Apple will reopen a handful of its stores across the country starting next week, the company said Friday.
The first Apple Store to reopen since the country went into lockdown to prevent the spread of the coronavirus will be on Monday in Boise, Idaho. Later in the week Apple will reopen some stores in South Carolina, Alabama and Alaska.
“Our team is constantly monitoring local health data and government guidance, and as soon as we can safely open our stores, we will,” an Apple spokesman said in a statement. Apple CEO Tim Cook told Bloomberg in an interview n April that it’s deciding which stores to reopen on a city-by-city basis.
Shopping won’t be as it was before the pandemic, a spokesperson for Apple said. The company will require all shoppers to wear masks and maintain six feet of distance between all shoppers and employees. All customers will also be subject to temperature checks, the company said. If someone attempts to enter who is running a higher-than normal-temperature, they will be asked to leave.
The primary focus of re-opened stores won’t be shopping but rather the company’s Genius Bar program, where Apple users can make appointments for repairs or get help with their devices.
Apple also confirmed that the company will be thoroughly cleaning all display products and will limit the amount of customers allowed in each store to ensure social distancing guidelines are met.
Stores will also have adjusted hours, which will be listed on Apple’s website as locations begin to reopen.
The majority of Apple’s stores outside of China have been closed since March, though a handful of stores in Germany, South Korea and Australia have started letting customers in to shop.
If customers do wish to shop online and pick up their purchases at a reopened store, Apple is allowing customers to book time windows so they won’t have to wait in a socially distanced walk-in line to enter the store.
Cook has previously said that Apple won’t reopen its campus in Cupertino, California until June at the earliest. This week, Google and Facebook both told employees to expect to work from home until the end of the year.
