Skip to main content

More Apple Stores temporarily close due to uptick in coronavirus cases

 

Apple will temporarily re-close 14 of its Florida stores on Friday, June 26 due to a spike in coronavirus cases.

Recommended Videos

In total, 32 Apple Stores have re-closed in the U.S. since opening back up because of coronavirus concerns. Apple stores have closed in Florida, North Carolina, South Carolina, Texas, and Arizona without planned reopening dates. 

“Due to current COVID-19 conditions in some of the communities we serve, we are temporarily closing stores in these areas,” an Apple spokesperson said in a statement. “We take this step with an abundance of caution as we closely monitor the situation and we look forward to having our teams and customers back as soon as possible.”

After Friday’s closures, only two Apple Stores will remain open in the entire state of Florida after opening back up just a month ago, according to MacRumors.

Apple Fifth Avenue Store
Julian Chokkattu/Digital Trends

Apple initially closed its retail locations in March when the coronavirus pandemic started to severely impact the U.S. Stores began to slowly open back up in May with restrictions like curbside and storefront service and limited customer capacity. 

With certain states seeing another spike in cases, Apple is closing its stores’ doors once more, even if states’ reopening plans say they can remain open. 

According to coronavirus case count by The New York Times, the five states where 32 Apple stores have closed have especially seen an uptick in coronavirus cases over the past 14 days. 

Digital Trends reached out to Apple to find out if any other stores are expected to close soon. We will update this story when we hear back. 

Despite having to re-close some stores, other Apple Stores have only just reopened for the first time since March this week, including locations in Illinois, Maryland, Virginia, Minnesota, and more. 

Allison Matyus
Former Digital Trends Contributor
Allison Matyus is a general news reporter at Digital Trends. She covers any and all tech news, including issues around social…
Three reasons Apple’s anti-sideloading rant misses the point
An Apple iPhone 13 showing the home screen apps and widgets.

Apple has always notoriously been against sideloading, but head of software Craig Federighi took it a step further with a dramatic statement at Web Summit 2021. He declared that "sideloading is a cybercriminal's best friend and requiring [it] on iPhone would be a gold rush for the malware industry."

Federighi's comments dovetail the European Commission's Digital Markets Act, a bill aimed at allowing third parties to work with customers without a platform owner's interference. It also features a few other requirements, including stopping companies like Apple from making select apps uninstallable and preventing them from favoring their own apps and services on their platforms. It's understandable why Apple would be concerned about it -- but that doesn't mean the company's aren't being misleading.

Read more
Apple’s first attempt to delay third-party app store payments fails in court
App store icon showing three notifications.

Apple will have to allow third-party developers the ability to link outside the App Store pretty soon. After appealing the ruling in the Epic case that said it had to allow for third-party links and buttons in App Store apps and requesting a denial, the company was met with a refusal by a federal court in Oakland.

By its telling, Apple's motion for a stay was based on a need to protect its customers and developers by building new policies to accommodate the new state of play and remove the prohibition on anti-steering it had enshrined.

Read more
Apple ‘Unleashed’ event: New MacBook Pros, M1 Pro/Max, AirPods 3, and more
Tim Cook Apple Unleashed

Nearly a year after the first M1-based MacBooks debuted, we're finally getting the sequel. Apple's prerecorded Unleashed event revealed updates to Apple Music and the Mac, including new processors and a redesign for the MacBook Pros.

Apple CEO Tim Cook opened the company's special Unleashed presentation to announce a new Apple Music plan, new MacBook Pro models with a notch, new M1 Pro and M1 Max processors, and new Home Pod Mini colors in time for the holidays.
The new MacBook Pros with a notch

Read more