U.S. Apple Stores to Remain Closed Until Early May

At the end of the day, what COVID-19 tells us is, a lot of the things we have been concerned about, really does not matter. When the iPhone launched in 2007, it definitely changed the course of communication. But 5 years later, the success of the device and explosive growth of Apple couldn’t save its founder Steve Jobs. He had to leave it all behind. I remember reading a quote from someone when Steve was going through a rough period. Steve said to him in a room at Apple, what I want right now is a new body.

You could buy a maxed out iPhone 11 Pro Max or iPad Pro today, get COVID and not even live to open the box by the end of the week.

What I hope come out of this is more presence in the things that matter: your loved ones, your thoughts and dreams, experiencing each day like its your last instead of through a 5.8, 6.5, 12.9, 5.5 square.

This whole thing is crazy. I remember celebrating New Years and this was not on my radar for 2020. Can someone wake me up when this is all done?

Very responsible taking the lead.

Nothing to be done about this. The thought of millions touching Apple store demo screens each day is horrifying.

No govt official wants to declare a 6 month Stay In Place anti-social distancing ruling - so they're dribbling it out one month at a time. But guaranteed in May, the CoV crisis will be worse than April and June will be worse than May and July worse than June.

Let's see how it pans out
The lockdown is going to last until the end of April at best, and I don't expect May to be really different. More people will go to work, some store may open but we'll still have to wear masks and only a limited number of people will be allowed into a store at the same time.
Here in Italy we're starting to have less people in hospitals, the crisis is not over but at least is not getting worse. Other countries haven't reached the peak, so April will be similar to what March has been here, but eventually we'll see less people dead or hospitalised all over the world.
What is going to be worse this summer is the economy, as we'll see the effect of the lockdown for months. Many people will lose their jobs, I think about restaurants, bars, everything concerning night life like discos, cinemas. Maybe we'll be able to go on vacation this summer, but many people won't be able to afford it and I think many people would be worried to travel abroad, and that's going to hurt our economy as well. Hotels are going to face some hard times this year.

Apple will be hurt by the crisis, but in a minor way. Their products are expensive so less people will be able to afford them, but technology is more important than even and as people are working and studying from home more and more Macs and iPads will have a spike in sales.
As for their stores, most people used to buy online even before the crisis. Genius bar appointments are really convenient but we can still get support by sending the device for repair, so it is not the end of the world for Apple and its customers.

It wasn't horrifying 3 months ago, a year ago or 5 years ago. Hopefully the world will return to how it was.

It won’t. Nothing will ever ‘normalize’ after this situation, likely because it’s still not fully understood and how it will Impact retail businesses long-term, because this is something that just won’t ‘go away’.

If you look at Apple stores collectively as a whole, they will eventually reopen, but the implementation of new practices with heightened levels of cleanliness with demo products, likely restrictions on how many customers are allowed in the store at once, trial wearing for AirPods will probably be eliminated, and social distancing Will be the new norm. These are all just ‘minor examples’ of how things will not return to ‘normal’.