I can assure you, sadly, that this is true. Sadly no Apple Retail employees would go on the record for fear of repercussions and all about this news but if you had any friends working there they could confirm it.
Walk into any Apple Store and you'll see less employees on the floor than before. I remember a time when the floor was swarming with blue shirts. Now, they are running left and right everywhere. I can't imagine what it's like working during the week-ends. This will lead to two things: either the wait time will increase greatly and buying a product in an Apple Store will become the equivalent of waiting at DisneyLand to hop in an attraction (if they continue with the route of serving each customers correctly and taking their time answering them), or the lack of decent employees number on the floor will lead them to speed up the purchasing process and thus reducing greatly the customer experience.
I remember being told that what made the Apple Stores so unique was the experience one could have there... Now I fear it'll be just another electronic store, a Best Buy clone. Oh sure they'll still have some passionate employees that'll give their 110%, but down the line, those employees will eventually become jaded if nothing is done to support them (like having more troops to help share the work load). Profit is a good thing, but don't do it by ruining the customer experience and asking the impossible of your employees (I know that everyone will say this is the reality of retail, but boy, I love the Apple experience because it's exactly that -- an experience, not just an in-and-out visit at Target).
It will be worse than best buy, I think best buy is starting to figure out the whole customer service thing, i've noticed more services and employees lately, its still terrible, but improving.
People like Tim Cook are not capable of running Apple the way it needs to be run, Apple isn't a typical company, nor has it ever been run by one. Tim Cook needs to go. Now.
Great tech companies, like Apple, Microsoft and google, just as examples are not founded and made great by Bean counters like Tim cook. They're founded by people like Steve Jobs and Bill gates, who didn't think " whats popular, what already worked? " People like Steve Jobs and Bill gates thought " whats next? What can we do next that will be the next amazing thing? "
As far as the Apple and Microsoft thing goes, I don't think people realize how much Microsoft and Apple have helped each other, the have an awesome relationship going back 30 years. Lets home Cook doesn't ruin that.
Lets look at the 2 greats, Jobs and Gates
Steve Jobs would look at a problem, or a user interface problem or a whatever problem and think " how can I make this easy to use? Whats next? "
Bill Gates was very much a programmer and engineer, as well as an incredible businessman, and he would say " How do I make this WORK better? in the future? how do I make this work better? How can I make this work among multiple machines "
Tim Cook thinks " how can I reduce costs as much as possible to get every last penny into my checking account? "
Not good.