Apple is ensuring that its sub-contracted shuttle bus workers get a better deal, directly funding a 25% bump in their pay and requiring contractors to pay a higher hourly rate for split shifts–where drivers work both mornings and evenings but are kept hanging around without pay between the two …
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The Rev. Jesse Jackson has written to Apple CEO Tim Cook to urge the company to create “world-class working conditions” for low-paid contractors like security guards, requesting a meeting with Cook to discuss the issue, reports the San Jose Mercury News.
The paper reports a growing debate about the widespread use of contract workers by tech companies for low-paid roles, contract staff having none of the protections or perks afforded to direct employees …
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New renders released by the City of Cupertino from Apple’s planning documents provide the most detailed view yet of what life inside the company’s new spaceship headquarters will be like.
Illustrating everything from cafes to car-parks, the renders are intended to provide a feel for what the building will be like to work in, rather than just its appearance as a structure. They also include additional renders of the upper level of the 1,000-seat auditorium.
Full gallery below …
Cupertino City Council last night voted unanimously to approve Apple’s planning application for the circular campus building first presented to council members by Steve Jobs in 2011, in what was to turn out to be his last public appearance before his death. It was Steve Jobs who nicknamed the building the ‘spaceship.’
Although the approval is still subject to a final vote on 15th November, the San Jose Mercury News reports that this is merely a formality.
Now that the project has been approved, the council by regulation must meet one more time on Nov. 15 for a final and largely perfunctory vote. The spaceship, for all practical purposes, has now been approved for liftoff.
You can view a gallery of photos of a detailed model below the fold …
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Mercury News reported that Cupertino, Calif.-based Apple has broken ground on a Santa Clara campus that is set to be home to 1,200 employees. The location is just short of the city limits of Cupertino, and it is a 296,000 square-foot space set to be developed by Peery Arillaga. It is said to be a two six-floor building campus—not to be confused with the massive Spaceship-like campus Apple currently has plans for. Earlier this month, we highlighted a few other Apple land grabs, which many believe are temporary offices until the new campus that is set to hold 14,000 employees is completed in mid-2016. The first six-floor building at the new Santa Clara location that is 188,000 square feet will be completed mid-2014, while there’s no word on the second.
Source: Mercury News
<em>Kenny the Clown</em>
Mercury News’ Mike Rosenberg caught up with the clown who had Steve Jobs’ 64GB stolen iPad.
Literally–he’s a professional clown. Kenneth Kahn, 47, received the iPad, which Mercury News noted as being “silver,” from 35-year-old Kariem McFarlin. He met McFarlin roughly a decade ago when he coached him on a basketball team in Alameda, Calif. Kahn thought he was getting an “old device McFarlin wanted to get rid of” and believed his friend bought a newer-version.
Kahn, who is known as “Kenny the Clown” by day, only used the illustrious tablet to play a “Pink Panther” theme song and Michael Jackson during a clown act.
Mercury News explained:
- He had no idea the device came from the fabled Jobs residence until after the friend who gave him the gadget was charged with breaking into the CEO’s Palo Alto home. By then, the cops had already shown up at his door and taken it away.
- “It would be like getting a football from Joe Montana that was stolen out of his house,” said the 47-year-old professional clown, whose real name is Kenneth Kahn. “It’s bizarre; it’s really bizarre.”
<em>Kenneth Kahn</em>
McFarlin, an Alameda resident with only a misdemeanor charge on his record for driving without a license in 1999, stole the iPad from Jobs’ Waverley Street home on July 17. He allegedly gave another iPad to his daughter, according to police, but both devices were returned to Jobs’ family upon McFarlin’s arrest on Aug. 2. McFarlin immediately admitted the crime and waited in jail Thursday in lieu of $500,000 bail.
“Before the public sees him as this horrible monster, I’d like to hopefully think we can somehow get across that he just made the worst mistake of his life,” Kahn said to Mercury News. “It still hasn’t really 100 percent set in for me. It was Steve Jobs’ iPad — literally. If this thing weren’t so tragic, it would be comical.”
Get the full report at Mercury News.
If you haven’t heard by now, plans for construction of Apple’s 175-acre “Spaceship” campus are well under way. A meeting hosted by Cupertino mayor Gilbert Wong to address any community member’s concerns is scheduled for tonight.
However, it now looks like Apple may have plans to build another campus, as Wong told Mercury News that Apple execs have already approached him with plans for a third campus:
Wong said Apple executives have told him the company is expanding so fast that it expects to start working on Apple Campus 3 at an unknown location after they finish the second headquarters in 2015.
An Apple spokesperson declined to comment. We’re not sure if this is just really early planning for a potential third campus in the future, or if the company has more specific plans. We already know that Apple’s proposed Spaceship campus will be home to 12-13,000 employees.
Perhaps Apple will start moving employees out of Infinite Loop once the spaceship is complete and rebuild a ‘satellite’ campus at that location?
The report from Mercury News also notes that city officials have suggested a sculpture of Steve Jobs be placed on the campus to “honor his contributions as the iconic leader of Cupertino’s biggest taxpayer and cache-maker.”
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