512 Pixels

Scott Forstall will be leaving the company in 2013 and will serve as an advisor to CEO Tim Cook in the interim. Eddie Cue is now over Siri, Maps, in addition to his previous work with the iTunes Stores, with Craig Federighi running both the OS X and iOS teams. Bob Mansfield will be running all wireless and semiconductor work.

(Interestingly, Apple’s release says the semiconductor team has “ambitious plans for the future.”)

Finally, retail head John Browett is gone. He’s the guy who tried to cut retail staffing back in August. I think this is Apple simply getting rid of a bad hire.

Five newspapers partially-owned by Bain Capital have backed its co-founder Mitt Romney, and none have endorsed President Obama.

While that’s fairly damning, I really dislike that newspapers endorse candidates. Even though journalism professors would say that the Editorial and News departments are separate, that’s a hard thing to pull off in reality.

Ben Brooks, writing about his daughter’s recent surgery:

We knew the wait wouldn’t be easy, and as we waited for the 10 minute surgery to be completed we were both beyond stressed, nervous, and hopeful. It seemed like an hour passed. We got the call to head back, and when we came back to our daughter, who was screaming, it wasn’t a pleasant sight.

She was in pain and not around anyone that she knew. She was scared. It was a terrible sight for any parent.

Stellar piece.

It’s time for Ballmer to go.

Apple’s stuff looks better, even inside.

I have not gotten my iPad mini yet, but the Smart Cover I ordered showed up today. Here are two photos showing the size of it, compared to a notebook and the iPad 3:

The word “intuitive” doesn’t come to mind.

Marco Arment, on talking with a retail employee demoing the Surface:

I gave up. It was like arguing with a Tea Partier.

It sounds like Microsoft copied all but the most important part of Apple’s stores: the people.

Benj Edwards takes a tour through the pre-Mac Apple.

This looks like a great update, but until Evernote stops butchering text when copying out of the app, I can’t live in it full-time.

In an interview with Harry McCracken:

It’s always been about making the best Mac we know how. Among the many benefits are making it easy to use and affordable, with great features. This high level of integration is part of delivering on that.

And on Apple’s removal of the SuperDrive in modern Macs:

We find the things that have outlived their useful purpose. Our competitors are afraid to remove them. We try to find better solutions — our customers have given us a lot of trust.

If anyone is surprised the SuperDrive is dead, they haven’t been paying attention.

Someone unplugged North America.