Apple Park has one flaw: Employees keep walking face-first into the clear glass panes

“The centerpiece of Apple Inc.’s new headquarters is a massive, ring-shaped office overflowing with panes of glass, a testament to the company’s famed design-obsessed aesthetic,” Mark Bergen reports for Bloomberg. “There’s been one hiccup since it opened last year: Apple employees keep smacking into the glass.”

“Surrounding the Cupertino, California-based building are 45-foot tall curved panels of safety glass. Inside are work spaces, dubbed “pods,” also made with a lot of glass. Apple staff are often glued to the iPhones they helped popularize,” Bergen reports. “That’s resulted in repeated cases of distracted employees walking into the panes, according to people familiar with the incidents.”

“Some staff started to stick Post-It notes on the glass doors to mark their presence. However, the notes were removed because they detracted from the building’s design, the people said,” Bergen reports. “Apple’s latest campus has been lauded as an architectural marvel. The building, crafted by famed architect Norman Foster, immortalized a vision that Apple co-founder Steve Jobs had years earlier. In 2011, Jobs reportedly described the building “a little like a spaceship landed.” Jobs has been credited for coming up with the glass pods, designed to mix solo office areas with more social spaces. ”

Read more in the full article here.

MacDailyNews Take: If you need any, Apple, we’ve got drawers full of these:

Apple stickers

Watch out for Apple Park’s man-made pond, everybody!

33 Comments

      1. It amazes me there is not a massive body count of people who spend their lives with their head buried in a cell phone. I commonly see people with white Apple earbuds in and looking down (texting) while driving in traffic.

        How many of you have had to hit your horn to get some asshole in front of you to look up and realize the light is now green? See it almost every day.

        More amazing are people with CarPlay and an iPhone who are holding a Damn phone and talking into it while driving.

        Apple customers may as a group make more and be more educated, but average is not all.

        1. I’ve not seen the holding phone while Carplay thing. I’m not even sure how you’d be able to know that anyway. As a CarPlay user, I think the integration is great and the fact that it speaks texts rather than displaying them is great. I’ve had no problem replying verbally without ever touching my phone, etc.

        2. Some cars come with CarPlay as standard, but apparently nobody told the owner. All VWs, for example, have included CarPlay and Android Auto since at least the 2016 model year. Pretty sure that also applies to Audi- a sub of VW.

          Not everyone rips people off for CarPlay like BMW (The Ultimate Hype Machine) and Gubmint Motors.

          Interesting how Crapillac actually charges you extra for CarPlay on your overpriced Chevy SUV. When the commercial says available, it means you pay extra.

  1. Good thing about being blind, we don’t care if glass is clear or not, its in our way so we find a way around it. We’re one set of people who won’t, if using canes correctly, run into clear glass. 🙂 Devin Prater Assistive Technology Instructor

    , Microsoft Outlook, Excel, Word, and Powerpoint instructor certified by World Services for the Blind

    >

  2. I first learned about the value of stickers on sheets on windows and sheets of externally facing glass at the Toronto Museum of Science. They use sticker images of hawks in order to warn away the birds outside, helping them to avoid flying into the glass. I learned that circa 1973. We instigated the same strategy at home for our sliding glass doors to the outside. It worked great!

    Here we are in 2018 and we humans in general still can’t get the concept of using stickers on glass to warn away our fellow humans from walking into it. Hmm.

    Anyway, quickly and easily solved, as MDN demonstrates.

    🍎🍎🍎🍏🍏🍏

  3. Apple staff are often glued to the iPhones they helped popularize,” Bergen reports. “That’s resulted in repeated cases of distracted employees walking into the panes, according to people familiar with the incidents.”

    The legacy of Steve Jobs – he created a generation of zoned-out, anti-social zombies.

    Thanks buddy.

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