All the gorgeous San Francisco locations in Apple’s ‘It’s Glowtime’ event

While getting blitzed by an avalanche of mind-numbing specs during Apple’s “It’s Glowtime” event, I kept marveling at how good San Francisco looked. The beautiful City by the Bay provided the backdrop to Monday’s event, with many of the presenters standing in front of gorgeous San Francisco landmarks.

San Francisco is my hometown (I’ve lived here nearly 30 years now), and it’s been getting beat up by stories about urban decay in recent years. But it’s still one of the world’s most beautiful cities, and it looked great during Apple’s live stream. Here’s a quick rundown of all the eye-popping SF locations.

All the San Francisco locations in Apple’s It’s Glowtime event

As usual, Apple worked visual magic with the It’s Glowtime event, streamed live Monday around the world. The products revealed — the iPhone 16 and iPhone 16 Pro lineups, the new Apple Watch Series 10 and more — looked stunning, of course. But San Francisco’s natural and architectural beauty served up plenty of scenic shots and beautiful backdrops.

Crissy Field — Jeff Williams

Apple’s Chief Operating Officer Jeff Williams kicked off the It’s Glowtime event by presenting a segment on the Apple Watch Series 10 from a grassy outpost in Crissy Field. The decommissioned airfield now serves as an expansive public park at the foot of the Golden Gate Bridge.

De Young Museum Observation Tower — Dr. Sumbul Ahmad Desai

Dr. Sumbul Ahmad Desai, Apple’s VP of Health, appeared inside the Hamon Observation Tower of the de Young Museum. San Francisco’s biggest art museum sits in the middle of Golden Gate Park. And the observation tower offers a great 360-degree view of the sprawling recreational zone.

Golden Gate Overlook – Julz Arney

Julz Arney, Apple’s director of fitness technologies, stood on the Golden Gate Overlook for a segment about the Apple Watch. As the name implies, the spot overlooks the Golden Gate Bridge (out of shot to the right). In the background, you can see the Sea Cliff neighborhood. (The late comic Robin Williams used to live there.)

Golden Gate Park — Stan Ng

The east end of Golden Gate Park provided the backdrop for Stan Ng’s segment on the Apple Watch Ultra, which comes in a new black titanium color. Apple’s VP of Apple Watch and health product marketing appears to be standing on Hippie Hill, which sees thousands of cannabis-smoking hippies on 4/20 every year.

Coit Tower — Kate Bergeron

Coit Tower provided the backdrop for Kate Bergeron, Apple’s VP of hardware engineering. The tower, which resembles the nozzle of a fire hose, pays tribute to the city’s firefighters. It offers great 360-degree views of the northern part of the city.

De Young Museum Sculpture Garden — Kaiann Drance

At the opposite end of the de Young museum, Kaiann Drance, Apple’s VP of iPhone product marketing, stood in the Sculpture Garden. It’s often full of tables and chairs from the museum’s cafe.

Palace of Fine Arts — Craig Federighi

The Palace of Fine Arts in the city’s Marina District featured as the backdrop for the segment presented by Craig Federighi, Apple’s senior vice president of software engineering. The Palace of Fine Arts was built for the 1915 Panama-Pacific International Exhibition. It was supposed to be a temporary structure, and much of it has been demolished, but a beautiful atrium remains, surrounded by a popular park and duck pond.

Leander Kahney

Leander Kahney is the editor and publisher of Cult of Mac.

Leander is a longtime technology reporter and the author of six acclaimed books about Apple, including two New York Times bestsellers: Jony Ive: The Genius Behind Apple’s Greatest Products and Inside Steve’s Brain, a biography of Steve Jobs.

He’s also written a top-selling biography of Apple CEO Tim Cook and authored Cult of Mac and Cult of iPod, which both won prestigious design awards. Most recently, he was co-author of Cult of Mac, 2nd Edition.

Leander has been reporting about Apple and technology for nearly 30 years.

Before founding Cult of Mac as an independent publication, Leander was news editor at Wired.com, where he was responsible for the day-to-day running of the Wired.com website. He headed up a team of six section editors, a dozen reporters and a large pool of freelancers. Together the team produced a daily digest of stories about the impact of science and technology, and won several awards, including several Webby Awards, 2X Knight-Batten Awards for Innovation in Journalism and the 2010 MIN (Magazine Industry Newsletter) award for best blog, among others.

Before being promoted to news editor, Leander was Wired.com’s senior reporter, primarily covering Apple. During that time, Leander published a ton of scoops, including the first in-depth report about the development of the iPod. Leander attended almost every keynote speech and special product launch presented by Steve Jobs, including the historic launches of the iPhone and iPad. He also reported from almost every Macworld Expo in the late ’90s and early ‘2000s, including, sadly, the last shows in Boston, San Francisco and Tokyo. His reporting for Wired.com formed the basis of the first Cult of Mac book, and subsequently this website.

Before joining Wired, Leander was a senior reporter at the legendary MacWeek, the storied and long-running weekly that documented Apple and its community in the 1980s and ’90s.

Leander has written for Wired magazine (including the Issue 16.04 cover story about Steve Jobs’ leadership at Apple, entitled Evil/Genius), Scientific American, The Guardian, The Observer, The San Francisco Chronicle and many other publications.

Leander is an expert on:

Apple and Apple history
Steve Jobs, Jony Ive, Tim Cook and Apple leadership
Apple community
iPhone and iOS
iPad and iPadOS
Mac and macOS
Apple Watch and watchOS
Apple TV and tvOS
AirPods

Leander has a postgrad diploma in artificial intelligence from the University of Aberdeen, and a BSc (Hons) in experimental psychology from the University of Sussex.

He has a diploma in journalism from the UK’s National Council for the Training of Journalists.

Leander lives in San Francisco, California, and is married with four children. He’s an avid biker and has ridden in many long-distance bike events, including California’s legendary Death Ride.

You can find out more about Leander on LinkedIn and Facebook. You can follow him on X at @lkahney or Instagram.