The following are fictional narratives created based on the research. These narratives are meant to speculate on the context within the future public domain under the control of Apple would look like and what it would feature. This research draws on the transcripts of Apple’s keynote speeches in order to better understand their values and goals. Part one of the narrative builds the context of the world and part two is written in the form of a transcript from a fictional keynote speech where Apple introduces iCity.
Prologue: Utopia
There was once a time where the city was defined by physical boundaries. Those boundaries perpetuated social and economic situations within the city.
Architecture and urbanism had historically been the instrument of defining those boundaries and shaping the public domain.
As digital technology and digital media infiltrated more lives, the users became less reliant on the physical nature of the city. The fundamental question for cities became, “What should the city be optimized for, physical or digital interaction?”
Smart City technology had been implemented over years in attempt to make the functions of the city more efficient, but the benefits for those technologies were out of sight and out of mind for users. Smartphones, high speed internet access, digital media, and social media are what made users excited about technology in their city because it made their personal experience with the city seamless.
For year many years mayors and city governments had been doing anything in their power to luer technology companies to their cities with promises of tax incentives, infrastructure investments, and much more.
Cities began to change and the power of influence shifted from the public to the private sector. Only small numbers of users actually opposed this shift due to the fact the companies had private capital to invest, the ability to subvert the red tape of city governments, and a promise of a city better optimized for their personal devices.
It took no time at all for technology companies to begin to introduce their new features to the city. The city was their product now to do with what they please. Technology companies met early objections by city governments and citizens with threats of moving their company’s presence to neighboring cities and taking their taxes with them.
For these companies, the city was not a chaotic and uncontrollable condition. Fundamentally they believe that the inefficiencies of life must be identified and rationalized in order to ultimately make a frictionless experience for the user...call it a binary approach.
Much like computer software is rationalized with ones and zeros, their idea was the city could be approached in the same way. The advancement of technology would once again liberate society from the monotony of living.
No one really asked Silicon Valley to reimagine the city, but we did not know we needed the iPhone either. That is the beauty of the innovators of our time, they know what we want before we want it. They made us understand what a mess the city is, while at the same time offered the antidote to the confusion.
Once users accepted the “Terms and Conditions” and created their Apple ID, the whole world was literally at their fingertips. Those Terms and Conditions became the governance for the public domain and people not only continued to blindly accept them, they could not live their daily lives without accepting them.
There was just one thing that no one in Silicon Valley could ever solve. For the sake of sounding academic, call it the Apple Paradox. The more the public domain became dependent on digital technology, the more isolating the user experience seemed to become.
In some way, Apple and other technology companies never actually resisted this idea. Their rhetoric maintained one narrative, while their technology perpetuated another. By embracing this contradictory method of thinking, users are unable to critique or question the effects these companies have on society.
Along with that, these companies sell a better life that is filled with convenience, personalized experience, and community.
CONTROL IS CONVIENCE
UBITQUITY IS PERSONALIZATION
ISOLATION IS COMMUNITY
For Apple, this was the greatest opportunity for them as a company. They not only revolutionized the user experience of the city, but they also forever changed how companies can take advantage of the public domain for economic benefit.
Now advertisers flocked to Apple in order to get an opportunity to engage their new public domain. Billboards of the past were stagnate in the ways that they engaged users. Now the public domain could be filled with active advertising and experience. The digital realm is not constrained by space. The opportunity is unlimited.
Based on user’s history, technology companies and advertisers can predict what users want and need before they know they need it. Making their experience more convenient.
In the same way that they add convenience to the public domain, that augmented reality creates an personalized customer experience that stagnant storefronts and billboards could never deliver.
Finally, with all this information about users, communities can be created with users who all have the same interests, values, and beliefs. Users now only surround themselves with other users who are exactly like one another.
So where did this all began?
It was a long process of privatization. Personal computers became laptops and laptops became smartphones and smart phones became watches, but technology could only get so small so fast. Apple became the first to realize instead of optimizing their devices for the city, they could optimize the city for their devices.
Much like Apple did with the Macintosh, iPod, and iPhone, their innovations had once again opened pandora's box. Shortly after, all communication and digital media technology companies would look up from their computers and focus on the city as the next frontier of innovation.
Augmented reality created an unlimited extension of what can happen within the public domain by lessening its reliance on physical constraints. Apple led the way with their innovative APPLEi, which seamlessly integrated augmented reality to all mobile devices so Apple could not only watch the world around users every second of everyday, but also manipulate it in the name of user experience.
In 1984, Apple released the Macintosh personal computer with a Super Bowl commercial that showed a female character liberating the world from the old ideology of personal computing. Thee commercial ended with the tagline, “On January 24th, Apple Computer will introduce Macintosh. And you'll see why 1984 won't be like '1984.” Apple was right, 1984 was not like 1984. 1984 is Now.
The following transcript is from the Apple Keynote from two years ago when their CEO introduced their revolutionary “Four Functions of the Future City” and the newest augmented reality technology to supplement that new vision of the city.
Out of this keynote the world got iCity.
There was once a time where the city was defined by physical boundaries. Those boundaries perpetuated social and economic situations within the city.
Architecture and urbanism had historically been the instrument of defining those boundaries and shaping the public domain.
As digital technology and digital media infiltrated more lives, the users became less reliant on the physical nature of the city. The fundamental question for cities became, “What should the city be optimized for, physical or digital interaction?”
Smart City technology had been implemented over years in attempt to make the functions of the city more efficient, but the benefits for those technologies were out of sight and out of mind for users. Smartphones, high speed internet access, digital media, and social media are what made users excited about technology in their city because it made their personal experience with the city seamless.
For year many years mayors and city governments had been doing anything in their power to luer technology companies to their cities with promises of tax incentives, infrastructure investments, and much more.
Cities began to change and the power of influence shifted from the public to the private sector. Only small numbers of users actually opposed this shift due to the fact the companies had private capital to invest, the ability to subvert the red tape of city governments, and a promise of a city better optimized for their personal devices.
It took no time at all for technology companies to begin to introduce their new features to the city. The city was their product now to do with what they please. Technology companies met early objections by city governments and citizens with threats of moving their company’s presence to neighboring cities and taking their taxes with them.
For these companies, the city was not a chaotic and uncontrollable condition. Fundamentally they believe that the inefficiencies of life must be identified and rationalized in order to ultimately make a frictionless experience for the user...call it a binary approach.
Much like computer software is rationalized with ones and zeros, their idea was the city could be approached in the same way. The advancement of technology would once again liberate society from the monotony of living.
No one really asked Silicon Valley to reimagine the city, but we did not know we needed the iPhone either. That is the beauty of the innovators of our time, they know what we want before we want it. They made us understand what a mess the city is, while at the same time offered the antidote to the confusion.
Once users accepted the “Terms and Conditions” and created their Apple ID, the whole world was literally at their fingertips. Those Terms and Conditions became the governance for the public domain and people not only continued to blindly accept them, they could not live their daily lives without accepting them.
There was just one thing that no one in Silicon Valley could ever solve. For the sake of sounding academic, call it the Apple Paradox. The more the public domain became dependent on digital technology, the more isolating the user experience seemed to become.
In some way, Apple and other technology companies never actually resisted this idea. Their rhetoric maintained one narrative, while their technology perpetuated another. By embracing this contradictory method of thinking, users are unable to critique or question the effects these companies have on society.
Along with that, these companies sell a better life that is filled with convenience, personalized experience, and community.
CONTROL IS CONVIENCE
UBITQUITY IS PERSONALIZATION
ISOLATION IS COMMUNITY
For Apple, this was the greatest opportunity for them as a company. They not only revolutionized the user experience of the city, but they also forever changed how companies can take advantage of the public domain for economic benefit.
Now advertisers flocked to Apple in order to get an opportunity to engage their new public domain. Billboards of the past were stagnate in the ways that they engaged users. Now the public domain could be filled with active advertising and experience. The digital realm is not constrained by space. The opportunity is unlimited.
Based on user’s history, technology companies and advertisers can predict what users want and need before they know they need it. Making their experience more convenient.
In the same way that they add convenience to the public domain, that augmented reality creates an personalized customer experience that stagnant storefronts and billboards could never deliver.
Finally, with all this information about users, communities can be created with users who all have the same interests, values, and beliefs. Users now only surround themselves with other users who are exactly like one another.
So where did this all began?
It was a long process of privatization. Personal computers became laptops and laptops became smartphones and smart phones became watches, but technology could only get so small so fast. Apple became the first to realize instead of optimizing their devices for the city, they could optimize the city for their devices.
Much like Apple did with the Macintosh, iPod, and iPhone, their innovations had once again opened pandora's box. Shortly after, all communication and digital media technology companies would look up from their computers and focus on the city as the next frontier of innovation.
Augmented reality created an unlimited extension of what can happen within the public domain by lessening its reliance on physical constraints. Apple led the way with their innovative APPLEi, which seamlessly integrated augmented reality to all mobile devices so Apple could not only watch the world around users every second of everyday, but also manipulate it in the name of user experience.
In 1984, Apple released the Macintosh personal computer with a Super Bowl commercial that showed a female character liberating the world from the old ideology of personal computing. Thee commercial ended with the tagline, “On January 24th, Apple Computer will introduce Macintosh. And you'll see why 1984 won't be like '1984.” Apple was right, 1984 was not like 1984. 1984 is Now.
The following transcript is from the Apple Keynote from two years ago when their CEO introduced their revolutionary “Four Functions of the Future City” and the newest augmented reality technology to supplement that new vision of the city.
Out of this keynote the world got iCity.
Narrative: Keynote Speech
Location: Apple Park, Cupertino, California
Attendance: 1,000
[The tension of the anticipation for the days announcement finally breaks as the CEO of Apple enters to a standing ovation]
[Presentation begins with 3-minute video hinting at the concept of iCity. Steve Jobs and Tim Cook’s inspirational quotes from prior keynotes are featured]
Location: Apple Park, Cupertino, California
Attendance: 1,000
[The tension of the anticipation for the days announcement finally breaks as the CEO of Apple enters to a standing ovation]
[Presentation begins with 3-minute video hinting at the concept of iCity. Steve Jobs and Tim Cook’s inspirational quotes from prior keynotes are featured]
[INTRODUCTION- CEO]
Thank you...thank you. As always, it is inspiring to hear their voices. Those two men were instrumental in bringing Apple to this moment in time. You may have heard that today is a day that we here at Apple will never forget.
As Steve said during his release of iPhone, “Every once in a while, a revolutionary product comes along that changes everything.” Between Macintosh, iPod, iPhone, and Apple Watch, we believe we are the best at changing the world, and today is no exception.
Today we are not presenting to you just as hardware and software developers, we are presenting to you as utopian visionaries of a better city of the future. When we took on the challenge of the city for our users, we began with the modernists.
Led by urban visionaries like Le Corbusier, the modernists believed that technology innovation would rationalize the functions of the city. Fundamentally, we believe that our values strongly aligned.
They established the four functions of the city...dwelling, working, recreation, and circulation. While the modernists were never able to fully realize their visions, we were ultimately inspired by their values and beliefs in technological innovations liberating all users.
So what is different now? Why are we the ones to make utopia a reality? Well when you think back, the automobile, radio, telephone, and television all revolutionized the city, but those were passive technologies. We believe that our technology is humanizing...actively participating in users lives and the environment they are experiencing.
Our technology not only allows users to interact with it and personalize their experience with it, but it also is the new cornerstone for building community and social relationships. This technology is no longer cold computing. It is responsive and predictive. It is built to serve you, the user, not just react to you.
Finally think back to the 1984 release of Macintosh. It was a personal computer. It was immobile and isolated from the world around it. That being said, MacBook, iPod, iPhone, and Apple Watch brought this technology into the city...into the public domain.
The city has always been the arena our technology is best experienced. We create technology to more conveniently experience the city while also improving the communities and relationships that are formed because of it. So, for us, our final innovation would be the city itself.
Naturally we asked the same questions that modernist architects did of the city, “What are the essential function of the city?” But we believed that it was time to imagine those functions, not based off of our historical image of the city, instead off a future vision of how a city should be.
We believe that the city should be personalized, convenient, and unifying as a community. We believe the ubiquity that our devices and software offer allows users to personalize their experience however they want. Along with that, the convenience our products offer allow us to control the urban environment in order to make it the most frictionless experience. Finally, by using only Apple devices, we believe that isolation within our ecosystem of products creates the ultimate community.
Ubiquity is personalization.
Control is convenience.
Isolation is community.
We believe there are four functions to the city of the future: Personalization, Convenience, Community, and Retail.
We believe that our devices and software are fundamentally required to create a city like this and ultimately are the best enablers of this vision.
We believe the public domain must be programmed in order to enable our devices and software to operate at their highest efficiency for users. The Townsquare is the centerpiece of our idealized city. The Town Square will then be enhanced by four other programmed squares within the public domain: The Square of the Captive Audience, The Square of Social Reconciliation, The Square of Everywhere, and The Square of the Consumer. They are the essential components in order to create a vibrant public domain of the future.
But, we would not Apple if we did not begin our iCity project with a new device or new software. We have been perfecting augmented reality for many years and with many devices. Augmented reality is the ultimate piece of technology for us because it bridges the gap between the physical reality and digital reality. Computing comes to life in the physical world for users to experience, interact with, and consume.
Our first major innovation was iPhone X which was released in 2017.
Since then, we have continued to revolutionize the hardware of the camera so it can continually read, analyze, and predict the environment around users. It can also recognize user’s facial features in order to understand exactly what that users want and predict what users need.
Our goal was to create a public domain that was created specifically for our augmented reality technology to watch over every hour of every day. That ultimately was the vision of iCity because we did not believe the city integrated with the technology of the future. A public domain specifically for Apple’s augmented reality.
So, without further ado, I present to you…
APPLEi
Thank you...thank you. As always, it is inspiring to hear their voices. Those two men were instrumental in bringing Apple to this moment in time. You may have heard that today is a day that we here at Apple will never forget.
As Steve said during his release of iPhone, “Every once in a while, a revolutionary product comes along that changes everything.” Between Macintosh, iPod, iPhone, and Apple Watch, we believe we are the best at changing the world, and today is no exception.
Today we are not presenting to you just as hardware and software developers, we are presenting to you as utopian visionaries of a better city of the future. When we took on the challenge of the city for our users, we began with the modernists.
Led by urban visionaries like Le Corbusier, the modernists believed that technology innovation would rationalize the functions of the city. Fundamentally, we believe that our values strongly aligned.
They established the four functions of the city...dwelling, working, recreation, and circulation. While the modernists were never able to fully realize their visions, we were ultimately inspired by their values and beliefs in technological innovations liberating all users.
So what is different now? Why are we the ones to make utopia a reality? Well when you think back, the automobile, radio, telephone, and television all revolutionized the city, but those were passive technologies. We believe that our technology is humanizing...actively participating in users lives and the environment they are experiencing.
Our technology not only allows users to interact with it and personalize their experience with it, but it also is the new cornerstone for building community and social relationships. This technology is no longer cold computing. It is responsive and predictive. It is built to serve you, the user, not just react to you.
Finally think back to the 1984 release of Macintosh. It was a personal computer. It was immobile and isolated from the world around it. That being said, MacBook, iPod, iPhone, and Apple Watch brought this technology into the city...into the public domain.
The city has always been the arena our technology is best experienced. We create technology to more conveniently experience the city while also improving the communities and relationships that are formed because of it. So, for us, our final innovation would be the city itself.
Naturally we asked the same questions that modernist architects did of the city, “What are the essential function of the city?” But we believed that it was time to imagine those functions, not based off of our historical image of the city, instead off a future vision of how a city should be.
We believe that the city should be personalized, convenient, and unifying as a community. We believe the ubiquity that our devices and software offer allows users to personalize their experience however they want. Along with that, the convenience our products offer allow us to control the urban environment in order to make it the most frictionless experience. Finally, by using only Apple devices, we believe that isolation within our ecosystem of products creates the ultimate community.
Ubiquity is personalization.
Control is convenience.
Isolation is community.
We believe there are four functions to the city of the future: Personalization, Convenience, Community, and Retail.
We believe that our devices and software are fundamentally required to create a city like this and ultimately are the best enablers of this vision.
We believe the public domain must be programmed in order to enable our devices and software to operate at their highest efficiency for users. The Townsquare is the centerpiece of our idealized city. The Town Square will then be enhanced by four other programmed squares within the public domain: The Square of the Captive Audience, The Square of Social Reconciliation, The Square of Everywhere, and The Square of the Consumer. They are the essential components in order to create a vibrant public domain of the future.
But, we would not Apple if we did not begin our iCity project with a new device or new software. We have been perfecting augmented reality for many years and with many devices. Augmented reality is the ultimate piece of technology for us because it bridges the gap between the physical reality and digital reality. Computing comes to life in the physical world for users to experience, interact with, and consume.
Our first major innovation was iPhone X which was released in 2017.
Since then, we have continued to revolutionize the hardware of the camera so it can continually read, analyze, and predict the environment around users. It can also recognize user’s facial features in order to understand exactly what that users want and predict what users need.
Our goal was to create a public domain that was created specifically for our augmented reality technology to watch over every hour of every day. That ultimately was the vision of iCity because we did not believe the city integrated with the technology of the future. A public domain specifically for Apple’s augmented reality.
So, without further ado, I present to you…
APPLEi
[APPLEi- Augmented reality feature introduced with three minute video]
[Apple Senior Vice President, Augmented Reality]
Ever since we revolutionized augmented reality technology with the release of iPhone X, we have continued to push the limits of what augmented reality can do within the physical environment.
I always loved the small paragraph that was featured on our website after the iPhone X release. It read:
Imagine if the line between the virtual and the real simply didn’t exist. Your classroom could become the cosmos. The past could be as vivid as the present. And the familiar could look like nothing you’ve ever seen. With iPhone and iPad, those experiences are not only possible, they’re here. Augmented reality is a new way to use technology that transforms how you work, learn, play, and connect with almost everything around you. And this is just the beginning...Welcome to a new world. (Apple.com)
This has always inspired me when thinking about all of the possibilities that we can create with augmented reality. Since that iPhone release we have invested heavily in created better hardware to enable a more seamless augmented reality experience for users.
With that foundation, today we are announcing the beginning of APPLEi.
This project is ambitious and we believe there is no limits to its potential. APPLEi is the software that will integrate into every device in our ecosystem that will better understand the world around our users to deliver them a better experience going from the physical to the digital world.
APPLEi will watch users 24/7 and also monitor the world around our users. With that information, APPLEi can understand where a user is at in the public domain and can offer what that user might want to do next. APPLEi will also be able to seamlessly deliver real time information about the surrounding public domain for a more personalized experience. Finally, it can begin to bring digital realities into the public domain for new communities to form around.
Along with the facial recognition and environment tracking advancements, APPLEi is the final component to bring hardware and software together to finally seamlessly integrate the physical and digital. The world around you is now your personalized world to engage with however you want.
As our devices continue to get smaller this technology will continue to adapt. This is why we believe there is no limit.
Mobile devices have turned into wearable, and we believe that ultimately wearables will be implanted or fully integrated with the user. Once our technology is completely out of sight and out of mind, we believe that we have accomplished our ultimate goal of seamlessly integrating the physical and digital worlds.
Naturally the final step for this augmented reality technology was for it to no longer have to adapt the physical environment. We wanted the physical environment to be optimized for augmented reality and all of the potentially opportunities that that offers users.
We could no longer let our technologies be hindered by the inefficiencies of the physical city, so after the reality of APPLEi became clear, we knew that we would need to rethink the nature of the public domain and ultimately the nature of the city itself.
In order to make that happen, we as Apple had to create that optimized physical environment. So along with the help of APPLEi and all of the Apple ecosystem of software and devices, it is time to finally introduce our newest and largest product ever...iCity.
[The programmatic features of iCity are introduced with a 3-minute video]
[Apple Senior Vice President, Augmented Reality]
Ever since we revolutionized augmented reality technology with the release of iPhone X, we have continued to push the limits of what augmented reality can do within the physical environment.
I always loved the small paragraph that was featured on our website after the iPhone X release. It read:
Imagine if the line between the virtual and the real simply didn’t exist. Your classroom could become the cosmos. The past could be as vivid as the present. And the familiar could look like nothing you’ve ever seen. With iPhone and iPad, those experiences are not only possible, they’re here. Augmented reality is a new way to use technology that transforms how you work, learn, play, and connect with almost everything around you. And this is just the beginning...Welcome to a new world. (Apple.com)
This has always inspired me when thinking about all of the possibilities that we can create with augmented reality. Since that iPhone release we have invested heavily in created better hardware to enable a more seamless augmented reality experience for users.
With that foundation, today we are announcing the beginning of APPLEi.
This project is ambitious and we believe there is no limits to its potential. APPLEi is the software that will integrate into every device in our ecosystem that will better understand the world around our users to deliver them a better experience going from the physical to the digital world.
APPLEi will watch users 24/7 and also monitor the world around our users. With that information, APPLEi can understand where a user is at in the public domain and can offer what that user might want to do next. APPLEi will also be able to seamlessly deliver real time information about the surrounding public domain for a more personalized experience. Finally, it can begin to bring digital realities into the public domain for new communities to form around.
Along with the facial recognition and environment tracking advancements, APPLEi is the final component to bring hardware and software together to finally seamlessly integrate the physical and digital. The world around you is now your personalized world to engage with however you want.
As our devices continue to get smaller this technology will continue to adapt. This is why we believe there is no limit.
Mobile devices have turned into wearable, and we believe that ultimately wearables will be implanted or fully integrated with the user. Once our technology is completely out of sight and out of mind, we believe that we have accomplished our ultimate goal of seamlessly integrating the physical and digital worlds.
Naturally the final step for this augmented reality technology was for it to no longer have to adapt the physical environment. We wanted the physical environment to be optimized for augmented reality and all of the potentially opportunities that that offers users.
We could no longer let our technologies be hindered by the inefficiencies of the physical city, so after the reality of APPLEi became clear, we knew that we would need to rethink the nature of the public domain and ultimately the nature of the city itself.
In order to make that happen, we as Apple had to create that optimized physical environment. So along with the help of APPLEi and all of the Apple ecosystem of software and devices, it is time to finally introduce our newest and largest product ever...iCity.
[The programmatic features of iCity are introduced with a 3-minute video]
[Apple Senior Vice President, User Experience]
It is an incredible day, not only in the history of Apple which is filled with many days like today, but in the history of the world. We have embarked on our most ambitious project yet, and we are very excited to announce it today.
iCity is finally an urban experience that is as seamlessly integrated into users lives as our great software and hardware. Your Apple ID is not only your key to our services, it is now your key to the city.
The foundation for our giant leap into urban design started when we announced our rebranding of our retail stores to town squares in 2017. Based on the reaction from our users and how seamlessly we were able to integrate our retail into the public domain, we began to believe that we could push that idea further.
Based on our new four functions of the city of the future, we then began to envision five major programmatic components to that city of the future. We believe these programs can be integrated in any city.
That being said, after our users begin to experience our new public domain, we will be able to fulfill our ultimate vision of large scale developments within the city and even someday new cities.
The more integrated and connected our spaces, the better they will function for the users. That is why it is crucial for us to develop large areas of the city in our vision.
As you know, here at Apple we are always dreaming big. So, today’s presentation will feature all five programmed spaces within the context of what a fully integrated iCity development would look like.
The first feature that has been true of all of Apple’s physical buildings and retail is that it does not need a specific context to exist within. The transparency and minimalist design of our materials seamlessly let Apple existing anywhere within any city in the world. iCity has the sleek and transparent material palette so that those same principles of existing anywhere remain true with it.
From an overall plan, iCity seems like a direct reference to the circular shape of our headquarters, but along with that we were inspired by early modernist plans from Ebenezer Howard’s Garden City.
Another reason for the circular shape is we are going to offer free Wi-Fi that will beacon out from the center of our development. Because connectivity is so essential to our services, it was time that our physical environment embraced that.
The wifi signal is circular as it radiates out and its range defines the outer boundary of our development. Digital extents now define physical extents.
In the center of the circle is our most important space, our town square. This is not only the best place to experience Apple and our new products, but also the best pace to gather as a community.
The town square is then connected by avenues which lead to four more “squares” which are the other essential spaces to the iCity. These spaces are equally important but each uniquely embraces the values of the new public domain and let users engage in different ways.
The Square of the Captive Audience
The Square of Social Reconciliation
The Square of Everywhere
The Square of the Consumer
We believe these squares will allow Apple users to have the best experience, not only with our services and devices, but also, they will be the best place to engage other apps and content from third parties.
Also, our squares are circular in shape to offer a symbolically endless open with no sharp corners, much like our devices.
With these five squares will then be surrounded by housing for users and commercial office space which is specially designed to facilitate developers and innovators. We want to embrace everyone who is designing products and services for our devices.
For us, the circular nature of the development embodies the our belief that Apple services are at their best when they are contained within the same interconnected ecosystem. It also establishes the hierarchy of spaces from our Townsquare in the middle and then out to the other four essential squares of the iCity.
We believe that iCity is the ultimate embodiment of the new four functions of the city: personalization, convenience, community, and retail. Remember...
Ubiquity is personalization.
Control is convenience.
Isolation is community.
Now it is time for me to turn over the stage to our Senior Vice President of Programming who give you all a close up of the features of the squares and particular moments throughout iCity.
[Apple Senior Vice President, Programming]
Today we have introduced the future of the city, digitally and physically. Much like we do with all of devices and software announcements, we want to take all of you through the features and moments within these spaces that will truly optimize the user experience of Apple.
All of our squares, besides the town square, are entered from above. This allows for free-flowing circulation around the main level of the square, while the essential programmatic features are contained in a separate space below.
So, based off that brief introduction, let's first start with the Town Square.
In 2017, Angela Ahrendts introduced the Townsquare as Apple’s way of envisioning retail within the city. She said the following about Apple stores, “we actually don’t call them stores anymore; we call them Town Squares, because they’re gathering places for 500 million people who visit us every year, places where everyone is welcomed and we’re all of Apple comes together.”
The Town Square offered plazas and open spaces to the surrounding city. Within it, there are boardrooms for developers and redesigned Genius Groves. Our products from this point forward were featured in the avenues that could adjust to seasons and different releases.
Much like with our release of APPLEi today, Angela introduced Today at Apple, which was our initial way to begin to bridge the gap between the digital and physical aspects of our retail stores.
Since the release, all of our stores worldwide have become integral Town Squares within the context that they exist. That will be no different in iCity. The Town Square is the heartbeat of the entire development.
The Town Square is centrally located within iCity in order to give every user equal access to all that it offers.
It is surrounded by vast open space which will be used by the public in many different ways. We cannot wait to see all the activity that will happen around our Town Squares.
The Town Square’s main programmatic function is retail. It will be the place that users can access every product and service that we offer to them
Tim Cook once said, “It’s the best place to go experience our new products.” That is what we want. A space open to every user to use our products.
The Town Square is the idealization of the experience that is Apple. In some ways, it is our version of a theme park.
While the Town Square is the most important space within iCity, the four secondary squares are essential for creating the ultimate experience for a wide range of Apple users.
First, The Square of the Captive Audience. The space is exciting because we believe that we have finally created a place within the public domain that acts like our devices themselves. This is crucial because we wanted to create a blank canvas for other major third-party apps to be able to engage with.
Without those major third party applications, there is less of a need for our devices, so we took on the challenge of crafting a space just for them. It was really conceived based off the idea of the endless scrolling that these applications offer users. There are unlimited hours of opportunity for users to engage these applications, and the same goes for this space.
Upon walking down the stairs that bring users as near the center of the space, users are met with the option to then backtrack into four unique spaces created by the extension of the stairs. These spaces physically constrain user’s engagement to solely the service that they want to view.
The content of the space is not Apple’s, but that being said, we have designed the space for users to actively meander through it with no time constraint. The circulation is designed to offer nonstop engagement, much the designed discovery of wandering through a captive environment like a casino.
Users will be very active in the space, which we think will attract them to it. Also, they will be enhancing their personal digital media experience within the public domain because we anticipate companies, like Facebook, to craft their space with exclusive features.
Next up is the Square of Social Reconciliation.
Our devices play a very active role in the development and sustainability of strong communities. Social media has a history of causing issues among communities of all scales. That is why we believe it is important to begin to create space that helps reconcile differences.
This square is centered around two elevated platforms where the users can gather and understand both side of a discussion and begin to reconcile their differences.
Through the window of our devices, users engage social media every day, but we still believe that it is important to engage face to face. Our hope is we can create a space where the differences that are formed in the digital world can be bridged by the physical world.
The entire square is surrounded by stairs to symbolize the freedom of the space. Entry is not controlled by one or two access points. The is truly the embodiment of democratic space in the future of the city.
Augmented reality has the opportunity to integrate statements and questions directly into the physical space so all voices can be heard. APPLEi will also be able to recognize users and beliefs in order to predict and help reconcile confrontation digitally and with the public domain.
The Square of Everywhere is next and this space was very important because of the personalization and experience that it creates.
For us, the Square of Everywhere is the ultimate playground for digital and physical reality. The intent of this space is to interact with any virtual object as if they were in your surroundings.
Along with that level of immersion, you are also able to bring your favorite landmarks and cities into the space with augmented reality. If you want a picture in front of the Eiffel Tower or The Statue of Liberty, you now have the power to do so whenever you want.
Landmarks and experiences with augmented reality are continuing to get better. Those digital components are now recognizing users and actively engaging them. This requires a space of wide open possibilities, like The Square of Everywhere.
With our incredible camera on our mobile devices and ability to render realistic augmented reality components, your pictures will turn out like the real thing and ready to share on all of your social media platforms.
We believe by giving users the ability to curate and create their own experiences without traveling long distances is an opportunity to create a new form of place-based community unlike we have ever seen before. The world is not only yours, but yours to create.
Finally, we I am excited to introduce The Square of the Consumer.
Think back to the 1950s and 1960s, the shopping mall redefined the word convivence to the consumer. Online shopping redefined convivence once again as the internet became prominent in the late 1990s and early 2000s. Then came mobile devices and companies that could ship everything right to your doorstep in two days.
Convenience in the eye of the consumer is now a crucial component the commercial experience. We believe that these spaces within the physical city that are for shopping and eating or just grabbing a cup of coffee are critical to the health of the public domain.
We spent a lot of time debating what this type of space looks like in the future of the city.
Our central concept is to attempt to redefine the brick and mortar storefront and make it more dynamic to the needs of the users. We knew that we would be able to understand real-time needs and desires of our users, so naturally the next step was creating a public domain that could respond in real time.
The new storefronts can rapidly be transformed by eating establishments based on time of day and needs of the users without any physical changes to the store front because of our augmented reality technology. And do not forget...all of this new retail will be optimized for Apple Pay in order to make buying easier than ever.
Not only do we feel like we have changed the experience of shopping in the public domain, but we have also altered how companies serve users.
These storefronts also enable retailers to personalize what is featured from user to user with augmented reality. Think about it, a clothing company could feature one outfit based off of one user’s preferences and while simultaneously using the same space to feature another outfit for a separate user. In a more radical example, two users could be in the same storefront but shopping at two different stores through the lenses of their augmented reality.
We noticed a desire to still gather physically to shop and eat within cities. We did not think eliminating that aspect of the public domain was right, but we have once again personalized it, made it more convenient for users to consume in the public domain, and enabled communities to still form in the public domain over common desires.
This space draws on themes of an old downtown with storefronts, but we have applied our aesthetic to ultimately align with Apple. The entire perimeter of the square is lined with these storefronts, which create a never-ending supply of new shopping for users, while at the same time allowing them to actively partake in the public domain.
Those are the five main programmatic spaces that we believe align to our new functions of the city of the future. Nothing within the development is more than a half of a mile away so the entire designed space is the epitome of convenience because of proximity to everything.
As we described before, the space surrounding the squares will be infilled with housing, grocery stores, medical clinics, and commercial space optimized for developers to continue to innovate within the ecosystem of Apple.
The perimeter of our developments will buffer the surrounding context with thousands of trees as a testament to our commitment to environmental sustainability as well.
I for one am very excited to begin the process of developing spaces within cities around the world. It is an ambitious project, but we believe that this will be the most successful attempt to realize utopia in all of history. Technology has finally allowed us to create places within the public domain that people actually want. Technology has freed the city.
[Apple Senior Vice President, Augmented Reality]
So now that you have heard all about iCity, you may be wondering about more specifically how APPLEi will be fully integrated or change the experience of the space?
APPLEi knows every detail of the design of iCity, and whereas the regular city is very unpredictable for technology like APPLEi, these spaces are well known to the technology.
This is important because it knows the space, it also knows where the user is in the space and how the space should respond to the user. That will create the first highly predictive public domain. No longer will our technology have to react to the unpredictability of the public domain, it can predict and subvert uncertainty within it.
For example, imagine you are following along a path that is being augmented in front of you to your destination, and at the same time a user that you have in your contacts is walking a path that will then interact. We can begin to predict that you, the user, will want to stop and interact with that person because they are in your contacts.
Serendipity can now be optimized through the use of augmented reality and a physical public domain that the technology intricately understands.
Augmented reality will change how advertising shapes the public domain. No only will users have to experience the same thing, but now they will be able to experience the advertising that they want.
As technology improves, much like our devices get patches and updates, the iCity will get updates which will continue to enhance your experience without devices. Due to the ubiquity in the design of the space, users no longer have to wait on the slow process of building cities to experience updates.
Lastly, I believe that the chance to personalize the same physical environment to create endless user experience simultaneously is the greatest future for this vision of the city. No longer is the city stagnate and reactive, but now it personalized and engaging.
Those are some brief examples of how iCity and APPLEi will work together and as you can see, the opportunities are endless.
[CONCLUSION- CEO]
When Tim Cook introduced Apple Park to the world and this great theater that bears the name of one of the greatest innovators of all time, Steve Jobs, he said, “Steve’s spirit and timeless philosophy on life will always be the DNA of Apple. His greatest gift, his greatest expression of his appreciation for humanity, would not be a singular product. But rather it would be Apple itself.”
We here at Apple finally believe that we have now gifted Apple to every one of our users. iCity and APPLEi were created with Apple’s values in mind and our vision of an ultimate utopian environment for our users to exist within.
We believe that we have created for the first time in all history a garden of pure ideology, where each user may bloom, secure from the pests if any contradictory situations within the city.
This unification of thought is the most powerful community in the world. We are one people, with one will, one resolve, and one cause.
Steve closed many of his keynotes with inspirational quotes and words of wisdom from other people. The one that always stuck with me was the following quote by Wayne Gretzky.
“I skate to where the puck is going, not where it has been.”
I still believe that is what Apple has always done, and based off of today’s wonderful experience, that is what we will always do.
Thank you.
It is an incredible day, not only in the history of Apple which is filled with many days like today, but in the history of the world. We have embarked on our most ambitious project yet, and we are very excited to announce it today.
iCity is finally an urban experience that is as seamlessly integrated into users lives as our great software and hardware. Your Apple ID is not only your key to our services, it is now your key to the city.
The foundation for our giant leap into urban design started when we announced our rebranding of our retail stores to town squares in 2017. Based on the reaction from our users and how seamlessly we were able to integrate our retail into the public domain, we began to believe that we could push that idea further.
Based on our new four functions of the city of the future, we then began to envision five major programmatic components to that city of the future. We believe these programs can be integrated in any city.
That being said, after our users begin to experience our new public domain, we will be able to fulfill our ultimate vision of large scale developments within the city and even someday new cities.
The more integrated and connected our spaces, the better they will function for the users. That is why it is crucial for us to develop large areas of the city in our vision.
As you know, here at Apple we are always dreaming big. So, today’s presentation will feature all five programmed spaces within the context of what a fully integrated iCity development would look like.
The first feature that has been true of all of Apple’s physical buildings and retail is that it does not need a specific context to exist within. The transparency and minimalist design of our materials seamlessly let Apple existing anywhere within any city in the world. iCity has the sleek and transparent material palette so that those same principles of existing anywhere remain true with it.
From an overall plan, iCity seems like a direct reference to the circular shape of our headquarters, but along with that we were inspired by early modernist plans from Ebenezer Howard’s Garden City.
Another reason for the circular shape is we are going to offer free Wi-Fi that will beacon out from the center of our development. Because connectivity is so essential to our services, it was time that our physical environment embraced that.
The wifi signal is circular as it radiates out and its range defines the outer boundary of our development. Digital extents now define physical extents.
In the center of the circle is our most important space, our town square. This is not only the best place to experience Apple and our new products, but also the best pace to gather as a community.
The town square is then connected by avenues which lead to four more “squares” which are the other essential spaces to the iCity. These spaces are equally important but each uniquely embraces the values of the new public domain and let users engage in different ways.
The Square of the Captive Audience
The Square of Social Reconciliation
The Square of Everywhere
The Square of the Consumer
We believe these squares will allow Apple users to have the best experience, not only with our services and devices, but also, they will be the best place to engage other apps and content from third parties.
Also, our squares are circular in shape to offer a symbolically endless open with no sharp corners, much like our devices.
With these five squares will then be surrounded by housing for users and commercial office space which is specially designed to facilitate developers and innovators. We want to embrace everyone who is designing products and services for our devices.
For us, the circular nature of the development embodies the our belief that Apple services are at their best when they are contained within the same interconnected ecosystem. It also establishes the hierarchy of spaces from our Townsquare in the middle and then out to the other four essential squares of the iCity.
We believe that iCity is the ultimate embodiment of the new four functions of the city: personalization, convenience, community, and retail. Remember...
Ubiquity is personalization.
Control is convenience.
Isolation is community.
Now it is time for me to turn over the stage to our Senior Vice President of Programming who give you all a close up of the features of the squares and particular moments throughout iCity.
[Apple Senior Vice President, Programming]
Today we have introduced the future of the city, digitally and physically. Much like we do with all of devices and software announcements, we want to take all of you through the features and moments within these spaces that will truly optimize the user experience of Apple.
All of our squares, besides the town square, are entered from above. This allows for free-flowing circulation around the main level of the square, while the essential programmatic features are contained in a separate space below.
So, based off that brief introduction, let's first start with the Town Square.
In 2017, Angela Ahrendts introduced the Townsquare as Apple’s way of envisioning retail within the city. She said the following about Apple stores, “we actually don’t call them stores anymore; we call them Town Squares, because they’re gathering places for 500 million people who visit us every year, places where everyone is welcomed and we’re all of Apple comes together.”
The Town Square offered plazas and open spaces to the surrounding city. Within it, there are boardrooms for developers and redesigned Genius Groves. Our products from this point forward were featured in the avenues that could adjust to seasons and different releases.
Much like with our release of APPLEi today, Angela introduced Today at Apple, which was our initial way to begin to bridge the gap between the digital and physical aspects of our retail stores.
Since the release, all of our stores worldwide have become integral Town Squares within the context that they exist. That will be no different in iCity. The Town Square is the heartbeat of the entire development.
The Town Square is centrally located within iCity in order to give every user equal access to all that it offers.
It is surrounded by vast open space which will be used by the public in many different ways. We cannot wait to see all the activity that will happen around our Town Squares.
The Town Square’s main programmatic function is retail. It will be the place that users can access every product and service that we offer to them
Tim Cook once said, “It’s the best place to go experience our new products.” That is what we want. A space open to every user to use our products.
The Town Square is the idealization of the experience that is Apple. In some ways, it is our version of a theme park.
While the Town Square is the most important space within iCity, the four secondary squares are essential for creating the ultimate experience for a wide range of Apple users.
First, The Square of the Captive Audience. The space is exciting because we believe that we have finally created a place within the public domain that acts like our devices themselves. This is crucial because we wanted to create a blank canvas for other major third-party apps to be able to engage with.
Without those major third party applications, there is less of a need for our devices, so we took on the challenge of crafting a space just for them. It was really conceived based off the idea of the endless scrolling that these applications offer users. There are unlimited hours of opportunity for users to engage these applications, and the same goes for this space.
Upon walking down the stairs that bring users as near the center of the space, users are met with the option to then backtrack into four unique spaces created by the extension of the stairs. These spaces physically constrain user’s engagement to solely the service that they want to view.
The content of the space is not Apple’s, but that being said, we have designed the space for users to actively meander through it with no time constraint. The circulation is designed to offer nonstop engagement, much the designed discovery of wandering through a captive environment like a casino.
Users will be very active in the space, which we think will attract them to it. Also, they will be enhancing their personal digital media experience within the public domain because we anticipate companies, like Facebook, to craft their space with exclusive features.
Next up is the Square of Social Reconciliation.
Our devices play a very active role in the development and sustainability of strong communities. Social media has a history of causing issues among communities of all scales. That is why we believe it is important to begin to create space that helps reconcile differences.
This square is centered around two elevated platforms where the users can gather and understand both side of a discussion and begin to reconcile their differences.
Through the window of our devices, users engage social media every day, but we still believe that it is important to engage face to face. Our hope is we can create a space where the differences that are formed in the digital world can be bridged by the physical world.
The entire square is surrounded by stairs to symbolize the freedom of the space. Entry is not controlled by one or two access points. The is truly the embodiment of democratic space in the future of the city.
Augmented reality has the opportunity to integrate statements and questions directly into the physical space so all voices can be heard. APPLEi will also be able to recognize users and beliefs in order to predict and help reconcile confrontation digitally and with the public domain.
The Square of Everywhere is next and this space was very important because of the personalization and experience that it creates.
For us, the Square of Everywhere is the ultimate playground for digital and physical reality. The intent of this space is to interact with any virtual object as if they were in your surroundings.
Along with that level of immersion, you are also able to bring your favorite landmarks and cities into the space with augmented reality. If you want a picture in front of the Eiffel Tower or The Statue of Liberty, you now have the power to do so whenever you want.
Landmarks and experiences with augmented reality are continuing to get better. Those digital components are now recognizing users and actively engaging them. This requires a space of wide open possibilities, like The Square of Everywhere.
With our incredible camera on our mobile devices and ability to render realistic augmented reality components, your pictures will turn out like the real thing and ready to share on all of your social media platforms.
We believe by giving users the ability to curate and create their own experiences without traveling long distances is an opportunity to create a new form of place-based community unlike we have ever seen before. The world is not only yours, but yours to create.
Finally, we I am excited to introduce The Square of the Consumer.
Think back to the 1950s and 1960s, the shopping mall redefined the word convivence to the consumer. Online shopping redefined convivence once again as the internet became prominent in the late 1990s and early 2000s. Then came mobile devices and companies that could ship everything right to your doorstep in two days.
Convenience in the eye of the consumer is now a crucial component the commercial experience. We believe that these spaces within the physical city that are for shopping and eating or just grabbing a cup of coffee are critical to the health of the public domain.
We spent a lot of time debating what this type of space looks like in the future of the city.
Our central concept is to attempt to redefine the brick and mortar storefront and make it more dynamic to the needs of the users. We knew that we would be able to understand real-time needs and desires of our users, so naturally the next step was creating a public domain that could respond in real time.
The new storefronts can rapidly be transformed by eating establishments based on time of day and needs of the users without any physical changes to the store front because of our augmented reality technology. And do not forget...all of this new retail will be optimized for Apple Pay in order to make buying easier than ever.
Not only do we feel like we have changed the experience of shopping in the public domain, but we have also altered how companies serve users.
These storefronts also enable retailers to personalize what is featured from user to user with augmented reality. Think about it, a clothing company could feature one outfit based off of one user’s preferences and while simultaneously using the same space to feature another outfit for a separate user. In a more radical example, two users could be in the same storefront but shopping at two different stores through the lenses of their augmented reality.
We noticed a desire to still gather physically to shop and eat within cities. We did not think eliminating that aspect of the public domain was right, but we have once again personalized it, made it more convenient for users to consume in the public domain, and enabled communities to still form in the public domain over common desires.
This space draws on themes of an old downtown with storefronts, but we have applied our aesthetic to ultimately align with Apple. The entire perimeter of the square is lined with these storefronts, which create a never-ending supply of new shopping for users, while at the same time allowing them to actively partake in the public domain.
Those are the five main programmatic spaces that we believe align to our new functions of the city of the future. Nothing within the development is more than a half of a mile away so the entire designed space is the epitome of convenience because of proximity to everything.
As we described before, the space surrounding the squares will be infilled with housing, grocery stores, medical clinics, and commercial space optimized for developers to continue to innovate within the ecosystem of Apple.
The perimeter of our developments will buffer the surrounding context with thousands of trees as a testament to our commitment to environmental sustainability as well.
I for one am very excited to begin the process of developing spaces within cities around the world. It is an ambitious project, but we believe that this will be the most successful attempt to realize utopia in all of history. Technology has finally allowed us to create places within the public domain that people actually want. Technology has freed the city.
[Apple Senior Vice President, Augmented Reality]
So now that you have heard all about iCity, you may be wondering about more specifically how APPLEi will be fully integrated or change the experience of the space?
APPLEi knows every detail of the design of iCity, and whereas the regular city is very unpredictable for technology like APPLEi, these spaces are well known to the technology.
This is important because it knows the space, it also knows where the user is in the space and how the space should respond to the user. That will create the first highly predictive public domain. No longer will our technology have to react to the unpredictability of the public domain, it can predict and subvert uncertainty within it.
For example, imagine you are following along a path that is being augmented in front of you to your destination, and at the same time a user that you have in your contacts is walking a path that will then interact. We can begin to predict that you, the user, will want to stop and interact with that person because they are in your contacts.
Serendipity can now be optimized through the use of augmented reality and a physical public domain that the technology intricately understands.
Augmented reality will change how advertising shapes the public domain. No only will users have to experience the same thing, but now they will be able to experience the advertising that they want.
As technology improves, much like our devices get patches and updates, the iCity will get updates which will continue to enhance your experience without devices. Due to the ubiquity in the design of the space, users no longer have to wait on the slow process of building cities to experience updates.
Lastly, I believe that the chance to personalize the same physical environment to create endless user experience simultaneously is the greatest future for this vision of the city. No longer is the city stagnate and reactive, but now it personalized and engaging.
Those are some brief examples of how iCity and APPLEi will work together and as you can see, the opportunities are endless.
[CONCLUSION- CEO]
When Tim Cook introduced Apple Park to the world and this great theater that bears the name of one of the greatest innovators of all time, Steve Jobs, he said, “Steve’s spirit and timeless philosophy on life will always be the DNA of Apple. His greatest gift, his greatest expression of his appreciation for humanity, would not be a singular product. But rather it would be Apple itself.”
We here at Apple finally believe that we have now gifted Apple to every one of our users. iCity and APPLEi were created with Apple’s values in mind and our vision of an ultimate utopian environment for our users to exist within.
We believe that we have created for the first time in all history a garden of pure ideology, where each user may bloom, secure from the pests if any contradictory situations within the city.
This unification of thought is the most powerful community in the world. We are one people, with one will, one resolve, and one cause.
Steve closed many of his keynotes with inspirational quotes and words of wisdom from other people. The one that always stuck with me was the following quote by Wayne Gretzky.
“I skate to where the puck is going, not where it has been.”
I still believe that is what Apple has always done, and based off of today’s wonderful experience, that is what we will always do.
Thank you.
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