Apple Trials Express Retail Store Format for Genius Bar Appointments and Online Order Pickups

Apple is trying out a new retail store experience that puts express pickup of online orders and Genius Bar appointments front and center, while keeping customer and staff safety paramount during the ongoing global health crisis.

4express pickup apple burlingame

Images credited to PopVox co-founder and CEO Marci Harris via Twitter

Dubbed "Apple Express," the temporary retail format for brick-and-mortar stores is being trialed at Apple Burlingame in California. The location has an interior storefront hub with a partition at the entrance that includes serving counters with perspex window shielding, central display cases with popular accessories for purchase, and a surrounding wall that screens off the shop floor proper.

2express pickup apple burlingame
Black spots on the floor in front of the temporary facade indicate where visiting customers should stand in order to observe social distancing measures. Based on the pictures, the system allows one customer at a time to come up to each serving window, while customers with pre-booked appointments can queue up outside.

1express pickup apple burlingame
Customers are required to have their appointment-assigned QR code and government-issued ID ready as they wait for the next available Apple representative, while another sign displays QR codes that link to Apple's support app and official website.

3express pickup apple burlingame
It's not clear if Apple plans to expand the "Apple Express" retail system shown here to other stores within California or to other U.S. states, but if the trial proves successful we could well see it rolled out across the country as the U.S. continues to grapple with the pandemic.

Note: Due to the political or social nature of the discussion regarding this topic, the discussion thread is located in our Political News forum. All forum members and site visitors are welcome to read and follow the thread, but posting is limited to forum members with at least 100 posts.

Top Rated Comments

calstanford Avatar
47 months ago
I hate living in this world
Score: 9 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Chaos215bar2 Avatar
47 months ago

Don't worry. This super deadly virus (haha, yeah right) will be gone after the election.

I wonder how Apple in Sweden is handling things, given that they never shut their country down, nor mandated masks. They’re now at or near heard immunity and probably one of the safest countries now.
Cool, denialism and misinformation already.

No, Sweden is not at or near herd immunity. We don't even know whether herd immunity is possible without a vaccine. (How's that herd immunity going for all the various colds out there?)

And, if you still somehow don't understand why COVID-19 is dangerous, at this point you can even hear the words straight from our dear leader's mouth, if that's all you'll believe. (He would never admit it publicly, of course, but nevertheless he is on tape doing so.)
Score: 6 Votes (Like | Disagree)
GLS Avatar
47 months ago
Thanks 2020. A piece about something benign as an express version of an Apple store is deemed political news worthy.
Score: 5 Votes (Like | Disagree)
eatrains Avatar
47 months ago

Don't worry. This super deadly virus (haha, yeah right) will be gone after the election.
You are an embarrassment to the country.
Score: 5 Votes (Like | Disagree)
eatrains Avatar
47 months ago

Says the person afraid of a virus that 99% of people survive. Macrumors is full of people that need a "safe space". I've learned to accept it. Sorry if you require therapy after reading my reply. :)
I'm glad you've learned to accept the needless deaths of hundreds of thousands of people with many more to come, but the rest of us aren't so callous.
Score: 4 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Chaos215bar2 Avatar
47 months ago

Malaria kills about 500,000 people every year but we never shut down the world because of it.
If people took COVID-19 seriously, we wouldn't need to shut down at this point. But regardless, COVID-19 has also killed about 1 million people in 6 months, and it's hardly finished.
Score: 3 Votes (Like | Disagree)

Popular Stories

maxresdefault

Apple Announces 'Let Loose' Event on May 7 Amid Rumors of New iPads

Tuesday April 23, 2024 7:11 am PDT by
Apple has announced it will be holding a special event on Tuesday, May 7 at 7 a.m. Pacific Time (10 a.m. Eastern Time), with a live stream to be available on Apple.com and on YouTube as usual. The event invitation has a tagline of "Let Loose" and shows an artistic render of an Apple Pencil, suggesting that iPads will be a focus of the event. Subscribe to the MacRumors YouTube channel for more ...
Apple Vision Pro Dual Loop Band Orange Feature 2

Apple Cuts Vision Pro Shipments as Demand Falls 'Sharply Beyond Expectations'

Tuesday April 23, 2024 9:44 am PDT by
Apple has dropped the number of Vision Pro units that it plans to ship in 2024, going from an expected 700 to 800k units to just 400k to 450k units, according to Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo. Orders have been scaled back before the Vision Pro has launched in markets outside of the United States, which Kuo says is a sign that demand in the U.S. has "fallen sharply beyond expectations." As a...
iPhone 15 Pro FineWoven

Apple Reportedly Stops Production of FineWoven Accessories

Sunday April 21, 2024 6:03 am PDT by
Apple has stopped production of FineWoven accessories, according to the Apple leaker and prototype collector known as "Kosutami." In a post on X (formerly Twitter), Kosutami explained that Apple has stopped production of FineWoven accessories due to its poor durability. The company may move to another non-leather material for its premium accessories in the future. Kosutami has revealed...
iOS 17 All New Features Thumb

iOS 17.5 Will Add These New Features to Your iPhone

Sunday April 21, 2024 3:00 am PDT by
The upcoming iOS 17.5 update for the iPhone includes only a few new user-facing features, but hidden code changes reveal some additional possibilities. Below, we have recapped everything new in the iOS 17.5 and iPadOS 17.5 beta so far. Web Distribution Starting with the second beta of iOS 17.5, eligible developers are able to distribute their iOS apps to iPhone users located in the EU...
iPad And Calculator App Feature

Apple Finally Plans to Release a Calculator App for iPad Later This Year

Tuesday April 23, 2024 9:08 am PDT by
Apple is finally planning a Calculator app for the iPad, over 14 years after launching the device, according to a source familiar with the matter. iPadOS 18 will include a built-in Calculator app for all iPad models that are compatible with the software update, which is expected to be unveiled during the opening keynote of Apple's annual developers conference WWDC on June 10. AppleInsider...