“Today at Apple” sessions held by all of Apple’s seventeen retail stores across Italy have been officially canceled do to the nationwide coronavirus COVID-19 crisis.
The cancellations will stretch until at least March 19. This was confirmed by SetteBIT which first spotted a message regarding the cancellations on Apple’s localized retail webpages in Italy. “Unfortunately there are no scheduled sessions here,” reads the note.
iMore was able to confirm that no Italian Apple stores are currently offering sessions.
Eppure https://t.co/ZnO8dDv5KQ gli Apple Store lombardi saranno aperti domani e domenica, tranne quello bergamasco di Orio al Serio. Tuttavia c’è confusione visto che dalla Regione avevano detto https://t.co/RUnx0zAEuC che 7 + 8 marzo sarebbero rimasti chiusi i centri commerciali pic.twitter.com/8rdpcQIGs4
— setteBIT (@setteBIT) March 6, 2020
“Apple’s store websites for its Carosello, Fiordaliso and Apple iL Leone stores currently state they will be open this weekend,” iMore continued. “As the situation remains developing, you should definitely check out store websites before visiting.”
One confusing factor is that regional authorities in the Lombardy area had said that non-food stores inside shopping malls would have to close this weekend due to fears about the outbreak, as they did last weekend, however, Apple’s three other mall stores in the region are currently showing that they’re open for business as usual. The malls themselves have also declared that they will be open. Apple’s Piazza Liberty store in Milan is not a mall location.
In other words, all Apple Stores stores in Italy will stay open to customers and will be accepting appointments for Genius Bars, with one exception — earlier this week, the Cupertino tech giant was ordered by Italian authorities to shut down its retail store in the Oriocenter store in Bergamo for the weekend due to the disinfection.