Immediate reaction to the news was intriguing, because it was split down the middle. On one side were those who read Browett’s credentials and the PR puffs. To them, it looks as if Apple has just hired a man who has succeeded at most things he’s tried, and spent the last five years steering a large retail business with more than 1,200 stores through a difficult period for the economy.

On the other hand, for those who know Dixons as it exists in the real world, the reaction was somewhat different: the most common refrain I saw was “Has Tim Cook ever been in a Dixons store?”.

Since 2007, Brower has been CEO of Dixons Retail, a large electronics merchant in the UK that owns two chains, Currys and PC World. It’s sort of both the Best Buy and the CompUSA of its territory.

When I think of the PC World stores, I think of the years when I worked at PC World magazine here in the states. I got a surprising number of e-mails from unhappy customers who were confused about which PC World they were contacting–messages along the lines of “I have a complaint about the price of ink cartridges in your Lancashire branch.” The fact that the logos of the magazine and the stores were nearly identical didn’t make matters any less confusing. (Both companies have since changed their logos–and they’re still very similar. Weird.)

Because I got so many missives from disgruntled PC World shoppers, I tend to have a negative view of Dixons despite the fact that my entire shopping experience with the company consists of having briefly visited a PC World in London about a decade ago. So I asked my UK Twitter pals what they think of Dixons and its stores. Here’s a sampling of what they said:

@harrymccracken OK as long as you a)know exactly what you want b)can avoid their staff as much as possible.—
Neil Williams (@NeilW_NI) January 31, 2012

@harrymccracken Fine if you find a good price and don't mind 4 different staff trying to sell you extended warranties on your way back out…—
David Hayward (@nachimir) January 31, 2012

@harrymccracken Big, bland, corporate, ubiquitous, lacking any real knowledge (ask staff for advice and they just read the shelf labels…)—
Mark Wilson (@markwilsonit) January 31, 2012

@harrymccracken Better than 5 years ago, but still pretty much the opposite of an Apple store – little to no product knowledge among staff—
Ewan Leith (@EwanToo) January 31, 2012

@harrymccracken "Last resort" comes to mind re: Dixons / PC World—
Jon Norris (@Jn_Norris) January 31, 2012

@harrymccracken Their "Black" concept store in Birmingham was pretty decent last time I went – blog.emap.com/Rob_Gregory/20…—
Robin Morley (@mrrobinmorley) January 31, 2012

@harrymccracken Dixons high street stores are now under Currys brand. They're usually mediocre and highly variable. Think a meh Best Buy.—
Bobbie Johnson (@bobbiejohnson) January 31, 2012

@harrymccracken not great. And that's being kind.—
Ian Betteridge (@ianbetteridge) January 31, 2012

@harrymccracken Awful, painful, hideous. Think the worst of Best Buy and Radio Shack combined.—
Ben Smith (@benptooey) January 31, 2012

@harrymccracken Me: "Tell me about this", Salesman "This product has X". Me: "The label says it has Y, not X". S: "I don't think so"—
Alex Taylor (@adntaylor) January 31, 2012

@harrymccracken two of the worst stores to buy tech in, you thought best buy was bad, well go lower. Only interested in selling u warranty—
Chris Jackson (@jacmeister) January 31, 2012

Apple presumably devoted a huge amount of thinking to making this hire. But I do find it interesting: When it started the Apple Store, it didn’t hire anyone who was responsible for an existing electronics retailer, most of which have mediocre-to-poor reputations. It hired Ron Johnson, who’d worked at Target, a company that’s generally well-regarded by the industry and by its customers. Johnson brought a fresh outlook to his new gig, and it sure seems to have helped.

Brower, however, is in the electronics business already, and Dixons’ stores, which have little in common with the Apple Store, presumably reflect his views and capabilities. It’ll be fascinating to see how he does at Apple–and if there’s any discernible difference between the Johnson-era Apple Stores and the Brower ones.

And that’s a good thing because he and his team have come up with a new offering for other deal chasers: The Yipit iPhone app, which went live this week in the App Store.

Think of it as the ultimate mobile shopping guide to daily deals across the United States, including national, local, and customized offers.

“There are thousands of deals at any given time,” Moran told me. Moving beyond its existing e-mail service, Yipit’s new iPhone app surfaces customized deal recommendations from 750 sources, including big names like Groupon and LivingSocial and more specialized players like Gilt City and Rue La La (luxe lifestyle & getaway offers) to DoodleDeals (geared to moms).

Shoppers on-the-go can search and map nearby deals; receive new offers tailored to their interests; browse deals by category, and bookmark deals for later. One particularly nice feature is the app’s push notification, which alerts you when a deal is trending, so you can buy popular offers before they sell out.

Moran and his team are keen to point out that Groupon and Living Social drive 75 percent of the industry’s revenue yet represent only 20 percent of the deals. Yipit aims to capture this sweet underserved spot. If the nascent daily deals sector continues to grow at its current pace of 10 percent a month, Yipit’s smart deal aggregation and personalization service is nicely positioned to become even more valuable to deal seekers who need an efficient way to quickly find appealing deals nearby or outside their home city. Already, the New York City-based startup has 400,000 members and it’s the market’s most comprehensive deal tracker — available in 100 metro areas nationwide — and over a million deals aggregated since its launch a year and a half ago.

Yipit’s iPhone app is a win for local merchants, too, Moran explains. “They can’t afford a really cool iPhone app so we built it for them.” In addition, unlike Groupon Now, which hasn’t really taken off with consumers, and uses a “self-serve” model which requires local merchants to turn on and off deals, Yipit’s mobile offering automates all the work and may be more likely to catch on with merchants.

I asked Moran if there were any plans to run ads against the mobile deals. “We’re not sure,” he replied. It would be very surprising if Yipit doesn’t go after local ads though. BIA Kelsey, a market research firm, forecasts the local part of U.S. social media ad revenues to grow from $400 million in 2010 to $2.3 billion in 2015.

Yipit’s Android app is planned for an early 2012 release, according to Moran.

It is not entirely clear what will happen once a user has checked out via the app, although store employees will of course be on the lookout for store visitors walking out with merchandise in hand, as they are already. Customers who have made a purchase through self-checkout will be able to show an emailed receipt to any employee, confirming their purchase.

Once again, Apple is releasing a new iPhone. Once again, I’m in line at the crack of dawn at the Stonestown Galleria in San Francisco. This time I’m here with my wife Marie, who’s excited about upgrading from an iPhone 3GS to a 4S. We’ve been here for an hour; there were around 40 folks here when we arrived, along with a few phantom lawn chairs.)

There may be Apple Stores where iLines are still festive, even circus-like affairs. Not this one, at least so far. There are no kids dressed as iPhones. And Woz isn’t here. Just a lot of rather quiet people. And some Apple employees, who have already been consulting with people about carriers, capacities, colors, and the many and varied virtues of Applecare.

I’ll let you know if any excitement breaks out…

When people ask me when they should buy a particular tech product, I have a standard answer: “Wait as long as you can without driving yourself crazy, but no longer.” That is, of course, a pat, one-size-fits all response.  A site called Decide tries to provide more sophisticated answers for specific products, by analyzing the chances that its price will fall or rise, and whether or not it’s likely to be replaced in the near future.

The company’s been doing this for laptops, cameras, and TVs for a while, and now it’s added phones to the roster. So far, its advice doesn’t appear to be comprehensive or completely up-to-date: It doesn’t seem to list the Droid Bionic and Triumph, two Motorola phones I reviewed last week. But it does have lots of models, and the recommendations I checked seemed sensible. For instance, it advises against buying an iPhone 4 right now, but says it’s safe to buy one of Apple’s recently-released MacBook Airs.

No matter how much data you have, timing purchases is tough–and whatever and whenever you buy, you need to be able able to deal with one of the eternal verities of the technology world: Better, cheaper stuff is always ahead. But Device looks handy. (Retrevo, which has some purchase-timing features of its own, is another handy resource.)

My mom, sans BlackBerry.

My mother isn’t the sort of person who craves the latest smartphone just because it’s the latest smartphone. Actually, she remains smitten with her BlackBerry Curve 8900, which she’s had for a couple of years. But it’s developing an odd shadow effect on the screen, and so she rightly thinks she may be in the market for a new phone soon.

She asked me for advice on what to buy. And now I’m asking you for advice.

When it comes to decisions like this, I’m not a missionary. I don’t instinctively want to steer mom off the BlackBerry platform, or onto a particular OS. (For the record, I use an iPhone 4 most of the time, and a Verizon Fascinate some of them time.) I just want her to own a phone she’ll like at least as much as her BlackBerry.

Here’s what’s important to her:

• She does a lot of e-mail on her phone.
• She loves reading Kindle books on her BlackBerry. Very important to her.
• She’d use a browser if she had a decent one.
• She might dabble in Facebook.
• She might take photos if her phone had a respectable camera.
• She might well make video calls on Skype if she could.
• She might listen to music if someone showed her the ropes. Video, probably not. (Unless it’s of her grandchildren.)
• She’s not going to play games, do any social networking other than light Facebook use, or install apps willy-nilly.
• I don’t think she’ll detect much of a difference between 3G and AT&T’s “4G”
• As far as I know, she has no desire to leave AT&T. (I think she’s nearing the end of a two-year contract and might be able to wangle a new handset at full discount.)
• I don’t think she has a specific price in mind. But when I mentioned phones being available for a penny on contract, she sounded happy. And when I talked about the iPhone 4 costing $199, she sounded alarmed.

I don’t think mom has had real hands-on experience with any modern smartphones. But my dad has (and likes) an HTC Aria, so she has some sense of the world beyond the Curve. And she told me she’s intrigued by touchscreens. She’s not adverse to trying something new.

These are her options as I see them:

Another BlackBerry.

She could get a new BlackBerry Curve 3G–very much like the phone she owns. It would be a boring decision, but a comfortably familiar, defensible one. And if she signed a new contract, she could get it for a penny. (I don’t think the Torch is a huge enough improvement over the Curve to make it a good choice–the Curve is better at being a classic BlackBerry than the Torch is.)

An iPhone 3GS.

I think this would please her nearly as much as an iPhone 4, and I know she’d be pleased by the price: $49, or one-quarter the cost of an iPhone 4. Once she got the knack of the on-screen keyboard, it would be an upgrade over her BlackBerry in just about every way: way better browser, better Kindle on a bigger screen, better camera, better Facebook. And the ability to get lots of great new apps for little or no money, some of which she’d probably like if she saw them.

Major downside of the 3GS: it’s can’t do Skype videocalls. I don’t think that’s a dealbreaker.

My iPhone 4.

If mom’s BlackBerry manages to cling to life until the next iPhone comes out–no, I’m not assuming I know which month that will be–I could generously give her my near-mint iPhone 4. In which case I’d have to endure the hardship of buying myself a new iPhone. I could probably live with that. (Alternative scenario: maybe the iPhone 4 or something like it will be $49 when the iPhone 5 comes out.)

An Android phone.

AT&T has some Android handsets for a mom-pleasing penny–not the big-name models, but the LG Phoenix and Motorola Flipside. But I don’t think Android in its always-vaguely-nerdy current form would please her as much as iOS.

A wild card.

AT&T also has two penny Windows Phone 7 phones: the Samsung Focus and HTC Surround. Certain things about Windows Phone are definitely mom-friendly, such as the emphasis on simplicity and built-in features over apps. But I worry that she’d find the flashy animation and big fonts grating. They make Windows Phone 7 feel like it’s trying a little to hard to appeal to a hip young person in a way that iOS and Android–and definitely BlackBerry OS–are not.

Dark horse contender: The HP Veer, yet another penny phone. It’s the closest thing currently available to a mashup of a BlackBerry and an iPhone, and WebOS feels like an OS mom might enjoy. (Note to self: Ask mom if a really little phone sounds cool, or limiting.)

And that’s about it, I think. Looks like a new Curve and an iPhone 3GS are the strongest contenders. And maybe the Veer. But I’m interested in alternate opinions–such as yours…

Who would you rather buy something from–a shadowy stranger or a person with a well-established, positive online reputation? A new online marketplace called Copious that’s launching today is betting that just about everybody would opt for the latter. And it aims to shed light on its buyers and sellers by tying together their activities on Facebook, Twitter, and other social venues so you know a bit about them before dough exchanges hands.

Copious members will be able to connect their Facebook and Twitter profiles and any blogs they operate to their Copious accounts, allowing other members to see friends in common and check out relevant activities outside of the service. For example, you might feel more comfortable buying a high-ticket item from a friend of a friend, or getting a wristwatch from someone who operates a wristwatch blog.  (The version of the service that’s launching today is marked as a beta and feels like a work in progress: I didn’t see any way to hook my profile up to Twitter or blogs.)

The service also lets sellers market themselves and their wares by offering buyers optional discounts if they push links to items out over Facebook or Twitter, and/or follow the seller. Pretty clever, but if the service is a hit, I hope it doesn’t result in a torrent of Copious spam on social networks.

To give sellers another reason to list on Copious rather than on eBay or elsewhere, the service doesn’t charge a fee for listing a product. (Instead, it takes a flat 10% commission on items that sell.) And it aims to give buyers some peace of mind by collecting their payment–and then, in an escrow-like move, holding onto it and not releasing it to the seller until the buyer has received the product and verified that it’s A-OK.

The idea here isn’t completely new. For instance, the Facebook Marketplace, which is powered by Oodle, lets you judge sellers and buyers based in part on their Facebook presences. But when I was briefed on Copious by one of its founders, he laid out an ambitious vision.

As Copious’s very name suggests, online marketplaces like this can only succeed if they’ve got a wealth of products, sellers, and buyers. The service is just getting going, so it doesn’t have that yet. (Handbag are relatively plentiful, but I only saw four items under Electronics, and none under Books.) It’s impossible to judge Copious’s potential until it’s had a chance to attract more members and get more listings. Assuming it does–for every thriving modern-day Web marketplace like an Etsy, there are far more that never gain critical mass.

I do like the concept, though. One of the reasons I do less buying and selling on eBay than I once did is because the service has gradually hidden a lot of information about users that was once public, making it feel less like a community of humans and more like a giant vending machine. If Copious feels like a place where dependable people buy from dependable people–and it builds up a massive array of stuff for sale–it has a shot at success.