Apple Preparing Retail Employees to Return to Work With Tips From South Korea Reopening
Apple in mid-April reopened Apple Garosugil, its lone store in South Korea, located in the Seoul's Gangnam District.

Apple's South Korea reopening has served as a test ground for further store reopenings, and Apple created an instructional video on reopening practices that's now being shared with other retail employees around the world as they prepare to reopen stores. We're not able to share the video, but it provides a good overview of the measures Apple is putting in place to safely operate retail locations.
Retail employees are following a strict set of guidelines that very heavily emphasize social distancing of two meters (or six feet in the United States). Apple is taking the following measures:
- Prior to when work starts, all employees undergo a health screening complete with a temperature check, with the results logged in a daily spreadsheet.
- Daily briefings are done in the mornings in the Forum area at Apple Stores, with employees making sure to sit at least two meters apart.
- Prior to being allowed in the store, customers are also given a temperature check.
- All Apple Stores are providing hand sanitizer, which customers are encouraged to use.
- Stores are limiting the number of people inside, forming lines with customers waiting at least two meters apart.
- Products purchased by customers or returned after repair are delivered from the back in a relay system, being handed off from employee to employee to allow each person to stay in a separated zone without back and forth.
- Product specialists and Genius Bar staff are positioning themselves across tables away from customers in order to maintain distance.
- In the forum area, employees sit one cube away from customers they're interacting with.
- Employees are encouraged to communicate with one another through the Talk app to cut down on unnecessary movement within the store.
- Half of the workstations in the back are empty, with employees working at alternating workstations to keep more distance between them.
- Tables have been rearranged to put products on corners to prevent customers from being near one another.
- Products on tables have been reduced.
- Communal tables and couches have been removed from employee break rooms and have been replaced with individual chairs evenly spaced about the room.
- Operating hours are reduced.
- Employees are all wearing face masks.
After opening its South Korea store on April 16, Apple has reopened its sole store in Vienna, Austria, and 21 stores located in Australia. Stores in Germany will begin reopening on May 11, and all of the newly opened locations are following many of the same guidelines listed above to keep both customers and employees safe.
There's no word yet on when Apple retail stores in the United States will start to reopen, but Apple CEO Tim Cook last week said that stores in North America will begin reopening starting in the month of May.
Apple plans to evaluate data and make reopening decisions on a city by city, county by county basis, following local guidelines and recommendations before opening up a store.
Popular Stories
While the iPhone 17 Pro and iPhone 17 Pro Max are not expected to launch until September, there are already plenty of rumors about the devices.
Below, we recap key changes rumored for the iPhone 17 Pro models as of March 2025:
Aluminum frame: iPhone 17 Pro models are rumored to have an aluminum frame, whereas the iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 16 Pro models have a titanium frame, and the iPhone ...
With the second release candidate of iOS 18.4 that Apple seeded out today, the company finally provided us with release notes that give a full rundown on what to expect.
There's an Apple Vision Pro app, new Apple Intelligence features for notifications and additional language support, plus an Apple News Food feature for Apple News+ subscribers, and several updates that should improve the...
Apple is reportedly working on a new Magic Mouse. Below, we recap what to expect.
The two key rumors for the Magic Mouse 3 so far include a relocated charging port, along with a more ergonomic design.
It was briefly rumored that the Magic Mouse 3 would also feature voice control, but that was misinterpreted information.
Relocated Charging Port
While the Magic Mouse switched from...
Apple's big developer event is a little over two months away, and rumors about what we can expect to see in Apple's next major operating system updates are becoming increasingly frequent.
A public release of iOS 18.4 is also imminent with a number of updates and improvements, although we won't be getting the major Apple Intelligence Siri upgrades that had reportedly been planned for this...
We've been hearing rumors about a foldable iPhone for almost a decade now, but it looks like we might finally see the device come to fruition in 2026. We're going to be waiting many more months for the foldable iPhone, but so far we're hearing good things.
Apple wants to make it creaseless. It's taken Apple multiple years to design a foldable iPhone that it's satisfied with because Apple ...
Multiple sources have claimed that iOS 19 will introduce a new design with more translucent buttons, menus, notification banners, and more, and there is now another clue that points towards this glass-like appearance.
Bloomberg's Mark Gurman today said the new design project is codenamed "Solarium" internally. A solarium is a room with glass walls that allow in plenty of sunlight, so this...
In the mid-to-late 2000s, Facebook was all about staying connected with friends and family. However, as the social media platform added new features and grew over time, that core experience began to get drowned out.
That changes starting now, according to Meta, which today introduced a new feature that will "bring back the joy" of classic Facebook.
Specifically, Meta has redesigned the...
Apple's upcoming "iPhone Fold" will feature a foldable screen with a 4:3 aspect ratio, according to a Chinese leaker who previously leaked the book-style device's display dimensions.
The Weibo-based account Digital Chat Station claims that Apple will adopt a "roughly" 4:3 aspect ratio on the inner display in order to achieve consistency between the outer display, as well as to ensure parity...