It felt like an iPhone launch day.
Without the noise, the excitement and the naturally forced smiles.
Apple has recently begun to reopen many of its stores[1], in the belief that the worst of the coronavirus may have passed.
But surely things will have changed. No retail experience is the same anymore. Few life experiences are.
So I ventured to a recently reopened store to see whether it remained quintessentially Apple, or whether it reflected our new, more difficult realities.
As I walked along a row of shops, some enjoyed wide-open doors. And wide-open spaces inside. There were few people around. Not everyone, it seems, is rushing back to their previous ways of life.
I went at a time of day when I'd expect the Apple store[2] to be, in contemporary parlance, bumpin'. But, as I approached, I could see at least one thing was very different: There was no police officer stationed outside.
I've become used to Apple protecting its stores with the help of somewhat bored-looking members of law enforcement. This time, there were store employees in dark blue T-shirts milling around outside, but no obvious officers of the law.
Then I espied a man in a black jacket, standing to the right of the entrance. Did he work there? Was he a bouncer? It didn't seem entirely necessary, given that a few customers were sitting around outside, but precious few inside.
Who was this man? I stepped a little closer. He was wearing the badge of a private security company. His job, however, was to stand at the entrance to one of two lines and take people's temperatures.
As far as I could tell, there was one line for people picking