Apple is nearing completion on their brand new $5 billion USD headquarters, Apple Park. From the outside, it kind of looks like a UFO landed right in the middle of Cupertino, CA. From the inside, it looks like… well, nobody outside of Apple can really say for sure. Employees that were brazen enough to want to show off their new office have had their photos removed from Instagram and other social media sites. That’s probably not going to change anytime soon either. Your best shot of getting a glimpse inside of the new Apple Park headquarters is by getting a job with Apple.
Sure, reporters and other non-employees have been invited to the Steve Jobs theater on the Apple Park *campus* but that’s the farthest anyone without an Apple ID badge is likely to get. At a recent shareholder meeting (held at the aforementioned Steve Jobs theater), a shareholder asked Apple CEO Tim Cook when they might be able to see inside the new corporate headquarters. The short answer, probably never. Said Cook:
The problem with opening up the main facility for tours is we have so much confidential stuff around. It’s sort of the bane of my existence to hold things confidential now.
Famed Apple designer Jony Ive took things in a slightly different direction in an earlier interview, simply saying the building was not for outsiders:
We didn’t make Apple Park for other people. So I think a lot of the criticisms … are utterly bizarre, because it wasn’t made for you. And I know how we work, and you don’t.
That’s definitely one way of answering that question I guess. Now, I’m not saying that visitors should get full unfettered access to the building, that’s just crazy. Companies are absolutely allowed to have their secrets and areas that are off-limits to the public. It just sounds really really shady when you say that your entire headquarters is completely locked down at all times.
Visitors who would really like a tour are welcome to stop at the gift shop though! The Apple Park visitors center is across the street from the headquarters and is kind of a mash up between an Apple Store, coffee bar, and gift shop. The visitors center will have some Apple swag that you’re not able to get anywhere else, as well as an AR experience showing off the new building, and a roof deck where you can just barely see parts of the new headquarters through the trees surrounding it.
What do you think about Apple’s no visitors policy? Tell us all about it in the comment section below, or on Google+, Twitter, or Facebook.
[button link=”http://www.businessinsider.com/tim-cook-why-there-are-no-apple-park-tours-2018-2″ icon=”fa-external-link” side=”left” target=”blank” color=”285b5e” textcolor=”ffffff”]Source: Business Insider[/button]
