Come and hang out with Tim Cook and co. Photo: Apple
Apple’s forthcoming $5 billion “spaceship” Apple campus may be designed to squeeze in a massive 13,000 employees, or the equivalent of 35 fully-filled Boeing 747s, but don’t worry: it’s got plenty of space for you, too.
According to Apple’s plans for the new headquarters, the Apple 2 campus will include a glass-walled structure for visitors, boasting a 2,386-square-foot cafe, 10,114-square-foot gift shop, and rooftop viewing space, where visitors can gaze out over Apple’s domain while Tim Cook tells you that everything the light touches is his kingdom.
Apple's spaceship campus isn't big enough for all its Silicon Valley employees. Photo: Apple
The biggest city in Silicon Valley is about to land the world’s biggest tech company.
Apple is considering expanding into north San Jose to lease more office space, even though the company’s gigantic space ship campus is scheduled to be completed next year and house more than 13,00 employees.
Recent ex-felons are barred from working on Apple's spaceship campus. Photo: Buster Keaton in The Goat
Apple’s been known for its extreme levels of secrecy since Steve Jobs made his return back in the late 1990s and, while that has changed somewhat under Tim Cook’s stewardship, there are still areas Apple is incredibly careful about revealing. An example? How about its new spaceship-style campus, for one.
According to a recent news report, Apple is insisting on criminal background checks for even the construction workers simply involved with pouring concrete for the new Apple HQ. It’s an unusual move from an unorthodox company, and it’s rubbing a few people up the wrong way.
Check out Apple Campus 2 in 4k. Photo: Dane's Drone
Tim Cook makes frequent visits to Apple Campus 2 – which is still without an official name. It seems like drone enthusiasts visit the site more than Apple’s CEO. Search YouTube for ‘Apple Campus 2′ and you’ll get over 192,000 results, but this latest video is the best yet.
You can see the top floors of Steve Jobs’ spaceship start to take shape in Dane’s video that was shot on a DJI Inspire 1 drone with built-in 4K video. Dane told Cult of Mac he was in the Bay Area shooting a wedding and decided to get a view of the new campus. He setup in a nearby neighborhood and flew over the site.
Shot by starting off on the other side of the road from Apple Campus 2, the super-high resolution video really captures how massive the new campus will be once it’s finished in 2016.
That changed yesterday, when Apple gave reporters from San Francisco news outlet KQED an up-close-and-personal glimpse at its flying saucer-shaped headquarters, which will eventually house up to 15,000 employees.
Along with photos showing the development, the reporters also heard a few environmentally friendly factoids about the campus — such as the fact that it will use recycled water to flush toilets, solar arrays to meet the majority of energy needs, and that the older buildings Apple inherited when it bought the land were broken down and recycled for new building materials.
The city of Cupertino’s website makes note of a schedule for the project, noting that earthwork is set to continue until the middle of next year, while construction on the building itself will be completed by late 2016.
While construction of its new campus is underway, Apple is having trouble accommodating its workforce in the Cupertino, California area.
Apple is now leasing a 290,000-square-foot office complex in Sunnyvale, an area north of Cupertino and just east of Mountain View. Up to 1,450 employees could be moved into the space, reports the San Jose Mercury News. Since it will be years before its massive “Campus 2” is ready to be occupied, Apple continues to struggle not having enough space for its corporate workforce.
We never thought they’d do it, but Apple is splitting their stock 7-to-1—and on our newest CultCast, we discuss that and other surprising (and non-boring) notes from their recent financial call. Plus, the best way to get the Apple stuff you want at lower prices; OS X betas now available to all; Apple Maps spots Nessie; Apple celebrates Earth Day with some great new marketing; why we’re crazy about Apple Campus 2; and forget Ashton, how about Leonardo DiCaprio as the next Steve Jobs?
LOL your way through each week’s best Apple stories! Stream or download new and past episodes of The CultCast now on your Mac or iDevice by subscribing on iTunes, or hit play below and let the audio adventure begin!
And thanks to our friends at New Relic for sponsoring this episode. Yes, New Relic, the all-in-one web application performance management tool that lets you see performance from the end user experience, through servers, and down to the line of application code. Put simply, New Relic helps the people who build modern software understand the stories their data is trying to tell them. If you’re ready to make your software run better, head over to https://newrelic.com/cultcast for a free 30 day trial.