Before Apple Israel design center got over 700 people working in Israel for the Cupertino-based giant, the company went through a lot since 2011 when it hired the first employee in this country. Today a lot of people are working in Tel Aviv’s R&D offices. Tim Cook [Apple’s CEO] visited them recently with one big goal: chip design. The expansion of Apple in Israel is rumored to focus on the hardware development. It hired Israelis and other experts in chip designing from Ra’anana and such companies as PrimeSense Ltd and Anobit Technologies Ltd. The iOS giant offers Apple Israel jobs and wants to design a new chip with the help of all the experts it has already hired. Apple has been developing its processors in-house beginning with the iPhone 5c and 5 models that came with the A6 chip. The next A7 chip introduced inside the iPhone 5S became the first 64-bit computing chip for mobile devices in the world. The company has been developing its own chips in order to provide better overall performance to customers and improve the gadget’s battery life by optimizing it based on the chip. While visiting Israel, Cook met Israeli president Reuven Rivlin. The Apple’s CEO noted that the relationship of the iPhone maker with Israel have gotten closer together in the last years.