Snippet: Apple’s Katie Cotton to Retire ☇

John Paczkowski for Re/code:

Katie Cotton, who as VP of worldwide corporate communications at Apple has helped steward some of tech’s most transformative product announcements, is retiring. During her nearly two decades at Apple, Cotton served as gatekeeper to company co-founder Steve Jobs and current CEO Tim Cook, and guided the media narrative around pretty much everything from the iMac to the iPad. She’s long been among the company’s most powerful executives and played a key role in shaping the mystique and exclusivity surrounding the Apple brand. Her departure from Apple is a milestone. “Katie has given her all to this company for over 18 years,” Apple spokesman Steve Dowling said in a statement. “She has wanted to spend time with her children for some time now. We are really going to miss her.”

There have been a lot of comments on her departure today from various tech writers, but my favorite example is a story from John Gruber involving the 2010 press conference on the iPhone 4’s antenna.