Apple 的 Vision Pro 上市在产品还没到顾客手中之前，就已暴露出 Apple Stores 内部日益加剧的压力。2024 年 1 月，Apple 把数百名零售员工带到 Cupertino 进行秘密培训，使用保密协议和手机 Faraday bags，之后再把他们送回去，为销售人员主持 4-hour 工作坊。这些展示原本应该有严格脚本并经过仔细演练，但许多门市人手不足，依赖较临时的劳动力，而且缺乏上市经验，让员工几乎没有时间学习这款装置的脸部扫描、light-seal fitting，以及眼睛和手指控制。

上市很快就在门市内变得一团乱。员工形容，他们只有 20 到 30 minutes 的脚本复习时间，示范执行也不稳定，而人潮又让彩排变得困难。有些据点的员工先用 iPad 读示范脚本，后来在顾客失去兴趣时干脆完全不照脚本。销售结果疲弱：估计 Apple 在 2024 年卖出的 Vision Pro 少于 500,000 台，远低于 Apple Watch 首年约 10 million 台，也低于 Apple 每年销售的超过 200 million 台 iPhone。产品本身也有问题，包括约 1.5 pounds 的重量、狭窄的应用程式生态、较差的视讯通话表现，以及 3,500 美元的起售价，搭配常见配件后约升至 4,000 美元。

这篇文章把 Vision Pro 的失败，描述为从 Steve Jobs 的零售哲学转向 Tim Cook 以效率为导向做法的长期变化之一。Jobs 曾把门市视为教学与宣传的场所，由受过充分训练、福利良好的员工服务；而 Cook 和 Deirdre O'Brien 则推动更精简的人力配置、更多承包商、自助式训练，以及像 AppleCare+ 这类销售指标。这种改变引发员工不满，促成 2022 年 6 月 Towson 的工会化，以及 2024 年一份合约，其中包括在 3 years 内大约 10 percent 的加薪，并将临时工上限设为正式员工的 25 percent。更广泛的含义是，Apple 削弱了曾经帮助挽救 Apple Watch 等产品的零售营运，使 Vision Pro 的上市成为一个门市放大而非修正产品发表失败的案例。

Apple's Vision Pro rollout exposed growing strain inside Apple Stores even before the headset reached customers. In January 2024, Apple brought hundreds of retail workers to Cupertino for secret training, using nondisclosure agreements and Faraday bags for phones, then sent them back to run 4-hour workshops for sales staff. The demos were supposed to be tightly scripted and carefully practiced, but many stores were understaffed, dependent on a more temporary workforce, and short on launch experience, leaving workers with little time to learn the device's face-scanning, light-seal fitting, and eye-and-finger controls.

The rollout quickly turned chaotic in stores. Employees described only 20 to 30 minutes of script review, shaky demo execution, and crowds that made rehearsals difficult. Some locations had workers reading the demo script from an iPad, then abandoning it altogether as customers lost interest. Sales results were weak: Apple is estimated to have sold fewer than 500,000 Vision Pros in 2024, far below roughly 10 million Apple Watches in their first year and the more than 200 million iPhones Apple sells annually. The product itself also had problems, including a weight of about 1.5 pounds, a narrow app ecosystem, poor video-call performance, and a starting price of $3,500, rising to about $4,000 with common accessories.

The article frames the Vision Pro failure as part of a longer shift from Steve Jobs's retail philosophy to Tim Cook's efficiency-driven approach. Jobs had treated stores as places to teach and evangelize, staffed by well-trained employees with strong benefits, while Cook and Deirdre O'Brien pushed leaner staffing, more contractors, self-guided training, and sales metrics such as AppleCare+ attachment. That change fueled worker frustration, unionization at Towson in June 2022, and a 2024 contract that included pay increases of roughly 10 percent over 3 years and a cap on temps at 25 percent of permanent staff. The broader implication is that Apple weakened the retail operation that once helped rescue products like the Apple Watch, making the Vision Pro rollout a case where stores amplified, rather than corrected, a product launch failure.