I believe a major factor was in the transition from .Mac to Mobile/iCloud. When I worked as a GM for a retail district [years ago, hush, I'm still young... ish lol], .Mac was a $99 "add-on" that floor specialists pushed along with AppleCare to improve their UPT's and DPT's. Specialists took time to explain the service, setting it up with a new Mac, etc. (This was before the iPhone launch in 2007). I thought .Mac was a great service (iDisk, Dock/Keychain syncing, web hosting, etc - features now returning), so I spent ~15-30 minutes with clients on explaining OS X and .Mac. This encouraged them to return as loyal clients and improved sales, more importantly they really understood and loved it after I took the time.
Now, it's a free service and floor specialists aren't pushing it as it doesn't effect their sales. This summer while visiting a retail location in my area for work, a few floor specialists weren't able to or didn't want to help a customer with her new iPhone 5S. I spent about an hour, answered her questions. She was never told about iCloud backups so setting up her new 5S she lost data. I explained how it works and to use full iCloud services with a free iCloud account, other email accounts work as your iCloud account but crucial services won't. In the end, she left the store with a solid understanding of iOS 7 and was amazed as a non-tech savvy consumer with everything it could do.
My point: iCloud and iOS aren't a failure in execution, they're failing at the retail level (front of house) as floor specialists don't have incentive or full understanding. We're trying to address this discrepancy by encouraging floor specialists to take [reasonable] time in working with customers. This would lesson the Genius Bar load as most customers wouldn't have to visit the store for answers to questions that can be resolved when they purchase an iOS device and/or OS X system. How do you motivate sales on free services? Can't begin charging an annual fee, it'd be difficult to count iCloud storage subscription increases towards sales. One option under consideration: every customer who creates a free iCloud account with setup can be linked to the associates sales, those with the most could earn incentives.
Otherwise, unless you're dealing with numerous stores, customer reviews, and matters regarding how quickly Apple OS's change, it's easy for us "tech savvy" individuals to dismiss this as a non-issue. It's a prevalent issue and it's hurting what made Apple so appealing: great customer service and features. Many consumers haven't mastered iOS 7 (or updated to it) and now iOS 8 is already here. Many are still on OS X 10.7 and still don't know the basics. Pushing out annual releases has also impacted developers as they constantly have to update their app's for multiple display sizes, hardware, compatibility, etc, in addition to improving their app's with new features and such, also consuming their time for development in new app's. Add the matters of recent updates literally crippling devices, it's too much. Yes, updates in the past have had their issues, but not to this extent. Quality takes time. I believe we need to restructure retail front of house support, focus on quality service, take the time with customers instead of rushing them (stores would also be less crowded allowing specialists the time to sell and assist instead of rushing around a crowded store, one of the many reasons self check-out came to be), and avoid matters through preventative care (better service) rather than treatments (addressing easily resolved matters after the fact).
Just my $.02. There should be a return to slowing down pace in certain area's in order to improve quality, repeat clients, and less confusion.
