Apple will open its new San Jose HQ just in time for WWDC 2017
Hot on the heels of last week’s announcement that Apple’s annual Worldwide Developer’s Conference is moving to San Jose from San Francisco, Apple today announced that the ‘Apple Park’ campus will open April.
The way Apple is announcing this news illustrates just how deeply the company sees these new offices as a memorial to founder, Steve Jobs.
That’s incredibly appropriate, given Jobs got his first summer job at HP on the site, when he was around 13-years old.
“Steve would have turned 62 this Friday, February 24. To honor his memory and his enduring influence on Apple and the world, the theater at Apple Park will be named the Steve Jobs Theater,” the company said.
Jobs was famed for taking walks with others while making big decisions.
For example, the design of the award-winning ‘sunflower’ iMac was conceived when Jobs and Jony Ive walked in Laurene Powell Jobs’ gardens.
“Instead of looking like the old iMac, the thing should look more like the flowers in the garden,” Jobs said .
Apple’s genius co-founder liked his nature analogies. In one of his final public acts, when he proposed Apple’s new headquarters building to Cupertino City Council, Jobs said, « Apple is growing like a weed. It’s clear we need to build a new campus. »
Set in 175-acres, Apple’s new ‘spaceship’ HQ will hold around 12,000 employees once the move to the new offices is complete.
Moving all these people into the company’s posh new office buildings will take around six months. Work will also continue landscaping and the construction of parkland around the site across summer, the company said today.
“Steve was exhilarated, and inspired, by the California landscape, by its light and its expansiveness.
