Though all Apple retail locations outside of China technically closed on March 14 in response to the provided customers with a two-day window to collect in-store pickups or any devices previously left for repairs. That grace period expired Tuesday, and if you haven’t already visited an Apple store to retrieve your device, sad to say, you won’t be able to for the foreseeable future.
An FAQ concerning the closures on Apple’s website states that customers can pick up their iPhones, Apple Watches, and whatnot whenever stores reopen”a date originally set for March 27 that has since been updated to a nebulous “until further notice” as the outbreak’s intensified.
Apple reached out to customers by phone and email to encourage them to grab their devices within that two-day window, a company spokesperson told Business Insider. However, for customers who missed Apple’s contact attempts or who were otherwise unwilling or unable to stop by a store in time, their devices will, unfortunately, remain on indefinite lockdown.
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“We made every possible attempt to get people’s products back to them,” the spokesperson told Business Insider. “There certainly are people that, for whatever reason, did not pick up their products before we closed and their products are at our stores.”
For devices sent out to one of Apple’s repair centres, the company’s contacting customers to try to coordinate shipping them back to the owners directly rather than to an Apple store for pickup.
With how quickly developments about the coronavirus outbreak have been changing, it remains unclear when Apple will open its doors again outside mainland China. While Apple has tentatively begun reopening stores there”closed since January”after some delay, China’s number of new COVID-19 cases has also fallen dramatically in recent weeks. Elsewhere, this tally continues to escalate at an alarming rate. In the U.S., the total number of reported cases has more than doubled in the last week, surging past 15,000 as of Friday, per the New York Times.