Apple Planning “Nearly Transparent Store” For France→

Apple Planning “Nearly Transparent Store” For France

Today’s cool Apple retail news comes from ifoAppleStore’s Gary Allen, who points to an article first appeared on AixEvProvence.fr magazine, which claims Apple is planning a nearly-transparent, all-glass retail store for the town located in the south of France.

A rendering posted by the magazine shows a one-level structure set back on a broad stone plaza, with a tan-colored rear wall, and all other encompassing walls made of glass. A second rendering shows the store is an extension of a design roughly based on the Upper West Side (NYC) store. Typically for Apple, the rendering does not show any Apple-like features and there are no visible Apple logos. According to the magazine, the city required Apple to build to new earthquake standards, and harmonize with the surrounding picturesque streets.

Of course, Apple isn’t new to state-of-the-art glass engineering. Steve Jobs famously said that they’ve been able to design Apple’s proposed future campus in Cupertino thanks to their expertise in durable glass constructions, which date back to 10 years ago when the company started opening retail stores featuring Apple’s distinctive glass. Most recently, Apple launched a redesign of its 5th Ave. Store in New York City using less glass panels and a patent for glass staircases was attributed to the company’s late CEO Steve Jobs.

This is a photo of the current Office de Tourisme in Aix en Provence.

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Jeff Broderick’s “QuickContact” Creates Call & Message Home Screen Icons

It appears a new trend among independent iOS developers is that of creating shortcuts to save time on tedious iOS tasks such as activating WiFi and Bluetooth, open third-party applications, or call someone. First came a bunch of web-based tools to create this kind of home screen shortcuts, including design extraordinaire Jeff Broderick’s Settings. We’ve covered this whole shortcut phenomenon quite extensively on MacStories, including Siri and the iPhone’s URL schemes (links that redirect iOS to apps or specific sections inside an app) and Launch Center, an app that spurred a debate around shortcuts and Apple’s review policies after the app was rejected from the App Store, whereas similar tools had been approved for sale. It was also discovered that Apple plans on making Settings unaccessible via URL schemes on the upcoming iOS 5.1.

Now Jeff Broderick is back at it, pouring his typical style and attention to detail into a new project called QuickContact. QuickContact allows you to create Home screen icons for people to call or send a text message to; you can choose between 15 icons designed by Broderick or upload your own upon creating a new shortcut, which is done through Safari on your iPhone or iPod touch. I won’t lie – I like Jeff’s style a lot, but I wish the web app was capable of supporting email addresses, too, besides phone numbers; I’d also like to launch the Phone or Messages apps directly without opening Mobile Safari first. Last, the app requires you to install a certificate on your device for this automation to work, and Broderick specifies on his website that “No information is saved”.

For those interested in trying out this first version of QuickContact, you can check out the project’s page here.

Thomas Brand On The History of Camino→

Thomas Brand On The History of Camino

Thomas Brand has published a detailed overview of Camino’s timeline and unfortunate demise earlier this year due to Mozilla’s decision to officially discontinue Gecko embedding, which Camino uses. For those not familiar with it, Camino was the advanced browser in the early days of OS X when Safari wasn’t out yet and IE was still the only decent choice for Mac users.

Even though I still have Camino installed on my computer it fails to qualify as a reliable alternative browser less than two months since its last update. I am saddened that Camino must die in the effort to save Firefox, a browser that has gotten just a bloated as the Netscape Suite it once replaced. By losing Camino we will not only see the end of a browser that once made the Mac great, but the end of development community focused solely on the advancement of a Macintosh only application.

As written on Camino’s blog back in March, the future beyond version 2.1 (current release) is “unclear”.

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Phraseology for iPad: Write, Remix, and Markdown

You could choose to write in Helvetica Neue, Marker Felt, or Georgia, but Phraseology has a personality all its own that’s best reflected in American Typewriter or Courier. Plenty of text editors on the iPad offer one or both of these font types, but there’s something about Agile Tortoise’s sandy colors and subtle paper-like textures that make Phraseology feel more tangible. It’s the modern equivalent of a typewriter explained through a text editor.

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New Apps for 2012

With the new year, many people make up resolutions that often involve losing weight or spend less time checking email and Facebook. Whilst those are certainly noble resolutions, they don’t quite fit the goals that I have set for this year when I began thinking about 2012 and the things I’d like accomplish in the next 12 months. Instead of working more to make more money, I’d like to work less but work smarter, as Shawn recently mentioned in an episode of Shawn Today. I want to spend more time with my family and friends and use the “time for work” with better tools to get the same things done, but better. I’m working on a series of completely new projects, too, but I also would like to optimize my existing tasks to require less time yet yield better results.

Which means I have to get new tools and understand how to properly use the ones I already have.

So instead of making up new year’s resolution and give up on losing weight after three weeks as most people do (but won’t admit), I actually went ahead and got new tools. Which, in my case, means I bought new apps and gear to get work done.

I recently wrote about how I’ve switched from OmniFocus to Remember The Milk, Calendar and Todo.txt to effortlessly manage my tasks, events, and articles. I’d like to quote for the sake of context:

I don’t have access to my Mac 24/7 anymore. I work from different places, and 80% of the time I prefer to keep my iPad with me than a MacBook. Obviously, the tweaks and adjustments I had made on my Macs didn’t carry over to iOS devices.

Articles, app releases, website management and finances are all different kinds of tasks. I used to keep them in OmniFocus, and tweak the app and its view options to fit the way I worked. It turns out, having separate tools for different sets of tasks is helping me focus more and avoid distractions. Articles need research and are more text-oriented; app releases only need a quick ping or alert; finance and website management can go into a proper GTD app with lists, due dates, etc..

These are two key points: access and writing. I don’t have access to my Mac(s) 24/7 anymore and I have to give up on pretending my articles are tasks that need to be managed with tags and due dates. Writing is a creative process (even when I’m breaking news or analyzing a rumor, I try to offer a perspective for debate and analysis), and I don’t think creativity can be managed with strict rules and app badges.

So here’s a short list of new apps that are helping me rethink my workflow. Some of them will stick around, others will probably be deleted – I don’t know. What matters is that taking a step back and reconsidering your work habits is a healthy practice (clearly better than telling your friends you’re going to lose weight or quit smoking) that, I believe, can lead to better relationships, a new knowledge of your workflows, and, ultimately, better results. Read more

Soul Calibur Coming To iOS This Week→

Soul Calibur Coming To iOS This Week

Namco’s Soul Calibur – the first episode that was released on arcade in 1998, then on SEGA’s Dreamcast in 1999 – has been ported to iOS and will be released this week, on January 19. Aside from being compatible with the iPhone, iPod touch and iPad, the game will feature Retina graphics and Game Center support.

Namco Bandai also promises that the virtual pad controls on the touch screen will better recreate traditional controls. The game will have Game Center support with high scores listed on the Leaderboard; six modes (arcade battle, time attack, survival, extra survival, practice, museum); and 19 playable characters, including Kilik, Xianghua, Maxi, Mitsurugi, Taki, Voldo, Sophitia, Nightmare, Astaroth, Ivy, Hwang, Yoshimitsu, Lizardman, Siegfried, Rock, Seong Mi-na, Cervantes, and Edge Master.

Japanese blog 4Gamer offers the first screenshots of the game showing graphics comparable to the Dreamcast version, as well as touchscreen controls for iOS devices – here’s a direct link to a single screenshot. 4Gamer also posted actual hands-on material, including first impressions of a pre-release version and a trailer [Google Translation].

Fans of the original Soul Calibur can look for the game to hit the App Store on Thursday, January 19.

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The Omni Group Posts Omni Sync Server Stats, Service Coming To More Apps

As a follow-up to their previous update on Lion adoption numbers, The Omni Group has published a blog post on Omni Sync Server usage stats. The Omni Sync Server is a cloud-based system that handles OmniFocus databases across Macs, iPhones and iPads. It’s been in “beta” for several months and it’s free, allowing OmniFocus customers to keep their tasks in sync over-the-air free of charge.

The Omni Group monitored usage on the OSS, and found out that roughly 31,500 users were active in the past 8 days (at the time of publishing the blog post). 92% of iOS devices on the OSS were updated to the latest version of iOS, 5.0.1; the most popular Mac computer in usage logs has turned out to be the 2011 MacBook Air with 10%. As for OmniFocus, the majority of active users are opting for the Mac+iPhone combo, with “all 3” being the second most registered option. Surprisingly, “only” 2069 users were active as iPad-only.

With Omni Sync Server, The Omni Group has built its own cloud that syncs user data across the whole OmniFocus ecosystem on OS X and iOS. The developers have also confirmed that the service will come to other document-based Omni apps, such as the popular OmniOutliner. Indeed, the lack of proper automatic sync between the mobile and desktop versions of these apps has forced many users to either switch to different software with Dropbox support or rely on third-party tools such as DropDAV, which turns your Dropbox into a webDAV server compatible with Omni apps and Apple’s iWork for iOS (the latter lacking cloud sync before version 1.5).

You can read more about OmniFocus’ sync and the Omni Sync Server here.

Camera+ Reaches 6 Million Downloads, Over $5 Million In Revenue

The developers of Camera+, the most popular alternative to Apple’s Camera.app on the iPhone, have posted updated statistics regarding the performances of Camera+ in the App Store, and the results are quite astonishing. To date, Camera+ has sold over 6 million copies and earned over $5 million after Apple’s cut. Camera+ was first released on June 7, 2010, and was later pulled from the App Store in late July, only to come back in December 2o10 with version 2.0. Since then, the app has been growing in popularity and receiving updates with various enhancements and bug fixes.

Over the past 6 months, Camera+ revenue has increased over 3x. Play along and fantasize for a second about that trend continuing over time… if it keeps going, by 2018 our daily sales would be twice the world population. Yeah, this growth might not be sustainable over time. Anyway…

The two most relevant things contributing to the large jumps on the right side of the above chart were the launch of the iPhone 4S in early October and the annual Christmas bump. Both were increases that were expected but what’s been surprising is how long each has lasted.

tap tap tap’s latest blog post is interesting not just because of app sales numbers alone: I think it provides good insight into the 4S “bump” from October and the typical sales increase in the holiday season, which is related to new users buying apps for their new devices. This year, however, sees a new iPhone model released against the holiday season for the first time. It’s been widely reported the iPhone 4S should be selling really well (we’ll know more on January 24), but tap tap tap’s numbers seems to suggest an impressive growth, not just a good one.

Camera+ is a rare example of a paid app maintaining a stable growth over time with only a few promotions and features by Apple. Read more about the app’s sales figures here.