Apple's New Spaceship Campus Has One Flaw -- and It Hurts (bloomberg.com)

Mark Bergen, writing for Bloomberg: The centerpiece of Apple's new headquarters is a massive, ring-shaped office overflowing with panes of glass, a testament to the company's famed design-obsessed aesthetic. There's been one hiccup since it opened last year: Apple employees keep smacking into the glass. Surrounding the Cupertino, California-based building are 45-foot tall curved panels of safety glass. Inside are work spaces, dubbed "pods," also made with a lot of glass. Apple staff are often glued to the iPhones they helped popularize. That's resulted in repeated cases of distracted employees walking into the panes, according to people familiar with the incidents. Some staff started to stick Post-It notes on the glass doors to mark their presence. However, the notes were removed because they detracted from the building's design, the people said.

Comments

Feature not a bug.

[Gravis Zero]

A building that punishes people for working for an amoral megacorp is exactly what Apple employees deserve.

Some things never change

[Waffle Iron]

The first time I saw this issue was when I was on a field trip in the 1970s. One of my classmates had one of the new handheld Mattel Football games and was playing it as we walked around.

We were in one of those museums that has glass walls dividing the major rooms, and he smacked into one at full waking pace. He ended up with a nasty bloody nose. He might even have broken his nose; I can't remember. However, one thing I have always remembered since then is to look up frequently if I'm walking around with some kind of device.

Re:Sheeple

[tlhIngan]

To be fair, some of these people are so glued to their phones that they would walk into a very obvious brick wall. For the people I view who are walking around oblivious to the world while checking their smartphone, they do seem to rely on peripheral vision and will stop just a foot or two short of bumping into stuff. Ie, the carpet pattern changed, they can see the base of the wall, etc. But if there was a clear glass wall that went to the floor without any wall base, I could easily see these people smacking into the glass.

It's really an extension of what everyone knows - you can't walk and text. If you think driving and cellphones were bad, walking and texting is worse - people don't seem to think it's as dangerous, but it does lead to injuries and even deaths.

Yes, deaths - distracted pedestrians continually dart into traffic and get run over,. It's not usually a huge amount - most metropolitan areas typically see around 5-10 deaths per year. Injuries are usually much higher - because the people are walking into walls, street furniture (benches, planters, etc), lamp posts and other things on the sidewalk.

The end result is typically they walk a lot slower and often obstruct traffic - hence the jokes about "texting lanes" where they can keep to their slow pace while other traffic goes around them.

One wonders though if it would simply be faster to walk at a normal pace, arrive at your destination, then stop and do all your testing and crap in a safe spot. Seems like a risky thing to try to multitask walking.

Re:Root Cause Flaw

[nnet]

Baker-Miller pink. Look it up.