Looks like a cool building, but I wonder how much mental bandwidth designing it took up at Apple. The mac mini needs an update, they need to release a Mac Pro that is viable for video pros, and they definitely haven't sold me on their new macbook pros (without mag safe!) Also, where's the Apple equivalent to the Hololens? And what happened to all the rumors about Apple cars and Apple Smart TVs? How are they doing on creating smart home devices?
I'm not sure that they really should make cars, or TVs, but they are basically an amazing phone company at this point and that's about it. Maybe, I don't know, build an ad-free search engine and bake it into all your products so that you can give google a run for their money instead of obsessing over a $5 billion building.
Edit: I forgot about the Apple watch, which I'm a fan of.
Just hoping it doesn't turn into another Sears Tower - an overly extravagant building built by a company at the peak of their existence, only to have markets shift out under them... soon winding up with way too much building for way too much cost.
You know, I’m not sure if this is a bad thing. Seemingly indomitable companies prove mortal, but the architecture they leave becomes part of the culture. Apple will not last forever, of course, but architecture... that can last a good deal longer.
I'd be more worried if Apple didn't have 256 billion dollars in cash reserves, which is frankly a kind of insane amount. Can't find how much cash Sears had on hand in 1973 but the equivalent to Apple's cash on hand vs building would be 7.6 billion.
It's not uncommon for the land under such buildings to have 100+ year leases. That much money and time put into that much building requires very long terms. Maybe Apple bought the land outright, but I'm certain they're thinking longer-term than 10 years here... as was Sears at the time they built their tower.
This also doesn't account for the annual maintenance costs of such a grand building. Apple's sitting on top of a big pile of money today, but that may not be the case 20 years from now (as was the case for Sears)... the maintenance costs will only increase as the building ages.
Honestly, it will, but worse. Look at X, it's crumbs compared to what we know they can be doing. Apple peaked in 2014, we all know it.
That said, Sear's tower is an emblem of Chicago. The AHQ is off to the side of the Bay and is 'harder' to see. If they built it like the Millennium Tower/TransAmerica, then that would be something different, but as is, it's going to go down like Falling Water. Off in a corner, a masterpiece truly, but never used. Like a Bugatti is with cars, only a thing for true architecture dorks.
One functional use of the building is that it will attract top employees. I would rather spend ~1/4 of my time in a really nice building than what some competitors use.
To each their own, but for contrasting feedback, I could almost feel my anxiety rising just looking at a big giant corporate open office.
I think wired hit on something when they called it a design out of the 1950's. Its a suburban corporate office park.
A white, glass, and wood suburban corporate office park, but a suburban corporate office park none the less.
Edit: I am witholding my judgement of the actual space until 6 months after its inhabited though, because I'm not sure I can be objective about it at this stage...
Mclaren have a similar type of building albeit on a smaller scale. I would definitely think about giving it a go there, but, then again, would I prefer the Williams team up the road where vision and leadership is not mixed up with impressive building design?
I don't know, but I think the McLaren building has worked out nicely for them. Working there might not be to everyone's tastes but they set the standard for how it is done and the rest of the industry took note.
Some of the buildings in North Korea are quite amazing and the subway system is a work of art, immaculately clean. Working in the parts they show Westerners should be a true joy with the most pleasant of traffic free commutes.
However I would not feel entirely free working in North Korea, being deprived of the Internet would matter to me and I would not feel happy 'cut off'.
I imagine working at the wonderful Apple HQ to be slightly cultish in the North Korean way rather than the McLaren way. Perhaps I prefer smaller churches in smaller towns. Or maybe I am more interested in FOSS and computing in general rather than the intricacies of doing things the Apple way.
The old SGI building as used by Google, that has things one can criticise but that building has survived the test of time. Many wonderful things have happened in this building but ultimately it is just a building and not a sacred shrine. The Apple building sort of crosses into 'sacred shrine' territory that will always be entwined with the memory of the founding story.
I did some work for McLaren a few years ago, it struck me at the time that the building was really a reflection of their own culture. I think it would have been impossible for them not to apply the attention to detail in that building that they did.
They go out of their way to describe the segments as "configurable" with "everything from open plan to individual offices." I makes me wonder if initial reactions caught them by surprise.
It would harm Google's primary revenue source Ad-words. Reducing the revenue of your competition is beneficial since they will have less money to fund their competing products with.
So Apple should invest billions of their profits in a technology they have no experience or skills in and over a decade away from being able to catch up and provide a competitive service against arguably the smartest company in the world whose core competency is search, so they can devalue the Apple brand with a sub par service that has nothing to do with their strengths, absorbs the billions required to develop and maintain the infrastructure (see: Bing), forgo billions of Service revenue their now receiving from Google to provide an ad-free Service that will never be profitable so they can force a worst end-user UX on their Customers?
I don't see how offering ad-free Internet search that's available in the OS (like in spotlight) would be a bad UX experience for the customer. Also, Bing is doing pretty well bringing in 5.6 Billion in revenue in 2016 [0]. And since DuckDuckGo has 21 employees and is doing a pretty good job of providing a search engine, I would think Apple could probably handle putting together a solid search engine fairly quickly. [1] Apple could always add keyword based ads like DuckDuckGo does, so that they can still charge for some ads without tracking their users.
It still costs Microsoft billions to run Bing for which an Apple ad-free Service will always be a profit sink hole without any chance of recuperating their investments whilst foregoing their billions of nearly pure profit Services Revenue they're getting from Google now.
And for what? inflict a worse experience on their customer base so they can try to hurt Google the way Microsoft tried to do with Bing? Google has enough successful properties that there's nothing Apple can do that would hurt Google's profits enough where they can't maintain their level of R&D on Android (which is itself ludicrously profitable).
I just don't see what this would achieve and how it would help them achieve their core mission, diluting their talent and resources doesn't help them make the most enviable products and would cost them billions in the process, both of which are against their DNA.
I think Apple needs to expand (or as you call it dilute) their core mission. They've become a smart phone company that can't even remember how to build a desktop for professionals. You say that they would be offering an inferior search service compared to Google, but I don't see why that would be the case. In my opinion a search service that doesn't track you is superior to Google (see DuckDuckGo for an example) and if it's built into Spotlight, even better.
Google survives on it's ad-words revenue as far as I can tell. Android only generates money for google through ads (which is again dependent upon tracking the user) and they've never released revenue numbers for Youtube, so we can probably assume Youtube loses money. And even if Youtube makes money, it is still from ads. So if Apple can cut into Google's ad-words business model, they will deal a blow to their chief competitor, Android.
Apple definitely needs to expand its vision. A major tech player like Apple shouldn't be spending all their time iterating on the iphone and making their laptops a tiny bit thinner. They should really have a serious AR product like the Hololens by now at the absolute minimum. Honestly, Apple seems to think that their mission is to be a computer sculpture company at this point. They are totally obsessed with design to the point that they can't create a usable desktop computer. They've lost the plot.
> over a decade away from being able to catch up and provide a competitive service against arguably the smartest company in the world whose core competency is search
> In my opinion a search service that doesn't track you is superior to Google (see DuckDuckGo for an example)
DuckDuckGo leverages existing infrastructure and uses existing sources (Bing, Yahoo...) to power their search results [1]. It also doesn't matter what an anecdotal data point thinks is superior, only what their customers prefer in aggregate. DuckDuckGo has so little market share it doesn't even register as a line item [2]. Microsoft started trying to compete with Google with Live Search in 2006 and after bleeding billions and evenwith the help of their Windows Desktop Monopoly and IE, MS Edge market-share they've still only managed 7.5%.
> Google survives on it's ad-words revenue as far as I can tell. Android only generates money for google through ads
Google doesn't disclose their profits they get from Android, but Oracle did it for them where they've disclosed that Android's generated $31B revenue and $22B profit.
> they've never released revenue numbers for Youtube, so we can probably assume Youtube loses money.
Alphabet not disclosing their internal numbers for their revenue sources doesn't mean anything, most mega corps don't breakdown their segments for not wanting to give away competitive secrets.
> And even if Youtube makes money, it is still from ads. So if Apple can cut into Google's ad-words business model, they will deal a blow to their chief competitor, Android.
How can an ad-free Apple Search Engine possibly have any tangible effect into Google's ad-words business model? Are the companies currently buying Google's ads going to stop buying them because a company with <13% of Android's market share (and 5% Desktop Browser Share) dilutes their focus, resources and talent in providing an alternative inferior Search engine that no-one can buy ads for? Is everyone buying ads just going to give up and stop online advertising altogether?
Microsoft has poured billions, have invested over a decade and tried their hardest to hurt Google and steal market share away from them, a technological super power with deep roots into developing technology and infrastructure at all layers as part of their core competency. They're the #2 cloud hosting provider (who also counts Apple as a Customer) that even with leveraging their Desktop Monopoly and IE/Edge browsers can only command 7.5% market share. How is Apple, starting over a decade later with no skills or experience, no ad infrastructure or corporate customer base, first hope to be able to build a competitive search engine then use it to steal market-share from everyone else who's search engine habits have been hard-grained into users daily lives for years. Apple can't keep an AI lead with their Siri voice assistant even after acquiring the technology years before everyone else. I don't see how they'd be able to compete with Bing let alone Google.
> Apple definitely needs to expand its vision.
Apple is the most valuable company in the world, so it's executing better than everyone else.
> Apple shouldn't be spending all their time iterating on the iphone and making their laptops a tiny bit thinner.
Other than being a ludicrous assertion on what they spend their time on, Apple's focus on the iPhone has made it the most successful product in history.
> They should really have a serious AR product like the Hololens by now at the absolute minimum.
Hololens is a commercial failure that's selling units in the 1000's [4] and Apple's already leading the race in Augmented Reality [5] and is expected to release a stand-alone AR headset next year [6]. Unlike other companies Apple only releases products when they believe it provides the best experience and stands the best chance of becoming a consumer success. They also have a commanding lead in developing the fastest mobile chips which is going to help greatly in their AR future.
> Apple seems to think that their mission is to be a computer sculpture company at this point.
In addition to being the most valuable company, Apple's also the most valuable brand in the world [7].
> They are totally obsessed with design to the point that they can't create a usable desktop computer.
I've been using iMac's for over a decade and am currently writing this on their latest 27" iMac w/ Retina 5K, it's by far the best Desktop I've ever seen or used.
> They've lost the plot.
Being the most successful company in history suggests maybe not. Apple got to where they are by focusing on making the best consumer products possible, not by focusing on ways they can throw away billions of profits in trying to hurt a competitor.
Apple invested in Maps so they have control over their destiny of one of the most popular use-cases people use their Smart Phones for as Google was with holding key features like turn-by-turn directions which would've given Android an edge. Apple always wants to be seen as the best, they love to say they offer the best Smart Phone with the best hardware, best OS, Apps, etc. Having a sub-par experience on a core feature would've hurt both their brand and sales. Although it required a significant investment and Apple Maps still isn't as good as Google Maps, end-users still end up with a first-class experience in iOS with their choice of either.
This isn't the same as Search, Google wants to provide the best Search service for iOS as possible and is now paying Apple billions for privilege of being the default. Attempting to develop an ad-free Search alternative would dilute their focus, cost them a fortune and their Customers would be worse off for it.
It's funny that you talk about Apple developing maps because Google was withholding features like turn-by-turn direction, and Apple wanted to give a better user experience.
In the country where I live (Brazil), Apple Maps does not have turn-by-turn direction available, while Google Maps has.
Actually companies often invest in areas to weaken the competition, Oracle and IBM invested in Java over the years because they didn't want to see Microsoft dominate corporate development for example.
A search engine by its nature allows computation on content that you can't do through an external web API. For example you can invert Walmart's pages on their online site into a catalog of SKUs, prices and equipment.
A search engine can create (and provide access to for a fee) meta data around the digital footprint of people and what they are interested in, afraid of, and where fashion is headed (query traffic)
A search engine can develop and maintain a robust connected graph of commercial entities and data about them which can be resold to banks, bundled into subscription ratings services, and mined for market trends and "inside" information.
You could also deliver a customer friendly advertising platform but much like opioids are ok for treating pain it seems nearly impossible for people who own a decent sized index from being seduced by the cash possibilities there.
This is a hilarious question, only because it's normally asked in the context of a startup. Apple could hire a team of people to work on literally anything.
Apple new HQ looks great, I visited when it was almost finished earlier this year.
Some design elements look great, but are probably hard to keep clean, and functionality might suffered a bit, and some elements surface reflect too much sun light. That everyone got a height-adjustable desk is great.
I'm not sure that they really should make cars, or TVs, but they are basically an amazing phone company at this point and that's about it. Maybe, I don't know, build an ad-free search engine and bake it into all your products so that you can give google a run for their money instead of obsessing over a $5 billion building.
Edit: I forgot about the Apple watch, which I'm a fan of.