During Apple’s iPhone 8 event on Tuesday—the first event to take place at its new “spaceship” headquarters—outsiders were treated to their first ever peek inside the company’s just-unveiled amphitheater.
Named for Steve Jobs, Apple’s (AAPL) late CEO and founder, the theater is a 165-foot diameter glass cylinder capped by a thin, metallic saucer of a roof. The 20-foot tall structure is perched on a hill amid meadowland at Apple Park, as the immaculately landscaped, 175-acre property is called. The lobby is a short distance from the main Apple building.
Though the campus is still technically under construction, the theater gleams. Its subterranean auditorium seats 1,000 people. And as one might expect, it is sleek like the iPhone, which debuted 10 years ago.
Josh Lipton, a reporter at CNBC, snapped one of the earliest photos of the see-through discoid and posted the image on Twitter.
Good morning from the new Steve Jobs Theater pic.twitter.com/6DoP7QqTGx
— Josh Lipton (@joshuahlipton) September 12, 2017
In the distance, Apple event attendees lined up to enter the building in anticipation of CEO Tim Cook’s debut of new products, including the long-awaited iPhone 8 and iPhone X. The promenade outside is lined with wooden benches and encircled by trees.
Here are a few photos of the interior.
Cook took the stage at 1:00 P.M. ET after playing a brief audio clip of Jobs in a blackout auditorium. “It is the honor of a lifetime to be the first to welcome you to the Steve Jobs theater,” Cook said.
“We dedicate this theater to Steve because we loved him and because he loved days like this, where he could share our latest new products and ideas with the world,” Cook continued. “We do so not only to pay tribute to Steve but to inspire the next generation of creators and innovators.”
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Until now, the site had only been publicly seen in architectural renderings, or from photographs of the facade as well as drone flyovers.
If you missed the event, you can learn watch a recording of the live-stream here. There will be plenty of opportunity to see inside the theater again; Apple plans to host its new product demos in the space from now on.
Apple nearly missed its opportunity to obtain permission to host the iPhone affair within the theater. The company had to apply for last minute approval from its home city of Cupertino, Calif., which promptly granted permission.
The theater is not just one of the highest points of Apple Park in terms of its altitude, it is also among the highest points aesthetically. No doubt the final product would have satisfied Jobs’ fastidious design sensibility.
