“In a stunning development, an expensive construction project has begun at the Fifth Avenue (NYC) Apple store to completely remove the unique and iconic glass cube entrance to the store and to then reinstall it,” Gary Allen reports for ifoAppleStore.
“Permits issued by the city’s Department of Buildings confirm the company will spend $6,661,050 to completely remove the glass and its sophisticated connection hardware, make upgrades to the surrounding plaza structure, and then ‘reinstall’ the cube,” Allen reports. “There is no indication of why the cube is being replaced, either because of safety concerns or simply to upgrade it to current technology. It’s also not clear if the glass panels or the TriPyramid Structures Inc. hardware will be be replaced with new, upgraded versions.”
Allen reports, “Workers appeared on Wednesday evening and began erecting plywood walls around the central area of the plaza that surrounds the glass cube.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Single panes of glass sans mullions?
…and trading on AAPL is up on the news!
More glass building tests before starting the new glass campus building in California? Use new tech now, expand it for larger structure.
Interesting theory.
Trying out new connection engineering? (The new campus is very close to the San Andreas fault.)
Curved glass walls?
maybe it will be apple shaped?
i can think of at least one person who isn’t going to like glass walls in an earthquake area!
Rob Enderle! He’ll probably say this is almost as dangerous as the iMac G4, with its obviously (only to him) top-heavy construction. 😉
I like that theory. I like it a lot.
Likely incorporating newer technology to install larger glass panels. Or, a pigeon pooped on it.
Instead of a physical structure, the store will be sheltered by force fields — the first of their kind on this planet. Energy will be supplied by decommissioned nuclear power components from Germany.
Transparent aluminium!
Nice reference!
The formula was provided to humanity on, of all things, a Mac. Can’t tell if it was a 512 or otherwise.
The keyboard was so quaint!
Aye! They’ll be able to hold an entire aquarium with just one inch.
Or maybe Gorilla glass!
Apple spends $6,661,050 to “upgrade” the glass cube in NY, but can’t seem to scrape together the cash to fix the broken toilet seat in my store’s mens room. Go figure!
“They can put a man on the moon… But they can’t seem to make a damn telephone cord that don’t bunch up”
What is a telephone cord? Haven’t used one of those in years!!
That’s right. TVs used to be wireless, and phones had cords. They switched places.
That kind of disconnect doesn’t exist with vegasgeorge’s comment.
The NY store glass cube is the analogue of the Cupertino spaceship that will be built in 2015. There’s a secret communications chamber between it and the spaceship. They’re having to upgrade it because when the spaceship is completed an alien portal will open up in the cube drawing ever more Apple faithful into a religious Rapture in the NY store and be bathed in the light emanating from the shining visage of El Jobso Kal-El from the planet Zorg.
Well, almost correct. The new “cube” (actually hypercube) is not simply a communications chamber, but a hyperdimensional portal between the New York store and the Apple “spaceship” headquarters circa 2020. The cool thing about this is that every time they bring back new ideas from the future and implement them today, the future changes so that even more advanced ideas are available on the other side of the portal.
No word as to whether Steve Jobs is alive and well on the other side of the portal.
Space Brother LeftNut — you weren’t supposed to tell the Earthlings yet!!!
Space Brother Seamus, the Earthlings have discovered Vault 69 beneath the Cube. The secret’s out. We’ll have to say, “Nano, Nano,” Mork & Mindy style & walk around with split middle fingers to identify ourselves to Captain El Jobso.
Scotty gave Steve the formula for Transparent Aluminum.
The really funny thing about this is that, after that movie, someone came up with the compound “aluminum dilithium…”
…and it’s transparent. Really. Go figure.
It’s going to be made from mimetic polyalloy…
Maybe this is why Ron Johnson left Apple for JC Penny, because he botched the store design and he was on the hook for $7mil.
CUBE 2.0
Should be snappy!
The whole thing is being replaced with giant touch-screen retina displays (with IPS and LED-backlighting, of course!)
What better way to spend $14,000,000.00? The new glass entrance will look like a Newton.
It’s new name…..iCnu 2
Another first! Apple invents an iHouse from which you may safely throw many stones.
Got me on that one, MDN.
mullion |ˈməlyən|
noun
a vertical bar between the panes of glass in a window
The MDN title for this article is misleading. It sounded like the glass cube was being removed in favor of something else. Instead, it is being disassembled and then “reinstalled,” possibly with upgrades.
Over $6.6M? Apple likes its fancy glass…
They need to lift it up so they can install booster rockets and escape pods. It will follow the mothership into the sky, in what journalists are sure to coin; The App-ture.
This means no major iphone release until November.
Why?
Geez!
💡 It’s really a project to add long, sharp carbon nanotubes onto the surface of the top glass in order to keep the birds from landing and defecating on it. 💡
💡 GORILLA GLASS 💡
Look for the old glass cube to turn up at Penney’s Home Store marked down to $4,999,999.99