Apple CEO Tim Cook earlier this week explained that new Apple's new Senior Vice President of Retail, John Browett, was hired not to "bring Dixons to Apple" , but instead "to bring Apple to an even higher level of customer service and satisfaction." In the initial press release announcing the hire, Cook went even further , saying that "John shares that commitment [to customer service] like no one else we’ve met." Showcasing part of John Browett's dedication to customer service, MacRumors reader Paul Harmer passed along this story of a run-in he had with Browett in the UK: Just a quick note about John Browett - About a year ago I was with a friend in our local branch of PC World (part of the Dixons group) looking at plasma TVs.

Earlier this week, Tim Cook announced the hiring of John Browett to replace Ron Johnson as the Senior Vice President of Retail at Apple. After spending more than 10 years at Apple, building the world's most successful retail chain from scratch, Johnson was appointed CEO at JC Penney with the difficult task of turning around one of the country's most well-known department stores. Johnson announced his departure from Apple in June of 2011 and by August Apple's recruiters were in full-swing looking for a replacement

Apple announced this morning that John Browett will be joining Apple as their new Senior Vice President of Retail. Browett will be leaving his current position as CEO of Dixons Retail. Apple® today announced that John Browett will join the company as senior vice president of Retail, reporting to Apple CEO Tim Cook.

If the speculation is to be believed, then Apple has plans in place to adopt and support the new 802.11ac specification across Airport base stations, Time Capsules, Apple TV, Notebooks and potentially the company’s range of mobile devices. Continue reading this article at RedmondPie.com

I had mentioned in an earlier post that one of the things which I was most looking forward to with the release ofthe iPhone 4S jailbreak was the new and innovative uses for the personal assistant, Siri. Developers have been itching to get their hands on a jailbroken 4S to allow them to test, amend and then release their tweaks and enhancements which will bring more power to the already very functional and intelligent voice analysis software.

Although iPhone 4S has continued to follow the precedent set by Apple’s smartphone legacy, its battery retention rates have left a lot to be desired. Continue reading this article at RedmondPie.com

According to the Wall Street Journal , Roger Rosner is the executive in charge of Apple's digital textbook tools.

While Apple moves forward on plans for its new 2.8 million square foot corporate campus in Cupertino, the company continues to grow with the success of its products. Apple's interim space needs led the company to lease 373,000 square feet in Cupertino six months ago, and soon after expand its New York City presence to over 50,000 square feet. The San Jose Mercury News now reports that Apple is working on deals to lease between 700,000 and 800,000 square feet of additional space in Sunnyvale, California, adjacent to the company's hometown of Cupertino

Kazuo Hirai will take over as the president of Sony in the next few months, Nikkei

BBC reports that Apple's Senior Vice President of Industrial Design, Jonathan Ive, has been awarded a knighthood in the United Kingdom.