New Lockdown Measures Close All Remaining Apple Stores in the UK

Apple has temporarily closed all of its stores in the United Kingdom, as England and most of Scotland enter new lockdowns to curb a steep rise in coronavirus cases thought to be caused by a new strain.

edinburgh store closed
Announced on Monday by U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson and Scotland First Minister Nicola Sturgeon, the new lockdowns close all schools and non-essential shops, and mean people must stay indoors other than for limited exceptions, such as essential medical needs, food shopping, exercise, and work that cannot be done at home.

In England, the strict rules are to be enforced until at least mid-February, while in Scotland they apply on the mainland until the end of January, and will be kept under review. Northern Ireland went into lockdown on December 26, while Wales has been in a nationwide lockdown since December 20, so Apple stores there were already closed before the holidays, as noted by 9to5Mac's Michael Steeber.


With local tiered restrictions in force since early November, many of Apple's retail locations had already been operating on a click-and-collect basis only with Express Pickup. However, the new lockdown rules are the harshest the U.K. has seen since the spring, and all non-essential stores must once again close. The new rules come after the U.K. reported a record 58,784 cases on Monday, as well as a further 407 deaths within 28 days of a positive test.

Update: Apple has informed MacRumors of an update to its holiday returns policy which means customers seeking to return products purchased in-store will still be able to do so whenever the lockdowns end and stores reopen.

Note: Due to the political or social nature of the discussion regarding this topic, the discussion thread is located in our Political News forum. All forum members and site visitors are welcome to read and follow the thread, but posting is limited to forum members with at least 100 posts.

Popular Stories

iOS 26

iOS 26.4 and iOS 27 Features Revealed in New Leak

Friday December 12, 2025 10:56 am PST by
Macworld's Filipe Espósito today revealed a handful of features that Apple is allegedly planning for iOS 26.4, iOS 27, and even iOS 28. The report said the features are referenced within the code for a leaked internal build of iOS 26 that is not meant to be seen by the public. However, it appears that Espósito and/or his sources managed to gain access to it, providing us with a sneak peek...
Apple Logo Top Half

Early iOS 26 Software Leak Uncovers Dozens of Upcoming Apple Features

Monday December 15, 2025 3:05 pm PST by
Software from an iPhone prototype running an early build of iOS 26 leaked last week, giving us a glimpse at future Apple devices and iOS features. We recapped device codenames in our prior article, and now we have a list of some of the most notable feature flags that were found in the software code. In some cases, it's obvious what the feature flags are referring to, while some are more...
apple beta 26 lineup

Apple Leak Confirms Work on Foldable iPhone, AirTag 2, and Dozens More Devices

Monday December 15, 2025 2:05 pm PST by
Last week, details about unreleased Apple devices and future iOS features were shared by Macworld. This week, we learned where the information came from, plus we have more findings from the leak. As it turns out, an Apple prototype device running an early build of iOS 26 was sold, and the person who bought it shared the software. The OS has a version number of 23A5234w, and the first...
Apple Foldable Thumb

Leak Reveals Foldable iPhone Details

Monday December 15, 2025 9:09 am PST by
The first foldable iPhone will feature a series of design and hardware firsts for Apple, according to details shared by the Weibo leaker known as Digital Chat Station. According to a new post, via machine translation, Apple is developing what the leaker describes as a "wide foldable" device, a term used to refer to a horizontally oriented, book-style foldable with a large internal display....
iOS 26

iOS 26.3 Beta 1 Features: What's New So Far

Monday December 15, 2025 4:23 pm PST by
Apple is testing iOS 26.3, the next version of iOS 26 that will launch around January. Since iOS 26.3's testing is happening over the holidays, it is a smaller update with fewer features than we've seen in prior betas. We've rounded up what's new so far, and we'll add to our list with subsequent betas if we come across any other features. Transfer to Android Apple is making it simpler...
iOS 26

Apple Releases iOS 26.2 With Alarms for Reminders, Lock Screen Changes, Enhanced Safety Alerts and More

Friday December 12, 2025 10:10 am PST by
Apple today released iOS 26.2, the second major update to the iOS 26 operating system that came out in September, iOS 26.2 comes a little over a month after iOS 26.1 launched. ‌iOS 26‌.2 is compatible with the ‌iPhone‌ 11 series and later, as well as the second-generation ‌iPhone‌ SE. The new software can be downloaded on eligible iPhones over-the-air by going to Settings >...
iOS 26

iOS 26.2 Coming Soon With These 8 New Features on Your iPhone

Thursday December 11, 2025 8:49 am PST by
Apple seeded the second iOS 26.2 Release Candidate to developers earlier this week, meaning the update will be released to the general public very soon. Apple confirmed iOS 26.2 would be released in December, but it did not provide a specific date. We expect the update to be released by early next week. iOS 26.2 includes a handful of new features and changes on the iPhone, such as a new...
airpods max 2024 colors

AirPods Max 2 Likely to Offer These 10 New Features

Monday December 15, 2025 7:41 am PST by
Apple released the AirPods Max on December 15, 2020, meaning the over-ear headphones launched five years ago today. While the AirPods Max were updated with a USB-C port and new color options last year, followed by support for lossless audio and ultra-low latency audio this year, the headphones lack some of the features that have been introduced for newer generations of the regular AirPods and the ...

Top Rated Comments

seek3r Avatar
65 months ago

As an aside, I understand it's difficult to determine the cause of death sometimes - especially for those who die outside of a hospital or care home - but the UK is counting deaths within 28 days of a positive test (as are many other countries). That includes everyone who tests positive then gets hit by a bus within 28 days. 28 days is an arbitrary number. Could've been 14, 21, 50... The numbers of deaths are arbitrary. Still frighteningly high, but that's the fault of Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson's useless government and ministers.
It may come as a shock to you but doctors arent completely stupid. If someone gets hit by a bus and they had COV19 but die directly from the trauma, like blood loss on scene, the cause of death is the bus, not COV19 (the exception to that could be something like they were hospitalized and stable and then died of respiratory failure because of COV19, where the possible primary cause is COV19 exacerbated by physical trauma, but typically even that will be reported as a trauma death as it's likely the trauma would be viewed as the primary cause).

The right wing talking point you're trying to reiterate, even worse than the original if that's possible, has to do with comorbidities where, yes, someone with, say, COPD who gets COV19 and dies from respiratory failure is a COV19 death. That's because very few people die of any one thing on its own, outside of, say, major trauma (like getting hit by a bus) and the primary cause is the most important part in COV19 reporting. But no one is reporting bus accidents as COV19 deaths, in the UK, in the US, or anywhere else (and I'm sure right wingers will jump on this post with some example of one misreported death, but statistically that's not happening)
Score: 11 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Apple Knowledge Navigator Avatar
65 months ago
Look in the bright side - the UK currently has more people vaccinated than all of EU combined. Good job folks!
Score: 9 Votes (Like | Disagree)
ducknalddon Avatar
65 months ago

As an aside, I understand it's difficult to determine the cause of death sometimes - especially for those who die outside of a hospital or care home - but the UK is counting deaths within 28 days of a positive test (as are many other countries). That includes everyone who tests positive then gets hit by a bus within 28 days. 28 days is an arbitrary number. Could've been 14, 21, 50...
It also excludes anybody who was tested positive then took more than 28 days to die. It is arbitrary but it assuming it is meaningless because it isn't perfect is a mistake. It gives us an indication of the direction of travel.
Score: 8 Votes (Like | Disagree)
mazz0 Avatar
65 months ago

Despicable government overreach.

Have a look yourself. Mountains of evidence that the lockdowns are not justified. @IvorCummins ('https://twitter.com/fatemperor?s=21')
Rather inefficient for you to suggest that everybody who reads your post goes and duplicates effort finding evidence you already have. Why don't you just share it?
Score: 7 Votes (Like | Disagree)
farewelwilliams Avatar
65 months ago
don't worry guys, it's just like the flu
Score: 7 Votes (Like | Disagree)
kahkityoong Avatar
65 months ago

It’s almost like a series of half-baked ‘tiered’ restrictions were ineffective at both stemming the tide of the virus and protecting businesses. What a shock. This full lockdown should have come before Christmas. Instead, it was apparently better to pander to the “spreading-Covid-is-my-right” brigade, and here we are. Apple will be fine, though. The same may not be true for retail employees and small business owners. Hopefully we can stem the tide until the larger rollout of the vaccines. It’s like the UK and US are in competition for how epically they can fail at their response to a global pandemic. If you have lost friends or family to the virus or have been tangentially impacted by it (e.g. unemployment), you know how frustrating this all is - and depressing, quite frankly. Take care of yourselves and others. ❤️?
UK’s response has been terrible. Too slow and too soft. But the worst thing is not to learn from the previous mistakes. Still it’s better than USA’s outright negligence.
Score: 6 Votes (Like | Disagree)