A pair of short — but fascinating — stories to start off the week:
- We look at some possibilities on what may be announced at Apple’s educational event in Chicago next Tuesday
- Apple Campus 3 (AC3) is about to open, another big Apple building about four miles north of both 1 Infinite Loop and Apple Park
The text version of the podcast can be read below. To listen to the podcast here, click the play button on the player below. Apple News readers need to visit Apple World Today in order to listen to the podcast.
Text Version
This is Steve Sande for Apple World Today, and you’re listening to the AWT News Update podcast for Monday, March 19, 2018.
Every time Apple announces an event for the press, two things happen: first, Apple World Today isn’t invited and second, everyone tries to dissect the invitation to see what hints Apple may have included. The latest event is planned for next Tuesday, March 27, and will be held at Lane Tech College Prep High School in Chicago. The invitation includes a line drawing with a stylized Apple logo drawn in a pen and ink style, with hand lettering that says “Let’s take a field trip”. First guess is that Apple might introduce a second iteration of the Apple Pencil, since it appears that’s what was used to draw the graphic for the invitation. The second is that Apple may release an updated version of Classroom, an app that’s used by educators in locations with a lot of iPads to launch apps or websites, open books remotely, and let teachers look at device screens to make sure students are working on their assignments. Another possibility is the release of a new, lower-cost iPad with Apple Pencil compatibility targeted at the educational community. Perhaps Apple could use the event to announce or release a new, lower-cost MacBook Air or MacBook, although that wouldn’t be likely. Apple has been working on Project Marzipan, which is a way to run iOS apps on a Mac, but using Apple’s A-series processors in a Mac to lower production costs would make that even easier. Don’t expect a new Mac mini, because that’s probably a ways off. It’s not time for Apple to release a new iPhone, so that won’t happen either. The best way to find out what Apple will do on March 27 is to just stay tuned to Apple World Today.
With all the hoopla about Apple Park over the past few years, another new Apple campus has been totally ignored — AC3 or Apple Campus 3, the third big Apple campus along with the original Infinite Loop location and Apple Park. AC3 is about to open, and unlike the heavy Apple influence on the design of Apple Park, this is a spec building that was designed by architectural firm HOK and built by Level 10 Construction. It just happens to be a facility that has a lot of glass like Apple Park, sun-shading “eyebrows” like Apple Park, and a design that looks vaguely like 3/4ths of the Mac Command Key logo when viewed from the air. The facility is located at the corner of Central Expressway and Wolfe Road in Sunnyvale, California, about 4 miles north of Apple Park and Infinite Loop in Cupertino. The facility is located near facilities that Apple has leased for its automotive initiative, Project Titan, although it’s not known if employees working on that project will move to the new facility. With Apple’s rapid expansion of research and development that we talked about last week, it could be possible for this facility to be used to house researchers for Project Titan and other research initiatives.
That’s all the news for today – join me tomorrow afternoon for another edition of the AWT News Update.
