Open Letter to Apple: Respectfully, WTF is happening?
Apple Retail was once the gold standard of experiential retail—a place where employees felt empowered, customers felt inspired, and the brand shined through every interaction. Today, that legacy is at risk. Across hundreds of posts and thousands of comments from your own retail teams across both US and international stores, a clear pattern emerges: morale is tanking, sentiment is deeply negative, and your frontline teams feel undervalued, overworked, and forced into ethically dubious practices.
We write because this is not just about metrics or sales; it is about the soul of Apple Retail, which is very clearly no longer "our people." The sheer abandonment of what was built and led by Ron Johnson is a slap in the face to every Apple Retail employee and customer. We held out hope that Deirdre would breathe new life into the organization and lead a revitalization following the Browett and Ahrendts eras. Instead, it is clear the current trajectory is designed to purge stores of the very tenured employees who know what the glory days were actually like.
Being incessantly pressured—and now virtually required—to collect customer information using Connect & Personalize has become the norm. Signing customers up for “free trials” to inevitably pad the Apple Services piece of the earnings pie chart, being required to log “anyone with a job” as a business intro just to check a box, and killing any remnant of what the Creative or Genius roles once were— is now the name of the game. No more help, guidance, real tech support beyond restoring everything, or genuine learning. Now, the objective is quite literally to persuade every person to buy something, regardless of the method or need.
Examples: Apple Vision Pro demos, Apple Intelligence, business intros, services, conversion, services, conversion, business intros, connect and personalize, conversion.
Need an appointment for actual help? Management would much rather you funnel everyone who isn't planning on spending a dollar directly to AppleCare phone support. There are leaders currently in place who share this sentiment, but they too are being pushed out, replaced by external hires who are turning these stores into every other retail space.
Is the incredible surge of LOA’s and two-week notices every store has recently faced not an enormous red flag? What about the failing Pulse results across every market? Or is this the end goal? We want to be proud, enjoy working here, genuinely help people, have fun. If wanting tenured brilliant employees to quit without laying them off is the goal, it is working.
Being proud to work at Apple and referring friends and family to retail has become a thing of the past. We would not refer even our enemies to the current state of Apple Retail. It is like watching a family member slowly lose their grip on reality while being completely powerless to stop it. You love them dearly, you cherish the history and stories you share with them, but they are losing themselves and no longer remember who you are. Apple Retail is a distant memory of what it once was, and we are all watching it fall to ruin. Apple has made it very clear that it wants to prevent store unionization, yet leadership's own actions are driving that movement forward completely on its own.
As Apple enters a new chapter with shifting top leadership, I implore you to read through the posts on this subreddit. Read the comments. Read the Pulse surveys. Read the customer complaints about agonizing wait times, repair turnaround times, and having to be helped by an employee who is simultaneously juggling three other people. Conversion.
Read the room.
- What I Learned Building the Apple Store
- An Inside Look at the Fiasco of the Vision Pro Launch in Apple Stores
- Apple’s Retail Staff Are Second-Class Employees
- Apple’s Retail Fumble: A Lesson for All CEOs
- Apple Pressed by Maryland Lawmakers Over Closure of First Unionized U.S. Store
- Apple Services Profit Margin Trends