A deserted Apple Park is another reminder of how weird this coronavirus lockdown is

Steve Jobs Theater
Steve Jobs Theater (Image credit: Rene Ritchie/iMore)

What you need to know

  • Drone footage of Apple Park shows it almost completely empty.
  • The surrounding areas are similarly short on people.
  • Apple policy and a shelter in place policy make for some eery footage.

New drone footage shows just how weird it is to see Apple Park and the surrounding areas with almost no people around. The footage, provided by Duncan Sinfield who also documented the area's building, is probably the most eery thing you'll see this week.

Apple has told its Apple Park employees to work from home wherever possible, and with a coronavirus-related shelter in place order preventing people from leaving homes in the surrounding area, it's understandable why everything is so quiet. But that doesn't make it look any less strange.

I doubt Apple Park has been this quiet since the day that it opened, and it's unlikely to be back up to speed for a number of weeks as the area, the country, and the planet contends with the coronavirus pandemic that has already changed the way we work and live.

Oliver Haslam
Contributor

Oliver Haslam has written about Apple and the wider technology business for more than a decade with bylines on How-To Geek, PC Mag, iDownloadBlog, and many more. He has also been published in print for Macworld, including cover stories. At iMore, Oliver is involved in daily news coverage and, not being short of opinions, has been known to 'explain' those thoughts in more detail, too.

Having grown up using PCs and spending far too much money on graphics card and flashy RAM, Oliver switched to the Mac with a G5 iMac and hasn't looked back. Since then he's seen the growth of the smartphone world, backed by iPhone, and new product categories come and go. Current expertise includes iOS, macOS, streaming services, and pretty much anything that has a battery or plugs into a wall. Oliver also covers mobile gaming for iMore, with Apple Arcade a particular focus. He's been gaming since the Atari 2600 days and still struggles to comprehend the fact he can play console quality titles on his pocket computer.