Apple Shows Off New Steve Jobs Theater at Annual iPhone Event
September 12 2017 - 1:07PM
Dow Jones News
By Christina Passariello
CUPERTINO, Calif. -- Apple Inc. Tuesday accompanied its annual
ritual of new product revelations with a different kind of
unveiling, the first public look inside the Steve Jobs Theater on
the tech giant's new campus.
Apple welcomed nearly 1,000 guests to the glass-walled
auditorium named after Apple's co-founder at the $5 billion Apple
Park, which has been under construction for years. Work on the site
reached a crescendo in recent months to ready it in time for the
iPhone event, amping up anticipation for a product launch that is
critical to Apple's future.
This year's event is expected to feature a pricier new
smartphone dubbed the iPhone X with advanced new features to mark
the product's 10th anniversary, as well as two updated versions of
last year's iPhone 7, a new version of the Apple Watch and other
items.
In recent years, Apple hosted its September event in rented
venues around the Bay Area because it had outgrown its longtime
headquarters nearby Apple Park. That drifting from its roots
coincided with what some observers have called a period of relative
stagnation in which Apple had no new breakthrough products, and
made incremental changes to its cash cow smartphone. Apple hopes
that centralizing its teams on the campus will lead to closer
collaboration -- and the iPhone event is the grand kickoff.
"We've been waiting for this for a long time," says Carolina
Milanesi, an analyst with Creative Strategies who attended the
Tuesday event. "Will [the campus] make a difference to how Wall
Street sees Apple? Of course not, but there is excitement and the
atmosphere will be different."
The Steve Jobs Theater is situated on a hill on the new campus,
overlooking the main ring building that is designed to house
Apple's core divisions. Outside, the smell of the fertilizer mixed
in with mulch permeated the air from the landscaping that has taken
place this summer.
From the exterior, the theater's metallic carbon-fiber roof
appears to levitate over the 20-foot-tall glass cylinder. The
stage, seating and other exhibit space where guests can play with
Apple's new devices all are located underground.
Steve Wozniak, who co-founded Apple with Mr. Jobs in the 1970s,
was one of the guests Tuesday. His immediate reaction was, "Wow,
this is not normal," he said. He said the design reflected Steve
Jobs's Apple, capturing his design instincts.
Its primary use will be for product launches, said Dan
Whisenhunt, Apple's head of real estate and development. It also
will host seminar talks, small concerts and meetings led by Apple
executives that can be simulcast everywhere on campus.
The last two September events have taken place at the Bill
Graham Civic Auditorium in San Francisco, a larger space that
allowed Apple to invite 2,000 people, including school groups.
While the smaller Steve Jobs Theater means cutting the guest list
in half, "this venue gets us back to the sweet spot," Mr.
Whisenhunt said.
Tripp Mickle contributed to this article.
Write to Christina Passariello at
christina.passariello@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
September 12, 2017 12:52 ET (16:52 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2017 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
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