I recently went to San Francisco and took advantage that the Pisuerga crosses Valladolid, as they say, I decided to stop for a moment in my touristic desire to photograph as many places as possible, to set foot in Cupertino, the location of Apple’s headquarters, and how could it be otherwise, take a look at this spectacular giant ring called Apple Park.
I am here to tell you about my experience, and in turn I remind you that as soon as we set foot in Europe, we talked about it at length in our weekly iPhone News podcast.
Apple Park, Steve Jobs’ dream
In April 2017, the work was complete and the chosen employees would be part of the integrated team within Apple Park, a large circular warehouse of approximately 260,000 square meters which includes offices and laboratories for more than 12,000 employees. In fact, the project was started by the late Steve Jobs, who couldn’t see one of his most notable works completed. He himself addresses the team of Norman Foster (architects of Apple Park) and lays the foundations of what will be his headquarters, the largest and ever dreamed of by Apple in the city where he was born.
How could it be otherwise, Apple Park interiors were in charge of Jony Ive, one of the right arms of Steve Jobs and until recently the person in charge of the most revolutionary designs in the history of Apple, until he passed to the background of this new directed era by Tim Cook who makes investors smile so much.
The location of Apple Park also coincides with the location of Hewlett Packard’s Advanced Products Headquarters (HP for friends), turned into rubble in 2014 when the Apple Park mega project began. For the development of this spaceship, Apple needed about 6 kilometers of glass with a view of the exterior and of course the enormous interior garden that it houses. This one is made up of fruit trees at the behest of Steve Jobs, who grew up near apricot fields, and mostly because Silicon Valley was little more than a fruit field before the tech explosion.
Take an hour detour to visit Apple Park
Let’s say that Apple Park is not exactly on the outskirts of San Francisco, it is about 80 kilometers from Union Square, one of the most important points of the big city. Combined with the grueling traffic, it can sometimes take up to an hour to get from downtown San Francisco to the Visitors Center in Apple Park, Cupertino. And that’s where being careful is forearmed, I recommend you make an appointment if you’ve thought about it, and that’s where your first disappointment may come.
As expected, it is not possible to visit Apple Park itself, Appel has designed a hybrid Apple Store just in front of Apple Park which combines a cafeteria, an exhibition hall, a terrace overlooking the ‘Apple Park and a store, all in one. The Apple Park Visitors Center has good parking reserved for store users, so generally you won’t have any problems getting there or finding parking. My recommendation is that you arrive early and take the opportunity to walk around there before your appointment. I took the opportunity to try to take a look at the model of Apple Park they displayed at one end of the store and go up to the terrace overlooking Apple Park, where I had the second disappointment.
The trees that surround Apple Park are huge (like everything in the United States of America…) and to add the INRI, Apple Park itself is on a kind of hill. All of this means that the huge construction cannot be seen from the road around it, so much so that without the navigator you wouldn’t know you were next to Apple’s headquarters. In short, it’s the “disappointing” views of Apple Park from the visitor center.
At this point we return to the store area they have enabled where we find exclusive products from this Apple Store. They usually have mugs, hats and other types of memorabilia, however, the day I went there, you could only find t-shirts (in a few sizes as fans of the brand took some five by five), shopping bags, and little more. Too bad, because I would have liked to have a cup. On the other hand, and as expected from Apple, these memories have prices according to the company, around 40 dollars for the shirt, and around 25 dollars for the mug.
We decided to end the visit as the canons dictate, buying an Apple Watch Series 7, an iPhone 12 Pro and some t-shirts, I couldn’t leave without a gift for our colleague Luis Padilla.
Is it worth the detour?
This is something you should consider on an individual basis, especially considering that the views over Apple Park are somewhat underwhelming, and while the coffee is good, it’s still not worth the hour trip to grab a coffee at an Apple Store, where By the way, the hand soap smells like a lollipop. What, If you’re a fan of the brand or are particularly enthusiastic about it, it never hurts. Especially if we take into account that you can buy some details (such as t-shirts, mugs, caps…etc) that are sold exclusively in this store, a kind of “I was here” and they remove the dance.
I would probably do it again, in fact it was something I had planned so it didn’t change my travel plans, in your case you’ll have to decide for yourself. At least I can say that I was as close as a normal person can get to Apple headquarters.
