Out of Sight

Inside Apple Park, CEO Tim Cook talks exclusively to vf about the genesis of a "Mind-blowing" new device that will shape his legacy and, perhaps, how we see the world

- By Nick Bilton. Photography by Norman Jean Roy

THE FIRST TIME Tim Cook experienced the Apple Vision Pro, it wasn’t called the Apple Vision Pro. It was years ago; maybe six, seven, or even eight. Before the company built Apple Park, where we’re sitting right now, at a bleached oak table in this incredible circular edifice clad in miles of curved glass. It’s been raining, and the clouds are clearing over the pine trees and the rows of citrus and maple trees, and the sun is reflecting off the pond in the meadow, and it’s kind of mesmerizing. And Cook’s telling me about that time, all those years ago, in his dulcet Robertsdale, Alabama, accent, when he first saw it.

It was at Mariani 1, a nondescript low-rise building on the edge of the old Infinite Loop campus with blacked-out windows. This place is so secret, it’s known as one of Apple’s “black ops” facilities. Nearly all of the thousands of employees who work at Apple have never set foot inside one. There are multiple layers of doors that lock behind and in front of you. But Cook is the CEO and can go anywhere. So he strolls past restricted rooms where foldable iPhones and MacBooks with retractable keyboards and transparent televisions were dreamed up. Where these devices, almost all of which will never leave this building, are stored in locked Pelican cases inside locked cupboards.

This building, after all, is folklore to Apple. It’s where the iPod and the iPhone were invented. This same building, where Cook finds the industrial design team working on this thing virtually no one else knows exists. Mike Rockwell, vice president of Apple’s Vision Products Group, is there when Cook enters and sees it.