Apple Stores around the world to close hours early next weekend

Posted:
in General Discussion edited January 2014
A large number of Apple Stores from Canada to the Far East will be operating under "special hours" on Nov. 17 and Nov. 18, with most locations closing two to three hours early on Sunday for unspecified reasons.

Apple Store


It was discovered on Wednesday that a growing number of Apple Stores in Canada, China, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Italy, Japan and Spain will be closing early next weekend. For the most part, East Asian stores look to be shutting down on Sunday, while European locations vary from Sunday to Monday.

Earlier today, AppleInsider discovered a handful of Apple retail outlets were advertising early closing times, and more stores have been added to the list over the past few hours. For example, all Apple Stores in Japan are now showing special hours. Usually, Japan's Apple Store locations open between 10 a.m. and 9 p.m. daily, but will be closed from 6 p.m. next Sunday.

In Germany, Apple Store hours are even more sporadic, with 10 of the country's 12 stores closing on Nov. 18. The store in Dresden, for example, closes early on Monday, but will shut down for the entire day on Wednesday. The Oberhausen outlet, by contrast, is staying open late on Friday and Saturday, only to close early from Monday through Wednesday.

The cause of the closures is unknown, though Apple does have at least two important launch events coming up with the Retina iPad mini in November and Mac Pro in December. It should be noted that the company usually reserves Fridays for big Apple Store events and rarely starts the week with a product launch. More likely, the company is holding regularly scheduled meetings, but the Oberhausen store's hours are particularly interesting.

Gary Allen from ifo Apple Store confirms that he hasn't heard anything specific regarding the dates, but guesses the early hours may be for pre-holiday pep talks.

AppleInsider's Shane Cole contributed to this article.
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Comments

  • Reply 1 of 33
    vl-tonevl-tone Posts: 337member

    Maybe they are switching all the servers in the back store to brand new Mac Pros?

  • Reply 2 of 33
    But why not the American stores?
  • Reply 3 of 33
    Likely nothing to see here. I am guessing inventory-taking prior to the holiday season.
  • Reply 4 of 33
    It's a store quarterly meetings.
  • Reply 5 of 33
    Way to fill my head with this non sense. Some report you have here..
  • Reply 6 of 33
    bdkennedy1bdkennedy1 Posts: 1,459member
    New product training. Is that such a huge surprise?
  • Reply 7 of 33
    dunksdunks Posts: 1,254member
    Here's hoping they're gearing up for an iPad mini launch, though sporadic dates suggest it's likely a back-end upgrade.
  • Reply 8 of 33
    jungmarkjungmark Posts: 6,926member
    Isn't it obvious? The failure of the 5C has caused Apple to shut down to save money. Apple is dooooomed!

    /s
  • Reply 9 of 33
    jungmark wrote: »
    Isn't it obvious? The failure of the 5C has caused Apple to shut down to save money. Apple is dooooomed!

    /s

    Good anal ist.
  • Reply 10 of 33
    Shot in the dark guess: It's a meeting for store employees and every store that is changing their hours is in a country where Apple is either not allowed to hold employees past normal business hours or would have to pay overtime to do so. Therefore, their meetings will occur when they would have normally been on duty anyways.

    I really don't feel like researching this, it's just first thing that crossed my mind.
  • Reply 11 of 33
    apple ][apple ][ Posts: 9,233member

    If it's just inventory taking, then why's the German store staying open for two extra hours on four dates?

     

    I'm going to pretend to be a crack smoking analyst for a moment, which basically gives me the license and permission to peddle BS, and I'm going to say that the iPad Mini launch is happening around or close to those dates.

  • Reply 12 of 33
    Remember that last event at Cupertino when TC said retail employees will get a treat too. Maybe Apple plans to take its employees out for dinner.
  • Reply 13 of 33
    poochpooch Posts: 768member
    i heard tim lost his keys. i think they're going to be looking for them. i bet that's it.

    [SIZE=2](edit: add a period.)[/SIZE]
  • Reply 14 of 33
    asciiascii Posts: 5,936member

    Putting up Christmas decorations?

  • Reply 15 of 33

    I guess they will play some games there, aha

  • Reply 16 of 33
    Every retail store has pre-holiday meetings. They go over products, expectations, dress code, emergency instructions, and give big pep talks.
  • Reply 17 of 33
    Nov 20th is a regional holiday for Dresden, Germany.
  • Reply 18 of 33
    marvfoxmarvfox Posts: 2,275member

    They work hard before the big Christmas season is upon us soon.

  • Reply 19 of 33
    maybe it's because store employees are hourly wage workers and expect to be paid for the 15 minutes they wait in line for security checks.....
    http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-07-30/apple-store-ex-employees-sue-over-unpaid-security-checks.html
  • Reply 20 of 33
    haarhaar Posts: 563member
    LOL, they are closing early so the employees can watch the new series "Almost Human" on fox. LOL...
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