Apple’s shops are actually meeting places: you not only look at the company’s new products, buy them straight away or get service, but you can also attend free seminars and events. All of this has become completely different in Corona times: the shops are like well-secured fortresses that can only be reached by appointment. In fact, the measures have tightened again – Apple has its own system here, in which the respective local COVID – 19 – numbers and others

It is still possible to get your products – if you know as. The example of the store on Kurfürstendamm in Berlin, which a Mac & i editor recently visited, reveals the new system.

Buy in the app, pick up in the store We actually only wanted to purchase a new MagSafe charger that is currently only available online with a waiting period. It should be available on the Kudamm, as announced by the Apple Store app. However, you can’t just walk into the store and take the product with you. You could try, but you are regularly turned away because to go shopping – even if you don’t know what you want – you actually need an appointment with a “specialist”, which you have to book in advance via the app or website.

Since we knew what we wanted, we could 30, 85 – Order the euro part for collection. In Berlin this usually happens on the same day; you can alternatively have products that are on site in the shop delivered to your home at short notice, which we even try to do on the same day (delivery time 19 until 22 o’clock) was offered.

Pay attention to the check-in time The purchase is made entirely in the app, including payment via credit card and co. App can load. All of this already existed before, but the collection system itself has changed in COVID – 19 times. So you look for a “check-in time” in the app, which with us was a good three and a half hours in the future. At this point you have to be at the (and initially not in) the shop. And, very important: Photo ID is mandatory despite the QR code.

There were several queues at the store, to which we were directed. Distance markings on the floor are intended to ensure social distancing, and masking is required outside (the Kudamm is an MNS zone). The queue was moving forward quickly, Apple had well-oiled logistics that day. After a good 5 minutes we came to a security guard who scanned our temperature contactlessly – which Apple is still doing despite criticism of data protection.

Sophisticated queue logistics Then it went into the next line – the one for the actual collection. She guided us to the side entrance of the former cinema, in which the Apple Store Berlin is located. Here we went up two flights of stairs and past the briefing room. Halfway there is a small station where you can buy new products – in this case iPhone 12, 12 Pro and iPad Air 4 –

After another five minutes in the social distancing queue, we got there to a last Apple employee – in the meantime we had had our code scanned at least four times – who pointed us in the direction of a room where the actual pickup at the counter takes place. Again, that didn’t take 30 seconds. What we didn’t succeed: to enter the actual shop. Here we should have queued again, they said – and without a specialist appointment there is no guarantee that it will work. (bsc)