As a culture writer whose career has not, thus far, extended to tech coverage, the only thoughts I’ve ever really had about Apple’s headquarters in Cupertino, California, are 1) “Why must I always, always know what time it is there?” and 2) “When Apple throws cocktail parties, do they serve Cupertinis?”
While I maintain that the latter is a solid idea that Tim Cook is welcome to pay me for, I never expected to find myself invited to Apple HQ in any capacity. I m infamous among my friends and family for riding the absolute wheels off all of my devices; I never know what model of iPhone we’re on as a society; and if it weren t for the fact that my employer provides me a MacBook to blog from, I d currently be writing this story on the blockiest, cheapest, most flame-retardant PC known to man. Just one recent day in Cupertino hearing about Apple’s latest product rollout, though, was enough to make me kind of care about the quality and condition of my devices. But more on that later…
Below, find a full accounting of my day at Apple, with absolutely no detail left behind.
Monday
5:04 p.m.: I disembark my flight from LAX to the San José airport, looking as rumpled as it is humanly possible to look after a 45-minute flight before quickly realizing that I will not have time to shower before the welcome dinner that Apple is hosting for out-of-town guests at Mountain View’s Tetra Hotel. Undeterred, I race to my own hotel, the Ameswell, to drop off my bags and make the necessary concessions to capital-B Beauty (namely, donning a bra and a baseball cap).
5:30 p.m.: I Lyft up to the Tetra and make a beeline for the bar, noticing with gratification that, with near-comical disregard for looking like tech-world clichés, nearly everyone is wearing a North Face vest. I am also far from the only person there in a silly little hat (though I am likely the only one concealing an oil spill-level amount of hair grease under said hat).
5:45 p.m.: I debate introducing myself to a friendly looking clutch of actual tech reporters before abandoning that idea in favor of sitting at a table by myself to eat a family-sized plate of furikake-roasted potatoes and finish the book I’ve been reading about being Ruby Franke’s eldest daughter.
5:55 p.m.: Spoiler: Being Ruby Franke’s eldest daughter seems bad.
6:30 p.m.: I send the following text to my best friend back in LA:
7:02 p.m.: I actually speak to someone! Brag!
7:15 p.m.: A third person joins our chat! Double-brag!
7:42 p.m.: My social niceties concluded for the evening, I make my way back to the Ameswell to eat a Biscoff cookie pack left over from the flight and drink a $20 bottle of rosé in my big, clean, white hotel bed while “drafting my story” (watching Family Guy reruns).
Tuesday
7:02 a.m.: My alarm goes off in time for me to swim laps in the hotel pool and treat myself to a full, healthful breakfast in the lobby’s café. Unfortunately, I do not wake up, so neither of these things happen.
8:02 a.m.: I actually wake up and start getting ready to make my way to the Apple campus.
8:11 a.m.: I emerge from the shower to the realization that I cannot find my passport.
8:13 a.m.: After two draining minutes of searching, I opt to write my passport off as a loss and sit cross-legged on my bed, crying softly into a towel.
8:15 a.m.: I suddenly realize I must have used my passport to check into the hotel yesterday, which should mean it’s somewhere in my Telfar.
8:17 a.m.: Success! My passport is wedged in the pages of the novel I brought to read on the plane, which is, indeed, in my Telfar. (Likely place for it to be.)
8:45 a.m.: I Lyft to Apple’s campus, noting as I walk through its manicured, somehow vanilla-scented grounds that it kind of reminds me of my college, if everyone at my college had been nice to me.
9 a.m.: I tell the woman giving me my sexy little blue Apple-visitor badge the whole saga of my passport drama this morning. She’s kind enough to nod along and laugh as though the story I’m telling her is interesting. (It’s not.)
9:30 a.m.: I make my way to a seat in the Steve Jobs Theater just in time for the day’s big presentation to start, awkwardly rising to my feet to applaud Tim Cook just as everyone else in the audience has sat back down.
10:02 a.m.: Cook and many of his various well-groomed, suspiciously attractive employees star in a video introducing the day’s new product launches, which include revamped AirPods that repel sweat, simultaneously translate speech into foreign languages, and make me feel ever-so-slightly sheepish about being a former Wired It-Girl and current owner of a pair of non-Apple “TunePods.”
10:05 a.m.: I momentarily rue the fact that these Rosetta Stone-ass magical AirPods didn’t exist when I lived in Russia in 2010, when they could have saved me from having to anxiously pantomime shaving my legs to an impassive Muscovite pharmacist.
10:16 a.m.: I take the opportunity of hearing about the new-and-improved Apple Watch’s life-saving capabilities (they can alert you and call for help when you’ve taken a hard fall!) to worry about the eventual and hopefully far-off task of performing elder care for my parents, because what is Judaism if not an exercise in seizing the day when it comes to anticipatory anxiety?
10:20 a.m.: “Design has always been fundamental to who we are and what we do,” as Cook put it at the top of his remarks, and in that spirit we learn the Apple Watch Series 11 includes a revamped collaboration with Hermès! I don’t actually own an Apple Watch of any variety, but if I did, it would certainly be one with a new “Faubourg Party knit band, along with a matching, whimsical animated watch face.” (I mean, let’s be real, I would misplace this instantly, but I would feel extremely chic before I did.) The Apple Watch Hermès Series 11 and its six new band types launch on September 19.
10:27 a.m.: The rest of the audience and I learn that 500 billion selfies were taken with iPhones last year–and only about half of those were snapped by Martha Stewart. Zing!
10:35 a.m.: Cook expounds on the new iPhone Air’s “radically thin frame,” making me wonder if the GLP-1 craze has finally infected our electronics.
10:42 a.m.: I marvel at the fact that the new iPhone 17 Pro is allegedly four times more resistant to cracks, wondering if anyone’s put it to the test by hurling it at a wall mid-crashout like Carrie Bradshaw did with that bag of McDonald’s after Big pissed her off one time too many.
10:51 a.m.: What’s a terabyte?
11:34 a.m.: I note with gratitude that Apple still appears to be hanging on to its gender-neutral restrooms offering an array of menstrual hygiene products (unlike certain other tech monopolies I could mention).
12:01 p.m.: I join a group of my fellow visiting journalists for an early lunch—courtesy of Apple’s free poke and iced oat lattes, baby!—using that time to try to find out if anyone else is currently rocking an iPhone as cartoonishly, prehistorically old as my 11. (They’re not.)
12:21 p.m.: I convince a handsome Apple employee to take my picture against a picturesque campus backdrop featuring a particularly eye-catching sculpture:
12:24 p.m.: For contrast, here is a stunning photo I accidentally took moments later with my iPhone 11:
12:37 p.m.: The Apple employee escorting me back to the cafeteria to work on this very story you’re currently reading playfully ribs me about my old-ass iPhone, which prompts me to tell her about the time I drove over it with my bike and it survived. OtterBox cases, you will always be famous!
1:32 p.m.: I note with pleasure that even the rain on Apple’s campus feels like a subtle yet expensive face mist.
2:40 p.m.: The other journalists and I head to an iPhone briefing, where my peers ask intelligent questions and I admire the wide variety of snacks made available to employees and guests, including luxury water and vegan chocolate-chip cookies (step it up, Condé Nast!).
3:45 p.m.: After a final photo session on the Apple campus, it s back to the Ameswell, where I finally do my long-awaited laps in the pool and get absolutely smoked, speed-wise, by a confident tween visiting from Australia.
5:17 p.m.: I pack up (making sure to put my passport front and center; I won t get got again!) and leave for the airport, thanking God and Steve Jobs for this sacred boondoggle.
