Oliver Haslam on May 10, 2020, 3:02 am

Apple To Begin Reopening Some US Apple Stores Next Week

Following a period of closures, Apple Stores will begin to reopen in the United States next week. This comes after stores in Greater China, Austria, South Korea, Germany, and Australia also made similar moves.

Stores will open beginning with those in Idaho, South Carolina, Alabama, and Alaska. That’s a total of six stores with more likely to arrive after that.

Apple provided comments to some media outlets, including .

We’re excited to begin reopening stores in the US next week, starting with some stores in Idaho, South Carolina, Alabama and Alaska. Our team is constantly monitoring local heath data and government guidance, and as soon as we can safely open our stores, we will.

We’ve missed our customers and look forward to offering our support. With many working and learning from home, our primary focus will be providing service and support at the Genius Bar. We’ll open initially with additional safety procedures including temperature checks, social distancing and face coverings to ensure customers and employees continue to stay healthy. Our new social distance protocol allows for a limited number of visitors in the store at one time so there may be a delay for walk-in customers. We recommend, where possible, customers buy online for contactless delivery or in-store pick up.

As local guidance varies around the US there may be slight modifications to our procedures. As always, our thoughts are with everyone affected by COVID-19 and those working around the clock to treat, study and contain its spread.

Stores that have reopened internationally have run at reduced hours and with service and requests being the main order of the day. In-store browsing has not been permitted at many with the number of people allowed in a store at any one time also limited.

There is no word on when stores in other large Apple locations, such as the UK, will open. Apple is following local guidance and coronavirus numbers when making its decisions.