Apple has been shutting down loads of retail stores as the COVID-19 pandemic continues to peak — on December 20th, it temporarily closed every single location in California, Mexico, Brazil, and over a dozen in London. Now, as England and Scotland go into a pair of new national lockdowns, Apple is closing all of its remaining stores in the UK.
As 9to5Mac’s Michael Steeber reports, that means 18 additional stores are now closed across the UK, including several in Scotland and one in Belfast, Ireland — though it looks like the Belfast store may have already been closed. (Northern Ireland went into lockdown even earlier, on December 26th, shutting down all non-essential shops.)
All 18 UK Apple Stores open today will close from January 5. Includes every location in Scotland. Most of the other 20 stores closed just before the holidays. pic.twitter.com/RYfhWgNkrb
— Michael Steeber (@MichaelSteeber) January 4, 2021
While it feels worthwhile to note the closures, they may not make all that much of a difference for most shoppers, who already couldn’t physically enter many of these stores since November. That’s when Apple started offering express service only at many of these stores. You’d have been able to pick up online orders, but you couldn’t browse.