On a slightly less cheery note, what's up with everyone bailing out of Apple these days? We hear it's generally a pretty awesome place to work, but as faithful viewer frozen tundra points out, CNET reports that both Mark Wilhelm, Apple's veep (well, former veep) of AppleCare, and Tim Bucher, the company's (ex-)head of Mac product engineering, have "quietly left the company" over the course of the past few weeks. What's the matter, guys? Did they stop putting Twix in the vending machines?

Actually, CNET refers to the two execs' "departures" but doesn't indicate whether said departures were voluntary or if either gentleman got the boot. Wilhelm in particular may have been pink-slipped into oblivion, since AppleInsider reports that his leaving the company coincides with "a major restructuring of the company's AppleCare support division" that entails "significant changes to the struggling program." It's that "struggling" bit there that implies to us that Wilhelm got the shaft (Apple's support division has apparently been losing money for a while, now), as well as the fact that one AI source claims that Wilhelm was indeed "let go." It also goes along with the "downsizing of Apple call centers" and outsourcing of tech support to "India, Holland, and the United Kingdom" that's said to come next.

As for Bucher, though, we've got no reason to think he was escorted out by security as he tearfully clutched a cardboard box holding the former contents of his desk; then again, we've got no reason not to think that, either. Apparently his departure, whether voluntary or not, was kept pretty hush-hush: Daring Fireball reports that while Bucher's exit took place a week ago, as of last Friday it hadn't even been announced to anyone outside of Apple's hardware division. During that time and until a replacement is hired, an engineering management team-- slapped together by executive veep Tim Cook and including design superstar Jonathan Ive-- will lead the division in Bucher's stead.

Feel free to weave this deftly into your conspiracy theory that Apple is slowly eliminating the Macintosh from its product line in order to focus solely on iPods, iTunes, and other "digital lifestyle" products and services. Remember, Bucher essentially replaced Jon Rubinstein as the Mac hardware guy, since Jon got swallowed up in the brand-spankin'-new iPod division. But you sure didn't see Jon quitting or getting canned after six months when he was handling the Mac gear. Sounds to us like the iPod team got the 98 mph fastball, while the Mac got stuck with someone off the farm team who didn't even make it through three innings.

Yes, we know that was a baseball reference. Sorry, it's a side-effect of that whole Red Sox thing. It won't happen again.

Anyway, word has it that Wilhelm left on the 8th and Bucher on the 15th; we suppose we'll give it a few days and see which bigwig pulled a vanishing act today. Hmmm, one executive mysteriously disappearing at the beginning of each week... Apple's cafeteria serves vegan food in accordance with Steve Jobs's dietary preference... oh, lord! It's people! SOYLENT GREEN IS PEOPLE!!