In December 2024, Apple made an unusually public commitment to open flagship retail stores in Saudi Arabia beginning in 2026, naming the UNESCO World Heritage site of Diriyah as a centerpiece location. Now, with the year more than two-thirds spent, no physical store has opened, no construction update has been published, and no revised timeline has been offered. Apple did establish an online storefront for Saudi Arabia in mid-2025 — a meaningful step, but a different one. What lingers is the rarer question of what it means when a company that rarely names places and dates before it is ready, do