Back at the Apple Store: My first return visit since the pandemic began

For the first time in more than a year, since the start of you-know-what, I walked into the Apple Store location near my apartment Thursday afternoon. And I have to say: The shopping experience I encountered was impressive. And frankly, because of the normalcy, a little surprising.

Before diving into some of the details of what you'll encounter at US Apple Store locations now, a little backstory is in order. Since the COVID-19 situation wasn't uniform and hit parts of the country differently, here's a little about the pandemic experience where I live. I'm in the city of Memphis, and my county at this stage of the coronavirus pandemic has recorded a little more than 99,000 COVID cases. More than 97,000 of those have been classified as inactive or recovered. More importantly, my county's current 7-day rolling average of new COVID-19 cases stands at just 26. We're back to normal life, in other words. Or as normal as things can be right now.