Still bummed about the forthcoming loss of third-party Twitter client Echofon on the Mac? Then get your iTunes Store account warmed up, because Tweetbot just flew into the Mac App Store -- but it will cost you a cool 20 bucks for the pleasure of using it. Why so steep? It seems Twitter's new policies are to blame, and you can click on to read all about it.
Tapbots announced Thursday that it's long-awaited Tweetbot for Mac app is now available on the Mac App Store. The release sparked a bit of controversy with Twitter fans, due to the company pricing the Mac version at $19.99 due to the microblogging service recent implementation of token limits, which dictate how many customers a third-party client can authorize. While the limit is separate from the iPhone and iPad clients, that means a finite amount of users can actually buy and use the app -- and when that amount is reach, Tapbots will be faced with pulling the app from sale while continuing to support existing customers. Given that other third-party apps such as Echofon are abandoning the Mac completely, it's likely to make for a thorny problem for those who dislike Twitter's own client, so we'd suggest buying sooner rather than later, just to be safe.
With a third Apple store opening this weekend in Beijing, China, The Next Web has published an advance look at the three-story locale in the trendy Wangfujing district on Thursday, including a brief chat with Senior Vice President of Retail John Browett. The executive claims that the new location is Apple's best yet in the region, bringing the Chinese retail stores to six and the worldwide count to around 390. Browett also confirmed that a retail store will also be coming to Shenzhen, an area of China familiar to Apple fans since much of the company's online orders are shipped from there.
In a preview of what's likely to come with Apple's quarterly earnings next Thursday, Verizon announced its third consecutive quarter of double-digit earnings growth this week. Big Red's Q3 2012 results found more than 250 million people in 419 markets across the USA currently using the carrier's 4G LTE network , with a whopping 3.1 million iPhones activated by Verizon during the same period. Apple's iPhone 5 was only one of seven LTE-equipped handsets the carrier launched during Q3, and given that the handset only went on sale toward the tail end of the three-month period, you can expect Verizon's Q4 2012 to be a similar blowout.
Google announced the addition of a web reader for its Google Play Magazines this week. The announcement on Google+ casually mentions that the company's Chrome browser is required to do so, and sure enough, trying to open a title on a different browser will prompt the user to download Chrome instead. The move gives Google Play fans another option for reading their paid content instead of Android devices or the iOS app, and we're curious to see how long it takes Apple to follow suit with a web-based version of Newsstand.
The Verge reported on Thursday more bad news for Nokia, less than two weeks before the company is set to announce on-sale dates for its new Lumia lineup. Nokia's Q3 sales found the company selling only 2.9 million Lumia handsets over the last three months, a sharp 28 percent drop from the four million shipped in the prior period. With just shy of 10 million Lumias sold to date, the worse news came from North America, where the handsets sold a mere 300,000 units compared to double that amount in Q2. It's likely that the advance announcement of the Lumia 920 and 820 smartphones dampened the excitement of would-be customers in this hemisphere, so here's hoping Nokia will have a better showing of it next quarter, after its first Windows Phone 8 devices actually ship.
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