We are fast approaching the holiday season and COVID-19 isn't going anywhere, so Apple is thinking outside the box, or more accurately, outside the retail store by experimenting with a safety-first Express store.
As 9To5Mac reports the first of these Express stores has appeared in California, where the Apple Burlingame retail store has been modified to offer a simplified, but very much safer service for everyone involved. Basically, what Apple has done is to construct a new counter and place staff behind plexiglass panels so they can still interact with customers, but without coming into direct contact with them.
The tweet below by Marci Harris includes a few photos of the Express store experience.
Tweet
The two main functions of the the modified retail store are to act as an Express Pickup location for online orders and to offer a Genius Bar service for customers who have appointments. Both activities can be performed without too much interaction being required, although some sanitizing of the Apple products being worked on will need to occur once retail staff get their gloved hands on them.
Due to how easy it looks to do one of these conversions, it seems likely Apple will roll out Express stores more widely as we get closer to Christmas. It may limit the services available and hands-on help offered to customers, but it's better than a closed store and much more unlikely to lead to COVID-19 infections spreading among staff.
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