MacNN reports that Ahrendts is moving away from an organization based on geography:

The new plan is to organize stores based on sales volumes — in particular on how much of each particular product outlets sell. Instead of instituting sales targets, which were unpopular under Ahrendts’ predecessor, John Browett, the goal is allegedly to improve shopper satisfaction and streamline operations by giving similar stores similar leadership and promotions.

Apple is also opening a second store in Chengdu, China. My wife and I were in Chengdu in 2005 and my sense was that Apple was almost completely unknown, so it’s interesting to see how much that’s changed.

Eric Meyer’s remembrance of his daughter, Rebecca, who died of cancer on her 6th birthday:

What matters in this life is not what we do but what we do for others, the legacy we leave and the imprint we make.

If you can, make a donation to fight childhood cancer to Ronald McDonald House or St. Baldrick’s Foundation. No one should have to go through what Eric has.

iMore’s Chuong Nguyen quotes Ahrendts’ email to Apple staff:

“Looking forward to the future, I feel our greatest opportunity will be continuing to focus on and evolve the consumer journey online and in our stores,” Ahrendts said. “Although technology is rapidly changing how customers shop, they will still want to feel surprised and delighted by the personalized Apple experience we provide at every turn.”

Ask a long-time Apple retail employee: the phrase “surprise and delight” has been the mission statement for Apple retail since the mid-2000s at least. So this seems to be more a tone of sticking to their guns rather than shaking things up. And why not?

(An early version of this said “As a long-time Apple retail employee…” To be clear, I have never worked for Apple in any capacity. Well, other than unpaid booster. An Apple retail employee told me years ago that “To surprise and delight our customers” was their mission statement.)

Attention fellow Pacific northwest denizens: App Camp for Girls still has openings for its August 4-8 session in Seattle.

The Verge says it could be the best iOS game controller yet, although that might not be saying much:

The $99 Junglecat, which comes in black or white, looks to the unsuspecting eye like any other plastic iPhone case. It just about doubles the thickness of the iPhone, though it’s not terribly heavy. But the bottom half of the case slides out to reveal a four-way d-pad, ABXY buttons, and two bumpers for your index fingers — suddenly your iPhone looks a bit like a Nintendo 3DS or the Sony Xperia Play.

At $99 it’s still a niche product but this is my favorite design so far because it’s the easiest to have with you all the time.

The Verge’s David Pierce:

Other devices may have particular advantages — a bigger screen or longer battery life — but they all come with complications and trade-offs. The 5S has none.

That’s what I’d say, too. Which, OK, is not surprising.

Their runner-up is the HTC One (M8) which has always looked to my eye to be the best looking Android phone. It’s interesting that it hasn’t really helped HTC’s fortunes that much. HTC’s phones are good looking and get reviewed well… and then everyone buys Samsung. I guess that gigantic ad budget really pays off.

On Turning This Car Around we turn to parenting gear. Eventually.

The New York Times’ David Streitfeld:

Amazon customers who want to order forthcoming Warner Home Video features, including “The Lego Movie,” “300: Rise of an Empire,” “Winter’s Tale” and “Transcendence,” are finding it impossible to do so.

The retailer’s refusal to sell the movies is part of its effort to gain leverage in yet another major confrontation with a supplier to become public in recent weeks.

It’s almost as if Amazon, because it’s the largest vendor of such wares and has a storefront of one might say singular size, feels it can use its market position to dictate terms to suppliers. It’s interesting.

For a month back in 2000, my wife and I lived four blocks away from where this store is opening. More than a year away from the launch of the iPod, Apple was still clawing its way back with candy-colored iBooks and iMacs. These were catching on a little with the Japanese as well and one of the stores in Akihabara had a whole floor dedicated to Apple products. Omotesando is a high-rent area full of premium shops (I was living there temporarily thanks to a gap in expat managers at the company I was working for) and that Apple can open a store there speaks to its gains in Japan in the last decade. If you had told me back then that they’d one day open a store four blocks away, well… well, I would have burned you at the stake for being a witch, is what I would have done. Because back in 2000 we believed only those with demonic powers could see the future.

Those were different times.

My son and I discovered this mod about a year ago and at the time it seemed like a fun diversion. You’d load it up, portal into the Middle Earth dimension and there would be Middle Earth biomes like the Shire, Mordor, Gondor, etc. along with appropriate inhabitants all randomly generating as you moved around.

I hadn’t played it in a long time so about a week ago I downloaded the latest version and fired it up again to see what changes had been made. I started out in the Shire and started walking to see more biomes. But all I got was Shire. Shire, Shire, Shire, Shire.

I went back to the web site to see if I was doing something wrong. No, I wasn’t. One of the changes implemented was to make Middle Earth actual size. So, if I wanted to get to Gondor, it was going to take a while (thank god for teleporting). Unlike a lot of mods, turns out this one is in it for the long haul.

Every main character, region, structure, and so on, from LOTR is planned to be added in the future. But – surprise surprise – there is a plan for the mod, and these things will come later on, along with the quest system, when the work on more basic features such as biomes, blocks and items, and NPCs is mostly completed.

So, if you like the Lord of the Rings and Minecraft, this one’s a good one to watch.