This Week's Sponsor:

Copilot Money

The Apple Editor’s Choice Award App for Tracking Your Money. Start Your Free Trial Today

Opening Day Photos and Video of Germany’s New Apple Retail Store in Berlin

Berlin Apple Store

Apple’s New Retail Store in Berlin

Berlin Apple Store

BerlinSidewalk has a large collection of beautiful opening day photos of Apple’s latest retail store in Berlin, highlighting the launch event amongst cheering employees and long lines. Rumors of Berlin’s Apple Store can be dated back to 2005, and the ifoAppleStore has an early picture of the building before it underwent renovation in 2011.

Also at the store’s opening was Macerkopf, whom collected a series of photos and videos amongst a brief of the store’s opening hours and weekend schedule. Opening yesterday evening at 5:00pm to a crowd of thousands, 200 staffers at the 5000 square meter retail space handed out 4,500 commemorative shirts to the first visitors. The store is Germany’s biggest amongst the eleven stores, as well as the European region’s largest, featuring a conference room and an auditorium on the second floor to showcase film, music, and photography. The store also offers expeditions for children, who are encouraged to create and share creative projects to parents and teachers. The employees at the store can speak 12 languages between them as the store is expected to be a popular attraction and showcase for Apple in Europe.

Apple has a history of both repurposing and maintaining the structural integrity of historic sites for many of their retail locations, and this store is no different. The retail store sits along the Kurfürstendamm, known locally as Ku’damm, a long boulevard in West Berlin home to many luxury fashion boutiques and businesses. Open at Ku’damm 26, the Apple Retail Store is a renovation of the Union Palast, a historic theater that’s known as one of Berlin’s first, opening in 1913.

Subtitles for Mac Automatically Downloads Subtitles for Movies and TV Shows

Alberto Garcia Hierro is the indie developer behind one of my most used iOS apps: Meme Generator. With a simple interface that collects popular memes from around the Internet, I use Meme Generator whenever I need to make a nerdy joke on Twitter. Sometimes, people like those jokes.

Alberto’s latest app is a free utility for Mac called Subtitles that, as the name suggests, fetches subtitles for movies and TV shows. As Alberto states on Reddit, Apple didn’t accept the app on the Mac App Store, so he released it for free on his website.

Using a clapperboard-like interface, Subtitles lets you drop movie files (of any format) into the Files area; after that, the app will query the OpenSubtitles database, and display a checkmark if a matching subtitle has been found. By default, Subtitles will download .srt subtitle files in the same directory of the video file you’ve given the app, and there is a preference to disable overwriting of subtitle files. Also in the Preferences, Subtitles lets you pick a secondary language, so that if no subtitles are found with the primary one, the app will automatically fall back to your second choice.

In my tests, Subtitles correctly fetched subtitles both in Italian and English. While you could achieve the same functionality simply by browsing the OpenSubtitles website, Subtitles for Mac can accept files from the Finder, it’s free, and it’s worth checking out.

Mojang Sells 10 Million Copies of Minecraft - Pocket Edition→

Not only is Minecraft - Pocket Edition listed as one of Apple’s All-Time Top Paid Apps for both the iPhone and iPad on the App Store, Mojang has been announcing their own incredible milestones this month. Following an astounding 10 million copies of the PC edition sold at the beginning of April, Mojang wrote on their blog Monday that the company has sold 10 million copies of Minecraft - Pocket Edition across mobile platforms. “We are very thankful to all the support that we have gotten and people playing and talking about our game,” Daniel Kaplan wrote. “We have been working hard on restructuring the backend of a lot of things for Minecraft – Pocket Edition to make future updates smoother.”

Minecraft - Pocket Edition feels very much like Minecraft its beta days, giving players a choice between simpler creative and survival modes. Mojang plans to continue updating the mobile edition of the popular franchise, with the company preparing to release Minecraft Realms as a multiplayer component by the end of May. Realms is a cloud service that will let players easily create their own Minecraft servers for friends and family, giving small groups of players an easy way to play together. For Minecraft - Pocket Edition on iOS, Mojang plans on letting players rent server space through an IAP subscription, which only hosts will have to pay.

Permalink

Goalie for HockeyApp→

Goalie is a $9.99 app that developers can use to manage their HockeyApp accounts on the iPhone.

I’m not a developer, but I use HockeyApp on a daily basis to install betas of apps I’m trying, and I know how the service works. So I asked for a test account, and played around with Goalie. The feature set is solid: you can view all your apps, get stats on versions (such as installs and crashes), view crash groups and full crash logs, manage team members, and even access the feedback area where you can delete or reply to threads. If you’ve been looking for a way to manage HockeyApp on the go, I think Goalie deserves a look. Make sure to check out the app’s website for screenshots and details.

Goalie is $9.99 on the App Store.

Permalink

Tweet Library 2.3→

Nice update to one of my most-used iOS apps.

The new version adds compatibility with the new Twitter API, changes the calendar viewer to a thin bar that runs across the top of the timeline, and brings performance improvements alongside a clearer design.

I use Tweet Library on a daily basis to search my entire Twitter archive. The new calendar makes it easier to move between months/years, and the app is much faster when loading tweets.

Permalink

How Panic Is Using Status Board→

Fascinating look at the widgets and hardware Panic is using for their own Status Board setup.

This bit caught my attention:

Units have been especially interesting since they reveal so much about the economics of (our) iOS software, as this Graph panel shows. Although (our) iOS apps sell a respectable number of units, the revenue they bring in barely charts compared to our Mac stalwarts. So far! We’re working hard on improving our iOS apps, and trying new ideas, in order to crack the iOS market a little bit more.

Diet Coda, priced at $19.99, is a fantastic piece of iPad software, and yet it doesn’t bring in much revenue compared to Panic’s Mac apps.

Just yesterday, I was thinking that it’s strange how Apple still hasn’t brought the Developer Tools category of the Mac App Store over to the iOS App Store. There are excellent examples of developer-oriented software, especially on the iPad: Textastic, xScope Mirror, Codea, Pythonista, and the aforementioned Diet Coda come to mind – plus many more. Two years ago, I asked whether the iPad needed programming apps.

Times have changed. Today, I wonder: would a Developer Tools category in the App Store help apps like Diet Coda get more exposure? Wouldn’t it make sense to give these tools another category, more specific and focused than the crowded Productivity one?

Permalink

Why I Use FoxTube

FoxTube

FoxTube

After Cody linked to FoxTube for Mac two days ago, I figured I haven’t mentioned why, after nearly a year and a major update, I’m still using FoxTube for iOS alongside the official YouTube app.

FoxTube isn’t the best looking app ever made for iOS; while the 2.0 version improved the overall design, there’s still a lot going on in terms of interface and everything feels a bit cramped, especially on the iPhone. The icon is a literal representation of the app’s name; sometimes, icons in toolbars overlap with navigation buttons. I wish the FoxTube developer could find a way to slim down the interface and make some parts more cohesive, but I understand how that can be difficult when FoxTube does so many things.

FoxTube is a supercharged YouTube client for iOS. I know what you’re thinking: you don’t need another YouTube app after the release of the (free) official client. And that is probably true – as MacStories readers know, I’m a big fan of the new YouTube app (App Store users seem to agree, too). FoxTube, however, is a great complement to the YouTube app that I recommend if you’re looking for more flexibility and customization in certain aspects of the YouTube experience. Read more

Google Glass Will Let iPhone Owners Text and Navigate→

Talking about Google, A Google representative has confirmed to TechCrunch that iPhone owners will in fact be able to use text messaging and navigation features with Glass. The representative noted that Glass will work independently of the device it’s connected to, and it’s an affirmation of a statement made by Google earlier in the year. Currently, Glass wearers can only use the full set of features with an Android smartphone with the MyGlass companion app.

Frederic Lardinois makes clear that Glass doesn’t have its own connection to the Internet to use such features, but will rather tether off of your smartphone to access data and pull in relevant information.

In this context, it’s worth noting that one of the myths surrounding Glass is that it is independently connected to the Internet. That’s not true, however. Instead, Glass users need to have a tethering plan for their phones to connect Glass to the Internet. In the eyes of your wireless provider, Glass is just another device that uses your phone’s personal hotspot feature.

Also keep in mind that at least on iOS, text messaging won’t work with Apple’s iMessage service. Instead, Glass will likely integrate with Google’s rumored messaging service, Babel.

Permalink