What you need to know
- Apple is planning to bring Today at Apple sessions back to its retail stores.
- Stores in the United States and Canada will resume in-store training starting on August 30.
- Today at Apple sessions have been exclusively online soon after the start of the pandemic.
Despite surging COVID-19 cases due to the Delta variant, Apple is planning to move forward with bringing in-store training back to its Apple Stores in the United States and Canada.
As reported by Bloomberg, the company notified its retail staff in both countries that Today at Apple sessions could return to stores as soon as August 30. The plan, however, could change for areas experiencing higher levels of COVID-19 transmission.
According to the report, Apple has already opened up in-store reservations for customers as well. Of course, masks will continue to be required in order to attend the training classes.
Apple opened its reservation portal for in-store classes on Monday, allowing consumers to sign up for the courses in advance. The program will resume in the majority of the company's U.S. locations, including New York stores, but not everywhere. The classes -- branded Today at Apple -- were last held in March 2020, just before the pandemic triggered widespread lockdowns.
Apple has been trying to make moves to bring operations back to normal. The company had, after more than a year, begun lifting the mask mandate for the majority of its stores in June. However, the rise of the Delta variant and surging COVID-19 cases across the United States caused the company to reinstate the mandate for both employees and customers.
The company also originally planned to bring its office employees back to its corporate locations in September, but the Delta variant has also thrown those plans off. Apple is now planning to hopefully make that move in October, but that could also change.
Apple is expected to host a virtual iPhone event in September where the company will announce the iPhone 13 as well as the Apple Watch Series 7.
