Today in Tech: Why Tim Cook really ousted Scott Forstall

Tim Cook’s freshman year: The Apple CEO speaks [BLOOMBERG BUSINESSWEEK]

In the past few weeks you replaced two members of your senior executive team, mobile software head Scott Forstall and retail chief John Browett. How did those moves make Apple better, which is a polite way of saying, what was wrong?

The key in the change that you’re referencing is my deep belief that collaboration is essential for innovation—and I didn’t just start believing that. I’ve always believed that. It’s always been a core belief at Apple. Steve very deeply believed this.

So the changes—it’s not a matter of going from no collaboration to collaboration. We have an enormous level of collaboration in Apple, but it’s a matter of taking it to another level. You look at what we are great at. There are many things. But the one thing we do, which I think no one else does, is integrate hardware, software, and services in such a way that most consumers begin to not differentiate anymore. They just care that the experience is fantastic.

Tim Cook tells NBC Apple will be building Macs in the U.S. [FORTUNE]

In an interview with Bloomberg Businessweek released the same morning, Cook offers a bit more detail. He tells editor Josh Tyrangiel that the company plans to spend more than $100 million next year to shift assembly from Foxconn’s Chinese plants to facilities in the U.S. “This doesn’t mean that Apple will do it ourselves,” he says, “but we’ll be working with people and we’ll be investing our money.”

Blockbuster is said to begin selling phones [BLOOMBERG]

For Dish, a satellite-TV service provider that acquired the Blockbuster chain last year, the move may be a prelude to offering its own mobile-phone service. Dish has acquired a swath of wireless airwaves and is awaiting rules from the Federal Communications Commission governing how it can use them.

Just launched: Snapseed, from Google, a free photo-editing app for iPhones and Android devices which lets users perform tasks like crop, edge blur, selectively adjust colors and lighting in portions of shots, and apply Instagram-like filters. Download it here.

Spotify announces 5 million-plus paid subscribers globally, 1 million paid in the U.S., 20 million total active users, 1 billion playlists [THE NEXT WEB]

Spotify also shared that it has now paid out more than $500 million to rights holders. Spotify stated that 80% of its total catalog has been streamed, and that users don’t just love singles, but prefer to listen to entire albums. Daniel Glass of Glassnote Entertainment briefly came on stage to praise Spotify’s ability to boost sales and generate streaming revenue.

Half of all app store revenue goes to just 25 developers [THE REGISTER]

In fact, the company says, of the $120m in total revenue generated from paid app downloads and in-app purchases in the US during the first 20 days of November 2012, fully half was split between just 25 developers.

All but one of those top 25 earners were game developers, including Disney, ​Electronic Arts, Gameloft, Glu, Kabam, Rovio, Storm8, and Zynga, among others.