海角大神

In June 2011, Steve Jobs showed the Cupertino, California city council plans for a vast, sleek new Apple headquarters.

Almost five years later, as that campus approaches completion in April, Apple has announced that its 1,000-seat auditorium will be named for Jobs, who passed away in October of 2011.

鈥淪teve鈥檚 vision for Apple stretched far beyond his time with us. He intended Apple Park to be the home of innovation for generations to come,鈥� Apple CEO Tim Cook told the Associated Press on Thursday.

Apple鈥檚 announcement comes as the company tries to maintain its competitive edge without its visionary founder.

In many respects, it鈥檚 succeeding. When the iPhone reaches its 10th birthday this June, it will have sold at least 1.2 billion units. Analyst Horace Dediu expects total revenue from iOS products to reach $1 trillion sometime this year. When Jobs pitched Apple鈥檚 new headquarters in 2011, the company鈥檚 shares were trading in the $40 to $50 range. Today, they鈥檙e around $136.

Nonetheless, some see cause for concern. The company鈥檚 revenue fell for three straight quarters in 2016 before snapping back in the first quarter of this year.

Some observers think that it鈥檚 grown too dependent on iPhone sales. Last month, New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd asked Silicon Valley investor Peter Thiel to confirm or deny the statement, 鈥淭he age of Apple is over.鈥�

鈥淐onfirm,鈥� he replied. 鈥淲e know what a smartphone looks like and does. It鈥檚 not the fault of Tim Cook, but it鈥檚 not an area where there will be any more innovation.鈥�

Time will tell whether Apple can still prosper under its current business model. But the process of building the new headquarters, designed by world-renowned London architectural firm Foster + Partners, shows that the company retains the exacting standards that characterized its founder. As 海角大神 reported last month:

Standards like these delayed the opening date by two years and raised the total price tag to about $5 billion. And not everyone is pleased with the design. When it was first announced, Los Angeles Times architecture critic Christopher Hawthorne took issue with the 175-acre campus鈥檚 鈥渟prawling form and dependence on the car.鈥�

But the team that Jobs assembled seems pleased with the final result.

鈥淪teve invested so much of his energy creating and supporting vital, creative environments,鈥澛燡ony Ive, Apple鈥檚 chief design officer, said in a statement reported by Reuters. 鈥淲e have approached the design, engineering and making of our new campus with the same enthusiasm and design principles that characterize our products."

This report contains material from Reuters.