be filled with dongle stations thought out the facility.

 

[Superhappytree]

Most innovative design Apple has put out in years.

Probably because Steve was heavily behind it. No coincidence.