Apple Park

If you’ve been green with envy watching those grainy fan clips of Paul McCartney lighting up Apple Park last month for the iPhone giant’s 50th anniversary, Sir Paul just gave the rest of us a proper consolation prize. McCartney posted a polished, three-minute, behind-the-scenes film to his YouTube channel Tuesday, offering an intimate look at his celebrated March 31 performance.

Apple turned 50 on Wednesday, but the real party happened the night before. On Tuesday evening, Sir Paul McCartney took the rainbow stage at the heart of Apple Park and delivered a career-spanning performance for thousands of Apple employees.

It closed out weeks of global anniversary celebrations with one of the most storied voices in rock history — and a sky full of fireworks.

Apple’s global 50th anniversary celebration is building to what might be its most memorable moment yet — and if the clues are right, it involves a Beatle performing at Apple Park this week. Or somebody else from the British Invasion that Steve Jobs loved.

Update: The rumor proved true: Paul McCartney played Apple Park on Tuesday night.

November 19, 2013: Apple gets final approval from the Cupertino City Council to proceed with building a massive second campus to house the iPhone-maker’s growing army of workers in California. Regarding the new Apple headquarters, Cupertino Mayor Orrin Mahoney issues a simple message: “Go for it.”

However, the massive structure — with an innovative circular design that will earn it the nickname “the spaceship” — remains years away from opening, despite Apple’s ambitious schedule.

You can encapsulate Apple’s approach to innovation in four words, according to a new profile of CEO Tim Cook: “Not first, but best.” It’s not a new sentiment, but Cook doubles down on it in a long magazine article that came out over the weekend, complete with interesting tidbits about his life and his journey with Apple, past and present.

And in a colorful side note: The man apparently loves Diet Mountain Dew. And yet Apple Park doesn’t stock it, so he doesn’t get to drink it as much as he used to. (Theory: Cook banned it himself in an act of self-discipline.)

Today’s iPhone 16 launch might make use of a new underground building at Apple Park called The Observatory. This building, adjacent to the Steve Jobs Theater on the Apple Park campus, “will be used for launch events and to showcase the brand’s latest technology,” according to a Deezen exclusive.

The timing of the announcement suggests the building will play a part in today’s “It’s Glowtime” event.

CUPERTINO, California — For the first time, a big group of developers, students and media were allowed inside the very heart of Apple’s spaceship HQ during WWDC22.

The central office building, known as the Ring, is bigger than the Pentagon. Teams at Apple move in and out between other buildings as projects change — I met several ARKit engineers who recently moved in and were a bit vague on what they were working on. Interesting.

Previously, members of the media had been escorted to the Steve Jobs Theater for press events, which is another building off to the side of the sprawling Apple Park campus. However, the theater would have been much too small to fit the 1,000 developers, 350 students and hundreds of employees attending the WWDC22 keynote viewing party.

This special day for developers — an invitation-only, in-person event at this year’s Apple Worldwide Developers Conference — marked a big step in Apple’s efforts to boost developer trust. Apple also gave attendees a first look at the new Apple Developer Center located just across the street from the Ring.

See the full gallery below for more than 80 pictures of Apple’s campus.

CUPERTINO, California — Apple is rolling out the red carpet for those lucky enough to attend its special day for developers at Apple Park on Monday. I am one of a handful of developers who will get to watch the WWDC22 keynote and Platforms State of the Union videos today “alongside Apple engineers and experts” here.

Lucky attendees who get to visit Apple Park for a special WWDC22 developer day are getting the red carpet treatment, including caviar for breakfast.

The menu for the event includes a smoked salmon and caviar bagel made from “house smoked salmon, mascarpone cream, Tobiko black caviar, Persian cucumber, [and] micro horseradish,” which asks more questions than it answers. What on earth is micro horseradish?

Apple reportedly slowed the pace at which it will require its corporate employees to return to the office. They were scheduled to be back at their desks three days a week starting later this month, but rising numbers of COVID-19 cases supposedly pushed that back.

Apple employees are still required to be in the offices two days a week.

Apple has started testing its new “Tap to Pay” iPhone feature in the Apple Park Visitor Center in Cupertino.

Tap to Pay allows small businesses and merchants the ability to accept payments using only their iPhones. The feature makes it possible to receive payments using Apple Pay, credit/debit cards, and other compatible digital wallets.

Monday is the day Apple requires its corporate employees to start working in the office some of the time. The pandemic era when most of them could work from home all the time is over.

But everyone doesn’t have to be back in the office five days a week starting today. This is the beginning of a transition period, after which many workers will still be able to work from home a couple days of every week.

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Apple corporate employees must start working part-time in the office beginning on February 1, according to a company email that quickly leaked out.

But the Mac-maker has been forced to move back the date when employees to return to the office several times. It could happen again.

Apple has delayed its call for employees to return to the office by at least a month, Bloomberg reported Monday. Employees will now return to Apple Park and other locations by October at the earliest.

In June, CEO Tim Cook said that employees should get ready to return by early September. This would be according to a hybrid model in which employees would work at least three days a week in the office, and the rest working from home. But COVID-19 has seemingly (temporarily) scuppered those plans.

Having only fairly recently completed its massive Apple Park campus in Cupertino, Apple’s now “ramping up” efforts to decentralize its workforce, says Mark Gurman in his latest “Power On” column for Bloomberg.

This means reluctantly embracing the idea that not everyone wants to live and work in Silicon Valley. While Apple execs have supposedly fought against this way of thinking for years, recruitment challenges are now causing them to reassess the situation.

You know it’s a special day at Apple when the company whips out its rainbow stage. Designed by Apple’s industrial design team, back when Jony Ive was in charge, the rainbow stage — adorned in Apple’s classic logo colors — made its debut in May 2019. That year, it was used for a concert by Lady Gaga for Apple employees.

With many Apple employees currently working from home, a concert after today’s event seems unlikely. Nonetheless, Tim Cook — who tweeted out a picture of the rainbow stage — is clearly in a party mood.

Deirdre O’Brien, Apple’s retail boss, sent a video to retail employees this weekend asking them to sign up to help customers remotely. She also said they should expect store closures caused by the COVID-19 pandemic to continue “for some period of time.”

Separately, Apple told employees that it doesn’t expect to have everyone back in its corporate headquarters before the end of 2020.

Apple Park staff have been told that they will begin returning to work in phases starting Monday, June 15, a new report claims.

A “very limited” number of workers will be allowed in the office on certain days, depending on their role — and there will be restrictions. Apple has reportedly warned employees that most won’t go back for several months.

Just as it has with reopening Apple Stores, Apple is putting protective measures in place to keep employees safe as they return to Apple Park after lockdown.

These measures include optional COVID-19 swab testing, temperature checks, closed kitchens, social distancing measures, and an insistence on face masks.

CEO Tim Cook told Apple employees at company headquarters and other locations around the world to “please feel free to work remotely if your job allows” this week.

This guidance came in response to the COVID-19 disease that’s spreading across the United States.

An estimated 12,000 people can comfortably work together in Apple Park. But Apple’s a big company — and 12,000 people is only a drop in the ocean.

For that reason, Apple has leased six floors in a nearby office building, just six minutes’ drive from its enormous circular headquarters at One Apple Park Way.

Cupertino residents that live near Apple’s new campus are being invited inside Apple Park for a holiday toy drive.

Email invites to the exclusive event started going out this week to people who live near Apple Park. Apple Park has a big visitor center but rarely lets outsiders inside the spaceship campus.

Take a look at the invite:

If you’re not smart enough to work at Apple, or important enough to be given a tour by Tim Cook, you’ll probably never get the chance to look around Apple Park. Fortunately, travel videographer Yongsung Kim served up the next best thing with an Apple Park video tour.

In a recently published YouTube video, he takes the world inside Apple Park’s spaceship campus in Cupertino, California. The video shows parts of the building you won’t normally see during a trip to the Apple Park Visitor Center. Check it out!

Apple CEO Tim Cook sat down with Salesforce co-CEO Marc Benioff for his company’s Dreamforce conference this afternoon but instead of diving into Apple’s boring enterprise efforts, Cook was ready to discuss heavier topics.

Sitting in the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts where Apple revealed some of its biggest product updates before Apple Park was built, Cook shared his thoughts on privacy, environmental conservation, innovation, memories of Steve Jobs and what motivates him.

It seems like Apple just completed its move into Apple Park just recently but apparently, the iPhone-maker is growing so quickly it already needs a major office space expansion.

Local news outlets in the Bay Area recently reported that Apple just gobbled up another two giant office complexes in Cupertino, giving the company over 200,000 square-feet within throwing-distance of the new Apple HQ and the old Infinite Loop campus it still uses.